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Quebec Websites Must Include French 36

Posted by jamie from the plus-ca-meme-chose dept.
Arcanix writes "This story at MSNBC explains how the Quebec government is suing companies who do not post French versions of their web sites." French-speakers are notoriously protective of their language. And this isn't new; I talked to a Quebec photography studio two, maybe three years ago that was going through the same thing. They really do prosecute sites for this. Guys: your meme-complex is doing fine in meatspace, it can fend for itself on the net.
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Quebec Websites Must Include French More

Quebec Websites Must Include French

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  • Please do, seeing as how you can't see that this law in inherantly racist itself.
  • Obviously, by the number of posts I have put up on this matter, I have strong opinions on the subjet. But there is another related matter at hand here, Why is is nessesary to 'protect' a language? If it is healthy and being used by people, it will thrive and survive, without need of government protection. Things like starting to require law to keep the language going seem to indicate that it is in it's death throes. Is this the case of French?
  • Well, as a Western Canadian, I think some of the knee jerk reactions to this come from pretty deep seated historical animosity. Canadians outside of Quebec tend to think that Quebecers want to legislatively preserve only one culture in an increasingly pluralistic society. In Vancouver, you are much more likely to hear Cantonese, Hindi, Lao, or Hmong than you are French. To "protect" one minority and not others smacks of favouritism, or at least of the preferred minority considering itself superior to others.

    In other parts of Canada, if you choose to open a store serving a Cambodian commmunity, you can put up all your signs in Cambodian, advertise in Cambodian, and hire all monolingual Cambodian speaking staff.

    IANALibertarian, but this seems like a good example of the market deciding. If you want to serve a subset of the population, fine, but there is nothing saying that you must also put out your signs in the many other languages spoken in the community.

    Yes, French settlers were an important part of Canada's history but don't forget that for close to 100 years, Vancouver had the largest Chinese speaking community outside of Asia.

    Canada is a pluralistic nation composed (with the exception of First Nations Peoples) of immigrants and their descendants. You can't legislate demographics, get over it. If you want to preserve a language and a group identity, it needs to be done on an individual basis, not by legislation passed by a bunch of demogogues.
  • Just some other quick things I found out: 1. The Site in question is hosted in Herndon, Virginia. 2. The O.L.F. Will not send him an English copy of the document with which they threaten him with fines. 3. He has no staff and no storefront. Can't the Bad French People (sorry, the people who are making life difficult for him are french) just leave him alone? Who is he hurting?
  • I was referring to article, which refers to quebecers, but in a way, you are right, i guess.
  • What the hell is that supposed to mean? Are you talking about what i wrote in french, or the way i rewrote that same message, but in english? Was my english any good? Did I not use the right words? Please, do let me know.
  • Just so you know, it has changed to 3rd grade rencently. Even so, having mandatory english classes starting at the 4th grade is in my book pretty good, though 3rd grade is better. You may not feel that way and you're entitled to your opinion.

    And CEGEPs were free (you didn't pay for classes, but you did pay for books). Yes, things have changed since then. But I was talking about it at their creation. Right now, students pay 7% in tuition of the actual cost, and it's 12% for university students ( http://www.meq.gouv.qc.ca/MINISTRE/ minis96/frais.htm [gouv.qc.ca] - find 'cegep' on the page).

  • So, how do you say "fuck off, Quebec" if frog-talk, or whatever?

  • Am I missing something here? Or is this really what it seems... plain stupid. Living here in Alberta this problem seems far away, but it could impact me at some point. I say, fine, french signs in Quebec, and disallow French in every other province. Oh, what? Doesn't seem fair? Neither is forcing someone to use a language they don't want to. What about those who only know French and want to shop in French? What if the web site is the only of it's kind and they ca't read it? Aww.... too bad. I can't read chinese either if there was a chinese site I couldn't read. This law is not just on web sites either.. all signs in Quebec have to have french on them, and get this; earlier last year businesses were cracked down on for having English on their signs, even with the french traslations. This law is stupid, plain and simple, and it seems everyone, even the Quebecquois, understand this. So why is it still a law, and being enforced???
  • One further point: have a look at some canadaian web site in another language, I just picked the first one I could find, http://www.chinasmile.net/index2.htm Can you read it? I can't. There's no english or french translations. Should the government intervene? Require english and french translation? Why not cree too? How about norwegian, polish, spanish, ect.. as well? Of course not. That'd be stupid. I rest my case.
  • Wow this sure turned into a Quebec bashing area quickly.

