I've always heard that eastern provinces are the ones with the most bilingual people (French and English), as on Quebec, the french is the biggest language and on the others provinces the english is the biggest.

and also I've heard that New Brunswick is the most bilingual one, is that for real?

New Brunswick is the only "Officially Bilingual" province in Canada. Makes for larger street signs.

I think I've heard that NB is 60/40 English/French, which is the highest of any province.

NB is more like 70/30, as is Moncton and Canada taken as a whole.

The Maritimes in general have a higher Francophone presence than Ontario or the West because of local Acadian populations, New Brunswickers, and our "big" neighbour to the West. Halifax itself has a reasonably large number of French speakers, though it's not bilingual by any stretch.

I pretty sure that Arabic is the second most spoken language in the HRM (Halifax). There also seems to be a large amount of Spanish speakers and the Hispanic community seems to be growing fairly quickly.

^^

Arabic, I tought German was the third language on NS, and so far I don't understand why they use Nova Scotia instad of New Scotland, because Nova is Portuguese, does anyone know if it's a portuguese influence or not?

The "Nova" in Nova Scotia is latin. There was some Portuguese influence here in the early days. St. Peters (in Cape Breton) was originally called San Pedro when it was discovered by the Portuguese. Newfoundland has alot more Portuguese/Spanish influence. Bonavista, Pasadena, Avalon, Baie Verde, Catalina, Conception, Placentia etc.

The "Nova" in Nova Scotia is latin. There was some Portuguese influence here in the early days. St. Peters (in Cape Breton) was originally called San Pedro when it was discovered by the Portuguese. Newfoundland has alot more Portuguese/Spanish influence. Bonavista, Pasadena, Avalon, Baie Verde, Catalina, Conception, Placentia etc.


thanks by the info.


:okay:

The "Nova" in Nova Scotia is latin. There was some Portuguese influence here in the early days. St. Peters (in Cape Breton) was originally called San Pedro when it was discovered by the Portuguese. Newfoundland has alot more Portuguese/Spanish influence. Bonavista, Pasadena, Avalon, Baie Verde, Catalina, Conception, Placentia etc.

WOW...didn't know that!

Yeah, the words "Nova Scotia" are latin.

Is the rest of Quebec as bilingual as Montreal?

^Not even close. In many of the smaller towns in Québec east of Montreal, you've got to speak French or not get understood. Montreal, Gatineau/Outaouais, and the Eastern Townships (less and less every generation) are where the Anglophones are in the province.

The "Nova" in Nova Scotia is latin. There was some Portuguese influence here in the early days. St. Peters (in Cape Breton) was originally called San Pedro when it was discovered by the Portuguese. Newfoundland has alot more Portuguese/Spanish influence. Bonavista, Pasadena, Avalon, Baie Verde, Catalina, Conception, Placentia etc.
Interesting - Yes, Newfoundland has a lot of names attributed to French, Portuguese, also native languages - (Annieopsquotch Mts). The island of Baccalieu at the northern tip of the Avalon Peninsula has something to do with Portuguese for cod. Notre Dame Bay, L'anse-au-Meadow, Forteau, Bay d'espoir, Port-Aux-Basques etc. are French. Some of the names are hard to translate even in their native languages because they are so old; the translations are not modern. Pasadena, however is a newer place, and probably has more to do with Pasadena in California, even though it is Spanish. I didn't even know Avalon was Portuguese/Spanish.

Alot of history in Newfoundland thats for sure. Here's a interesting quote from an online article:

"A few names on the West Coast appear to be French in form but are in fact Basque. Port au port is from the Basque Apphorportu (de Rotis 1674) or Orphor portu
(Detcheverry 1689) and probably means a port of rest in time of storm; Port au Choix
is from Portuichoa oor Portichoa–little harbor; and Ingornachoix is from two Basque words , angura-anchor and char-bad giving the meaning of bad anchorage. "

http://home.cogeco.ca/~nfldroots/seart.htm

I can speak Spanish, but Basque is a whole other story. Seems like a mix between Portuguese, Spanish and French.

There is a fairly significant Lebanese/Mediterranean population in Halifax, hence the Arabic...German is probably more common around Lunenburg and Bridgewater which are to the southwest of Halifax. I think it would be accurate to say that the proportion of francophones in the Maritimes is fairly close to that of anglophones in Quebec...not 50/50, but there are at least some. Oh yeah, and Basque is actually quite different from French/Portuguese etc. because it didn't develop directly from latin, although it was influenced a bit by French and Spanish so there are a few similarities(did a project on St. Pierre)

Most English-speaking New Brunswickians live in Fredericton, Sait John, Sait Steeve, Woodstock close to the boarder of US, but most French-Speaking New Brunswickians settle in Moncton, Edmunston, Sheepergan etc.
In Quebec city, I always guess the meaning though French signs ,and occasionally I met local French Canadians who speak hardly undestandable English. But I don't have communication problems in Montreal. Last time, after staying in University of Laval for a few days, my classmates and I headed towards River Loup right in Northern side. Gee, we all were lost, so we pulled over and asked people in Subway, a fast food store to see if anyone knew highway 20 entrance. Surprisely, none of people understood English. Finally we found out our way by ourselves.

