Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of maps
- List of tables
- Notes on contributors
- 1 Canada
- Introduction
- 1 The foundations
- 2 The fading Canadian duality
- 3 Official bilingualism: from the 1960s to the 1990s
- 4 Official multiculturalism
- 5 Language in education: bridging educational policy and social psychological research
- 6 Aboriginal languages: history
- 7 Aboriginal languages: current status
- 8 French: Canadian varieties
- 9 French in Quebec
- 10 French in New Brunswick
- 11 French outside New Brunswick and Quebec
- 12 English: Canadian varieties
- 13 English Quebec
- 14 The teaching of international languages
- 15 French immersion in Canada
- 16 Language in Newfoundland
- 17 Language in Prince Edward Island
- 18 Language in Nova Scotia
- 19 Language in New Brunswick
- 20 Language in Quebec: aboriginal and heritage varieties
- 21 Language in Ontario
- 22 Language in Manitoba
- 23 Language in Saskatchewan: Anglo-hegemony maintained
- 24 Language in Alberta: unilingualism in practice
- 25 Language in British Columbia
- 26 Language in the Northwest Territories and the Yukon Territory
- Index of names
- Index of language families, languages, dialects
- Index of subjects
9 - French in Quebec
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 February 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of maps
- List of tables
- Notes on contributors
- 1 Canada
- Introduction
- 1 The foundations
- 2 The fading Canadian duality
- 3 Official bilingualism: from the 1960s to the 1990s
- 4 Official multiculturalism
- 5 Language in education: bridging educational policy and social psychological research
- 6 Aboriginal languages: history
- 7 Aboriginal languages: current status
- 8 French: Canadian varieties
- 9 French in Quebec
- 10 French in New Brunswick
- 11 French outside New Brunswick and Quebec
- 12 English: Canadian varieties
- 13 English Quebec
- 14 The teaching of international languages
- 15 French immersion in Canada
- 16 Language in Newfoundland
- 17 Language in Prince Edward Island
- 18 Language in Nova Scotia
- 19 Language in New Brunswick
- 20 Language in Quebec: aboriginal and heritage varieties
- 21 Language in Ontario
- 22 Language in Manitoba
- 23 Language in Saskatchewan: Anglo-hegemony maintained
- 24 Language in Alberta: unilingualism in practice
- 25 Language in British Columbia
- 26 Language in the Northwest Territories and the Yukon Territory
- Index of names
- Index of language families, languages, dialects
- Index of subjects
Summary
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
In 1774, fifteen years after the surrender of Quebec to the troops of General Wolfe, King George III signed the Quebec Act to restore the coutume de Paris (the ancestor of the present civil code) in the new province. He implicitly recognized, at the same time, the legality of the French language in this part of North America. It was a decision fraught with consequences, as we know, but was done to avoid a possible uprising among the French Canadians and their Amerindian allies. In fact, the French Canadians were living with the obsessive fear of being deported (as were their French fellows in Acadia between 1755 and 1763, an ‘ethnic purification’ that affected more than 90 per cent of the 12,000 Acadians settled in this other colony of France). The threat of an uprising was combined, too, with that of an invasion of the former French possessions by the rebel troops of the United States, whose independence would be unilaterally proclaimed in 1776. These concerns also pushed George III to sign the Constitutional Act in 1791, granting a parliament to Lower Canada. This was another decision fraught with consequences because, to ensure the allegiance of his French subjects – needed to maintain his commercial hold north of the 45th parallel – the king provided them with a form of statehood.
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- Information
- Language in Canada , pp. 177 - 201Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1998
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