    1) If it doesn't negatively affect you, then why do you have such strong negative oppinions about it?

    2)If you don't agree with the law for the web then you probably don't have a business in Quebec anyways since the law applies to all business and not just web sites.

    3)There is no rule # 3 (sorry couldn't resist)

    But with a bit of seriousness now, having a second language on your site will not stop people from reading it in english. People have already posted severeal quick and free solutions for translating your site into french, so that probably shouldn't be a big issue. Where is all of this hatred for quebec coming from? And why is obvious flamebait being modded up?

    I consider myself lucky to have had access to a bi-lingual education. I have learned more and had more opportunities for travel and work because of it. Sometimes it is easier to express something in one language than in another. As a user, I would find this aspect of Quebec web sites quite useful. News quotes of people actually speaking french in stead of butchered translations would be wonderful. Especially if I can check out the story in either french or english.

    As soon as we realize how much of the non-english speaking world is on the net, we will be seeing more and more businesses taking advantage of translation programs and offering services in multiple languages.

    As programmers, (for those who are) Languages are what we do. I don't think that any of us would like to see only one language available to use. That is what is happening with english on the web. Rather than making web sites accessible to all in their own languages (even through links to translation sites) we expect everyone to learn english to use our web sites.

    This law imposes the will of the government onto all those doing business in quebec, but it does not stop anyone from puting up a site in any language they choose as long as there is an equivalent translation in french lying about somewhere. It is unconstitutional. (different constitution than US) It is also controling and dictating but it does not significantly limit anyones freedom. In stead it seeks to ensure that the francaphone population in Quebec has access to companies that do business there.

    Much has already been made of this law, but in spirit at least I do not find it heavy handed or repulsive. It is a minor inconvenience at most to do the translation and not justification for an all out bashing of Quebec as a province or Quebeckers as a people.

    -IANAQ, but I speak french.


  • But in texas, only a crazy few consider the state to be a separate country....oh, yeah, it *is* just like texas!!!

  • BOSTON (AP) - The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has passed a law making use of the local accent mandatory for all purposes.

    "We are tiahed of all these tourists coming from places like Quebec, Brazil, England, and New Yawk. We can't understand a word they say," said Governor Cellucci.

    Locals support the measure. "Fucking tourists. Can't understand them. And they stop their cahs at red lights!" said one Boston resident.

    Under the new law, it is a felony punishable by 15 years in prison for not being understood. The law also makes it legal to brutally beat those with strange accents.

    No visitors in the Bay State that we asked could speak clearly enough for an interview.

  • I don't think this is a language issue at all, but about power hungry law enforcement officers showing themselves feeling the need to continue to justify their existance. For me, the problem is not with the Law itself, such as 101 or whichever, but the method of enforcement. The Language Police seem to be the 'Nazis' in most cases and not the general public, whether in Montreal, Quebec, Trois Rivieries, Magog or wherever. I mean, asking MacDonalds (amongst others) to change their sign because of the apostrophe that doesn't exist in French? I cannot see the point. It's not as though they are using the Apostrophe on menus instead, or causing mass confusion amongst the francophones to occur, asking "Qu'est que ca?" I think they are being discredited by this sort of action as to how intelligent/educated they are.

    Secondly, the PQ seem to be extending this battle for the sake of it, because it keeps them in power. For the population outside of Montreal that mainly do not speak English, the propoganda that is used installs a fear of the Anglephones, and I cannot blame them for voting for a party that claims will prevent the immediate conversion to English, that is inferred will happen by voting for any other party.