I wouldn't be surprised if one of you are trilingual or something because some of my co-workers speak fluent spanish, italian, English, and French, most of them at least are bilingual.

The best way to divide New Brunswick between French and English speaking is to draw a diagonal line. The easiest way to explain this would be to draw a line from Edmundston to the Nova Scotia border. To the left would be English, to the right would be French.

Here is an example:
http://img285.echo.cx/img285/1135/newbrunswickmap0vg.gif

Here is how it would more accurately be:
http://img285.echo.cx/img285/9796/newbrunswickmap18hj.gif

From what I've noticed, there's a lot less francophones then I expected in SE New Brunwick around Moncton and Sackville. I was in Moncton in June of 1999, and I never had any problems at all despite not knowing any French, no matter where I went. Even when in restaurants and when talking with locals.

As a kid. I lived with a foster family in Edmonton who have relatives in NB in the Moncton-Sackville area, and none of them speak French, if any. (most of them were originally from Nova Scotia anyways) And they don't have any problems in communicating in most of NB, either.

However, I did know a friend of mine whose family once had some interesting language barrier problems when trying to order at a restaurant in Moncton years ago because none of the staff could communicate in English.

New Brunswick has a francophone university with three branches in Moncton, Edmundston, and Shippagan, I think. You will notice that those three cities also happen to be upper right of the line on JARdan's map.

I think New Brunswick's is the only french speaking university outside of Quebec?

There's also one in Nova Scotia (Université Sainte-Anne).

And my alma matar, Université d'Ottawa, the largest bilingual university in North America. Université Laurentienne is also bilingual.

About two months ago while I was in Amherst visiting my mother who had been ill, I tagged along with my Mom and Stepfather to Moncton for a doctor appointment. We rarely go to Moncton, because they are in halifax fairly frequently to visit me. While we were around town on the streets and in shopping malls, it seemed like about 50% of the people were speaking French. When we were in the hospital waiting for the appointmant, it seemed lika about 65-70% of the people we encountered spoke French. We couldn't get over how strange and different it was because the only French we ever encountered in N.S. was in French class at school or when we channel surfed on T.V. or radio and accidentally landed on a French station (on which we never lingered). Moncton seems as different to us as a foreign country even though it's only an hour away from Amherst.

It seems there are more francophones in Newfoundland than in Nova Scotia. And Prince Edward Island has less francophones than I expected, at least in Charlottetown. Generally except some portions of these provinces, and most parts of New Brunswick, most people speak English in this area, and some speak Basque near St. Pierre and Eastern Newfoundland.

A former colleague once told me Fredericton is the bilingual-est city, while Moncton is more French, and Saint John is English. I think there are some Francophones in the Annapolis Valley and Cape Breton Island (formerly the colony of St-Jean) too.

The University of Alberta also has a francophone section, the Faculté Saint-Jean. Kind of weird, because you wouldn't at all expect there to be a significant francophone population in Alberta?!

Apparantly there are quite a few francophone "pockets" around Alberta, St. Albert was origianlly a francophone town.

Université St-Paul in Ottawa is also francophone. Université de Ottawa and Université Laurientienne in Sudbury are bilingual. There is also Collège Glendon, which is affiliated with York University in Toronto.

Here in Edmonton the University of Alberta has a french facilty and grants bilingual degrees.

It seems there are more francophones in Newfoundland than in Nova Scotia. And Prince Edward Island has less francophones than I expected, at least in Charlottetown. Generally except some portions of these provinces, and most parts of New Brunswick, most people speak English in this area, and some speak Basque near St. Pierre and Eastern Newfoundland.
That first comment is in reverse. Nova Scotia has more French areas, especially in the Western Acadian areas, but Newfoundland has a few small pockets of French on it's West Coast too. The only province where French has a real presence is New Brunswick.

How do bilingual universities work in Canada?

:?

repeated

I don't know about other truly bilingual universities, but it's basically like two universities that share facilities. Of course, if you can speak both languages (which I didn't in a scholarly level), you could take courses in either language, and of course all signs and university literature are in both language (U of O was French first, English second. Also, every assignment or essay can be handed in, in English or French. I don't know how much it's a good thing. It doesn't seem to work, as there are two pretty distinct groups. Also, U of Ottawa had a bigger library, but because about 40% or so was in French, the smaller Carleton had more holdings in English than U of Ottawa.