hello, sorry this is not in french. i'm a bit rusty.

anyway, i was watching a programme called "insomniac" (i'm sure some of you have seen it) and dave atell, the host, went to montreal. in his programme he shows what the night life is like in different cities in the world, and he picked montreal for this episode.

just about everybody he interviewed, if not all, spoke english and not french (to him and to each other). he even went to a radio station (they play rap and other crap like that) and the DJ's were transmitting in english, not french. also, the clubs and bars he went to were all in english.

so, question: is montreal (and quebec as a whole) going english now? do most people speak english now that french? or was it that the host chose only to interview outsiders?

Montreal is bilingual. The suburbs (excluding West Island, WestMount) are French. Quebec City, smaller towns, and rural areas are exclusively French speaking (excluding border counties).

Montreal has about 400,000 mother tongue English speakers. French is the number one language, with about 2.5 million. Other languages have about 750,000 speakers combined.

The majority of people in the Montreal area, whatever language they may speak, are bilingual, because of the constant need to use both languages. A large amount in Quebec City, although predominantly French speaking, are bilingual as well due to the large amounts of American tourists.

The reason that mainly English speaking people were interviewed, would most likely be because it is an English show, and most likely the crew that were there likely had little or no knowledge of French.

"The reason that mainly English speaking people were interviewed, would most likely be because it is an English show, and most likely the crew that were there likely had little or no knowledge of French."

Well said. I'd also add that this guy probably went strolling down Crescent street thinking that was what Montreal Nightlife was all about!

He should have gone to places like the Belmont or Bily Kün, there he would have noticed that the majority of people spoke french!

i see, thank you all!

so, among friends, you speak french? no english? are schools all french? or do they also have to have some sort of bilingual education?

oh, and one more question, if you dont mind.

since french is a romance language, and (according to what i have read) french culture is alive in quebec, do you see yourselves as latin americans?

in spanish america, and brasil, we speak romance languages and have a latinised culture. that is why we are latin america. does this also apply to quebec, since france is latin? :)

I speak with friends in French, English when needed, Arabic with others, and swear in any language i can think of :).

Education, i did my first 11 years in French, then did two years of College in French, then another two in English, then 3 years of University in French.

Basically what I'm trying to say, is that there's both English and French schools/colleges/universities.

We don't see ourselves as latin americans, we see ourselves as Quebecois, a blend of European and north Americans. But I believe we have more similarities with latin people than english people and not only with the language but the way we live and think and have fun.

i see, thank you all!

so, among friends, you speak french? no english? are schools all french? or do they also have to have some sort of bilingual education?

oh, and one more question, if you dont mind.

since french is a romance language, and (according to what i have read) french culture is alive in quebec, do you see yourselves as latin americans?

in spanish america, and brasil, we speak romance languages and have a latinised culture. that is why we are latin america. does this also apply to quebec, since france is latin? :)

France is not latin ! Basically only southern France is (hardly) latin. The remaining 4/5 of Frenchmen have Celtic origins.
If you mean latin in mentality,once again, you'll only find it in southern France, like Marseilles or Nices.
Futhermore, being romantic doesn't imply being latin...

French is a latin based language however, even if it doesn't sound like it, and Gaullic was a german based language.

so, among friends, you speak french? no english? are schools all french? or do they also have to have some sort of bilingual education?

Some of my friends used to be unilingual french, some were unilingual english and some were bilingual(and trilingual). Now all of us can converse in both languages, and most of us have no accent.

since french is a romance language, and (according to what i have read) french culture is alive in quebec, do you see yourselves as latin americans?

Non, je suis un Québecois. Like Malek said, we think of ourselves as a blend of North American and European.

in spanish america, and brasil, we speak romance languages and have a latinised culture. that is why we are latin america. does this also apply to quebec, since france is latin?

French might be a latin language, but i don't think we see ourselves as "latin Americans". Although you might notice that some of our behaviour resembles "latin american" behaviour, i don't believe we are latin per se!

You will however notice that in many parts of North America, people have a "Live to work" attitude, whereas in Québec, we have a "work to live" attitude.

France is not latin ! Basically only southern France is (hardly) latin. The remaining 4/5 of Frenchmen have Celtic origins.

Not exactly 4/5.
Before 1970, French people were 1/3 Celts, 1/3 Latin, 1/3 Germanic with Basque and Creoles minorities.
Now, there are some people with Turkish-African or Asian origins.

interesant!! merçi à vous par les réponses!

bon chance au l'hiver, j'ai écouté l'hiver québecoise est très froid!!

salut mes amis! :)

My opinion is that Quebec is Latin, but in the European sense. In fact, I've heard some Quebecois referring to themselves as "Latin". Since I'm also a son of Southern Europe, I feel far more related to the Canadian French speaking population than the English speaking part. Finally, I guess there must be a difference between Latin European and Latin American, so it's not the same.

quote from substructure :

France is not latin ! Basically only southern France is (hardly) latin. The remaining 4/5 of Frenchmen have Celtic origins.
If you mean latin in mentality,once again, you'll only find it in southern France, like Marseilles or Nices.
Futhermore, being romantic doesn't imply being latin...

French is a latin based language however, even if it doesn't sound like it, and Gaullic was a german based language




i dont agree with that, france is a truely latin country. of course it's different from latin america but roots of france are mostly latin, look at the language very similar to italian or spanish, i'm french and i learned italian and it was very easy compared to gereman that i learned too; the architecture, the cities have latin roots too coming from the romans, another french symbol which is wine was brought by the romans too.
in their behavior french are much closer to southern europe than northern, for example chauvinism is still kina present and the unemployment rate among females is higher than males whereas germany, uk, scandinavia ... are in the opposit situation, there are many common facts between france and the rest of southern europe when you observe statistics. the celt population living there 2000 years ago didnt let more tracks in the modern culture than the native americans does today in north america.
geographically france is in the southern half of europe.
ethnically france is actually a mix of everything but mostly latin, the romans colonized the country during a period that varied between 5 and 8 centuries ! of course we received some german, viking, arabic, etc .... blood and culture and that is make france differrent from other southern european countries. today this country is still mixing its population and culture with other countries but today these influences comes mostly from africa, asia or eastern europe and about 16% ( census based on ethnic origins are illegal in france so there is no official figure ) of the population is considered as "visible minorities" ( black ,asian, colored, ... )
the gaullic which is not spoken anymore for now 2000 years was a celtic language ( cousin to the current welsh, scottish and gaelic languages ) not german at all