    It seems to me that this particular story is just one example of the Language Police being overzealous, and in this case plain ignorant of how the web works. Certainly any site that wants the business will provide a French translation, but going after sites that don't provide a translation will just isolate Quebec even more. If a site isn't supplying a French translation and is in Quebec, it just has to move, and that will lose taxes for it whether it is a province or a country.

    I am not a Quebecer, nor Canadian, or American, but have lived in Montreal for a year, so I was intrigued seeing what occurred. And that was just my take on it. And now I live in The Netherlands, where virtually everyone speaks English, although their second language is German, and no-one thinks that Dutch is threatened. Another reason why it makes me wonder whether it is *really* about language in Quebec...

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~

  • I'm in a very similar situation to this guy. I have a business 'enregistre' ici au Quebec. My computers are here were I do my development work but my weg site is hosted in the Yew Ess. I have a hard enough time documenting my stuff in Hinglish let alone translating it into that near dead norman tongue called french. Christ if the language trou-de-cous in quebec stopped and looked at hinglish for just 15 fucking seconds they'd soon realise that hinglish is composed of about 75% french derived vocabulary anyway.

    If the fucking OLF shows up on my doorstep I'm going to stop operating my business in Quebec and stop giving the fascist fuckwits over 10 grand a year in taxes. Then I'll setup the business in my parents spare room in Ontario and have them send me a cash gift once in a while. They'll probably appreciate the extra income more than the language fascists in Quebec.

    Ta guelle! M. Tete-de-violin

  • You've found the perfect solution. Any site in Quebec need only post a link to the babel-fish, which will serve a translated version of the site. And VOILA, instant (albeit really ugly) compliance.

  • Ahh, the forever tiresome, never-ending saga of Quebec. Quebec tramples all over the right to free speech as defined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and yet the federal government puts up with it.

    Is it any wonder skilled young Canadians (like myself) are fleeing - in unprecedented numbers - to the greener pastures and real freedom of the United States? I have a very hard time getting excited about being Canadian. Sure, it's better than being Bolivian, but you've gotta admit that it's pretty hard to live right next door to the world's one great superpower without feeling left out.

    Not to use /. as my personal employment website, but you've gotta agree that Slashdot does attract a very nice cross section of the computer industry. Knowing that my loads of positive karma will be moderated away within minutes of this posting, I'll post the following anyway:

    Highly skilled Windows 9x/NT administration and networking, some Linux under RedHat 6.0 (primarily the implementation of a Samba file sharing and ipchains MASQing firewall for my home LAN's PPPoE-based DSL connection). I was on the Internet before Yahoo, and I have lots of experience as a UNIX user. Also highly versed with airport flight information systems (FIDS), and am familiar with the data streams provided by ARINC, INFAX and a couple of Air Canada proprietary systems. Lots of experience in professional audio and video, broadcasting, analog and digital circuit design.

    Currently employed by a major US defense contractor, and have designed marine radar video processing circuits and marine engine monitoring systems that are in use in a number of vessels in the American and Canadian Coast Guard. I'm also the IT Administrator for our office, with 17 clients on our LAN. (And, I administer a home LAN with 6 clients.) I'm also very familiar with the domain registration and hosting process, since I've registered and currently manage three domains.

    Highly versatile, internally motivated, and always learning. Hobbies include restoring vintage automobiles (engine rebuilds, automatic transmission modifications, body and unibody rust repairs and welding, electrical work), restoring and collecting early radio and television receivers, playing with and reading about computers, writing non-fiction for periodicals under a variety of "nom-de-plume".

    Dangerously literate, bizarre off-the-wall sense of humor, friendly and personable disposition that makes people surprised when they find out that I'm a "computer geek". Tall, attractive and muscular, I've been told that I look like Jerry O'Connell (Mission To Mars / Joe's Apartment). I speak with an accent known in broadcasting as a "New England Bland", which is the same accent as Peter Jennings and Tom Green have. As well as my technical experience in broadcasting, I've also appeared on camera and have done voice-overs for a number of radio and television commercials.

    Interested in moving to the US primarily because I identify more with Americans and the American spirit than I do with Canadians. Not to mention the unending high taxes and political effluence bombarding me here. My interest in moving to the United States is not one of working in the United States, but one of moving to the United States and taking on the responsibilities of being an American citizen.

    Resume and references available upon request.

    E-mail me. [mailto]

  • hum (Score:1)

    by cosmo1 ( 210376 )
    Bon, bien je mets un commentaire en français. Je vous dit bonjour à vous tous, slashdoteux, bien vous comprenez absolument rien de ce que j'écris. That's right, i'm from Québec. Someone should tell our one-legged pirate that no one, except for the 3 or 4 million french speaking people in Quebec, understand french. What's the use? Everyone understands english, and if i want to make a viable site, it has to be in english. To hell with their regulation, i would be willing to defy it, just to see what they have to say. By the way, the message i wrote on top says "well, i'm putting a comment in french. I salute you all, slashdoters, even if you don't understand what i am writing." See ya! À la prochaine! (Until next time!)
  • Wrong: a) The Charter of Rights and Freedoms is federal, and applies to Quebec regardless of their not signing it. But, obviously they can just use section 33 to enact labelling language laws. and b) Quebec also has a provincial constitution. (The eventual watering down of the signage provisions introduced in Bill 101 was due in part to a case involving the provincial constitution. Again, Quebec used the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms section 33 [the "notwithstanding" clause] to get around its freedom of expression provisions.
  • The Quebec constitution is available at:

    http://doc.gouv.qc.ca/cgi/search.cgi?query="libe rt%e9s+justice"&table=lois

    IIRC, the french version has precedence in case of any dispute in meaning.
  • I'm living in Quebec and about a month from starting up Yet.Another.Useless.Portal. What I'm curious about is what kind of idiot would go and stool a site for being english-only ? (I know, a french idiot.. ha.. ha..) I really don't plan on writing in two languages because quite simply, if you're ever slightly computer literate, you'll know enough english to get along. French people who use french computer terms should be shot.

    Back to the subject though, what if the business operating the site resides in Quebec, but the server itself is colocated in Ontario for example ? What if only the admin lives in quebec ? How the hell can they prove any of this anyway ? Do they plan on shipping a bunch of mounties to my apartment to check that the box is actually in my living room ?

    They also state in the article that they only enforce bilingualism for businesses and not personal sites. Where do they cut the line between a personal site and a commercial one ? Slashdot doesn't sell anything, would it fall under personal or commercial ? Well they have banners advertising commercial products so does that make Slashdot a commercial venture to the government's eyes ? A taxable venture at least.

    Yet another stupid move from the one-legged french nazi prime minister. I can't wait to move out of this crazy country-wannabe.
  • Speaking as a so-called 'pure-wool' francophone, I completely agree: this stupid and useless law only serves to make things even more complicated for Quebec companies wishing to have a meaningful presence on the Web. In fact, the entire set of laws protecting french is an anachronism in a world governed by openness! If you want a further example of stupidity, the minister responsible of enforcing these laws not long ago blasted companies making video games for the N64, PSX and Dreamcast, as well as for PCs, complaining that there are no french versions of these games! What economic incentive could these companies possibly have for producing such versions? I think this is a good thing anyway, it might even help youngsters learn english better than they currently do in our sub-par public schools. Young adults entering college for the most part do not know how to write or read english, let alone speak it, in a world where it is absolutely necessary to know at least two mainstream languages. I do believe english fits well in that category, doesn't it? This racist, nationalist government is so afraid of losing its power over culture that it is deliberately restricting our rights as individuals. We're supposed to have a Charter of Rights, but it is nothing like the First Amendment, which is sacred for you lucky Americans. I am deeply ashamed to call myself a Quebecer, and can't wait to move down south, as soon as I find a job in the good old US of A...

  • Re:I feel targeted. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    French people who use french computer terms should be shot.

    And why? If you don't like them, don't communicate with people who use them.

    Other than that, your take on Quebec is pretty much on the money: the government is rabid about protecting the French language. It is ILLEGAL in Quebec to do business in any language other than French, you can't get a job if you don't speak French: French is the language of business (some exceptions apply to wording of contracts, if all parties agree).

    This extends to attempts to prevent the use of other languages, particularly English which is said to "threaten" French, in public places: it is deemed "offensive".

    The Quebec government has, time and time again, had provisions of it's language laws deemed unconstitutional. Of course, in it's infinite <sarcasm factor=infinite> wisdon </sarcasm> the Canadian constitution has a "notwithstanding" clause (since 1982) which permits a government to pass a law overriding the constitution.

    Sadly, this does not appear to reflect the views of most Quebeckers, who would be perfectly happy to leave one another alone. It is a ruse to divide the population and rise to power on the back of the controversy (hint: fascist governments need enemies, real or invented to justify their "hard line").

    Of course, having seen the futility of fighting this politically, I finally decided the best way I could fight was to deny the Quebec government my tax dollars -- I left for the U.S. and have been non-resident since Nov. 4, 1997.

    What can you say about a government that claims to represent the "oppressed" French, calling them the "white niggers of North America" (which is offensive on so many level, I won't even begin to enumerate them)?

  • Look up Dodgy in the dictionary and you'll see "Provincial Government" in the second definition.

    The damn bilingualism law is mindless to begin with. They don't force businesses to offer both Visa -and- Mastercard, they let the businesses decide. French and English should be the same, if you don't want to serve french (or english) people, just don't advertise in their language. Who gives a flying crap about protecting the language.. that's up to those crazy europeans. Personally I think that any Quebecer above the age of 12 who can't speak/understand english is severely restricting him/herself in an english-dominated country. If you want to get somewhere in life (especially business), you learn english, no matter what your mother tongue is. If you want to be a sleazy little dope who likes to pick up dumb chicks with a phoney accent, then you can stick with french for all I care.

    (Man, now that's anti-patriotism =)
  • Amen to that! You did the right thing to move out, something I'm anxiously waiting for (money doesn't exactly grow on trees, especially not in Quebec). It's also quite orgasmic to count down all the extra cash they're yanking from my pay checks. I'm currently in a damn-well paying job compared to most goofs my age.. but I'd probably have more cash in my pockets if I were making half the salary in the states. Tax after tax after tax, I have about 40% left of my brute income. And they still complain about the deficit. I'm getting out of this drowning province while I can.
  • I dunno, the Fish does...interesting things.

    Case in point: A couple of months back, I found (of all things) an old old old old original bloodline I'd cobbled up for VtM...in French. Since I no longer had the original document, I decided to run it through the Fish just for the hell of it.

    And the fun began. The translation--what there was above the "end of translation" warning a little over halfway through--was rife with hilarious mistranslations, weirdly scrambled sentence structure, and perfectly mundane words left untranslated. It wasn't horrible, but I wouldn't trust my company's website to Babelfish.

    SlightlyOT: Anyone know of a decent Web translator that understands Japanese?

  • Personally, if I ran one of these websites, I'd just run my entire website through a free web translator such as babelfish [digital.com], go translate [go.com], or freetranslation [freetranslation.com], to name a few. Then just paste the result into an obscure directory on my site, and put a link to it.

    Sure, these wouldn't be very good translations, but it'd probably be enough to scare off any stupid provincial official.

  • There are parts of Qubec where it is 80% english or cree.
  • Or you could simply add to each page a footer link a French "homepage" which says, translated: "Sorry, but I don't speak French."
  • Personally I think that any Quebecer above the age of 12 who can't speak/understand english is severely restricting him/herself in an english-dominated country.

    Keep in mind, though, that Quebec essentially views itself as a separate country. Kinda like Texas. :-)

  • Bill 101 (the most known of the language laws in Quebec) was passed in 1977. It has been amended a few times since, allowing more leway for multilingual signs, but french has to be more visible. It deals mostly with business and government, but has little _direct_ impact on private life (as a citizen, you can speak/write/browse/whatever in any language you see fit, be it english, french, spanish, klingon, etc.) It's different for business because they sell things/offer services to the population. Since 95% of the population speaks french (82% as a first language (on a side note, 67% of people on the island of Montreal speak french as a first language)), you would think businesses would be bright enough to see the use of offering bilingual services. After all, the customer is always right. Wrong.

    Until the 60's, business was almost always done in English. Why? Simple. Quebec until then had a large rural population and the great majority of francophones in the cities were factory workers; higher education was rarely an option and few had a high school education. Although outnumbered 5 to 1, anglophones owned most businesses, especially larger ones;they usually had easier access to better/higher education. English as the business language seemed a logical extension of this.

    Something happened in the 1960's in Quebec; it was called 'La revolution tranquille' (the quiet revolution). For decades Quebec as a province lagged behind all its north american neighbors in areas of education, health care, social rights and technology. Because of the lower level of education and no real laws to protect them (the provincial governement led by Maurice Duplessis for decades almost always sided with business, even going as far as repressing strikes (such as the Asbestos worker's strike), they were cheap labour, with not much hope for advancement.

    Does this mean the 'quebecois' were oppressed? Yes and no. True, they had little chance of entering the business world (there are exceptions; but exceptions are not the rule), outside of small shops and the like. True, if you spoke french only, your chances were even slimmer. But with very few people with at least a high school education (until the 50's, a great number of quebecers, if not the majority, were functionally illiterate), how can this be otherwise? So in reality, the issue was more about education (or lack thereof) than anything else.

    The quiet revolution happened because the people elected a government that was willing to make major efforts to modernize Quebec. Major reforms happened in education, healthcare, social rights. The creation of CEGEPs (colleges d'enseignement general et professionel) was one of the bigger steps, along with mandatory education until the age of 16. The CEGEPs are placed between high school and universities, providing either preparatory programs (2 years) in order to go to university afterwards, or complete programs (3 years). This way, post-secondary education was now available to all the population, for free. A few years later, the University of Quebec was created as well, with free access as well (this changed over the year, but is still remarkably accessible). Because of these events, the level of education in the Quebec francophone population increased dramatically.

    But in the 70's, did businesses take that into account and changed their practices? Not really. It took the election of the Parti Quebecois in 1976 to change things on the language front. They passed bill 101 in order to promote and preserve french. It was not meant to exact revenge on the english community, no matter what many have said. So suddenly business had to offer its services in french. Let's just say that for many the transition was far from easy and difficult to accept; after all, what right did the government have to force them to change their business practices? The answer is simple: they were elected after a landslide victory and the voters knew very well who they voted for and what they wanted to do. So this was something that was wished by a majority of quebecers.

    Now, 23 years later, business is booming in the province, unemployement is at a 25 year low, high-technology companies are flourishing in Montreal, in such fields as biotechnology, transportation/aviation and computers (software and hardware). All this in an 'oppressive' regime out to destroy english. You know, this language law doesn't seem that bad to business, does it?

    The example in the article is about an individual who has a small business website in english only. The law states that commercial documentation should also be available in french. Although maintaining a bilingual site is harder (I've done it in the past), it's not that hard, especially for a site that's quite small and mostly links (go to www.michelsoucy.com [michelsoucy.com], the website that is the subject of the article). Yes, it will cost him time and money. But this is the law, for now. Dura lex, sed lex. Also, why couldn't this be an opportunity for him? With the publicity he gets from this (go to the link called 'Read about "The Notarious(sic) Language Criminal!"' [michelsoucy.com] on his website), he could get a bilingual partner or employee and be able to offer his services in both languages, expanding his business. He doesn't have to do it, of course, but it would make a lot of sense and may well benefit him in the end. But he chose the courts instead; if he wins, good for him. If he doesn't, the earlier option is still available to him. Either way, he could come out of this a winner.

    As for my reasons to approve of this law: with it, french is stronger now than in the early 70's. You can get almost any job anywhere in Quebec if you speak french (and have the appropriate skills, of course), whereas this isn't true if you only speak english. The best bet is still to speak these two languages (or more). As for more personal reasons, I want my future children and grandchildren to be able to enjoy Moliere AND Shakespeare. With this law in place, french will be present and the most used language in this province for a long time. And for those who think we're trying to cut ourselves from the rest of the world, here's a little something to think about: english classes are mandatory in Quebec french schools from the 3rd grade to the last year of high school. Kinda odd for a society bent on destroying all traces of english, don't you think? ;)

  • Well, we don't have standards committee meetings in Quebec because most of the attendees couldn't translate the handouts. That aside, one wonders
    • Is it legal to link to English-only sites?
    • Does Babelfish count?
    • Quite a few Internet protocols rely on English keywords, notably HTML itself. Does Quebec also require that the tags in a webpage be translated to the French equivalents?
    Hint for the humor-impaired: don't take this too seriously.
  • I am sorry I missed that post yesterday... I am a Québécois (please excuse my poor English, I will excuse your inexistent French), and I must say I am quite surprised to read comments that harsh about our supposedly nazi Premier Ministre coming from people who certainly cannot supply much substance to back their obviously cliché statements. If any (unfortunate and inapropriate) parallel is to be made with that part of German history, we sure are the ones who look more like the Jews. But then again, maybe we are just about to force our views of the universe down the throat of the rest of the free world with a few kind French words and a little maple sirup. First things first : technology should serve society, not the other way around. If anybody disagrees, then another debate is in order. I certainly would argue that the language(s) of a society is a bigger social phenomenon than any technology. Languages are, in essence, the founding technology of the human species. No doubt, English is the preferred international language for business. Our laws do not intend to change that, but rather to make sure french-speaking people can live in french without prejudice here in Quebec. This is a rather subtle and gentle way of asking a minimum of "savoir-vivre" from economic imperialists, yet most of the time they just don't care. Our poor attempts at self-preservation really pale in comparison with the history of economic protectionism the USA has piled up. All of you who openly hate Microsoft for leveraging its dominance in some areas of computing to gain control over the others should seriosly look at how your whole country uses the same methods with the rest of the (economic and cultural) world, with perhaps greater succes and total impunity. But then again, have you seen many M$ employees going through that introspective process? International relations held by the USA are often closer to date rape than friendship. But then again, bitching aside, are our laws so different from those of other countries, including the USA? As an example, I am quite sure that the USA make it mandatory for products sold within its borders to be labeled in English. That might be so obvious from a market perspective that no one even realizes that the requirement is the same as in Québec for products to be labeled in french. So please, let us agree that the stupidity is shared. Basically, we are simply guilty of being outnumbered. I will be nice enough to skip on the numerous counter-examples that would show our little cultural problems really are quite benign when compared to a few minor social "issues" observable in the USA (can you say primary school shooting?). Yeah, we sure are the weird ones. Please remember that global does not, and will likely not in the forseeable future, mean all-English or USA-owned, though plans about it certainly are being laid as I write. Frédéric Jean
  • It's FRENCH, dude, not some Martian Language from Outer Space. Many americans can sift through a bit of french and understand. Also, don't forget the 52 million people in France that also speak french, and the millions of other European countries that also understand French.

    With what you wrote, you sound like a French American! HAHAHA =)
  • I also speak french, until grade 3 I took nothing but french in school. But that has nothing to do with this, the issue here is that Quebec is forcing people to use a language they don't want to. End of story. How else can you see the situation? If people want to read in french, i have nothing against that, go ahead and read a french web site. If the people who own the web site can't speak french, it is misrepresentative to have a french translation. Forcing a language on someone is just as wrong as outlawing a language.

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