Canada owes its bilingual nature to all the events that have influenced its traditions and culture over the years. First it was a French colony, then an English one, until its independence in 1931.

Canada does not have an official language…it has two!

The law on the Official Languages establishes the use of two national languages: English and French. The relevant legislation calls for equal use of the two languages, from scholastic education to institutional communications, from signage to everyday language.

English is currently spoken as the first language by about 60% of the population, French by 24%. The remaining 16% have a different native language, including Italian, Scottish and Polish. The country also has some indigenous languages which were spoken in Canada before the European settlers arrived, for example Cree, Inuktitut and Ojibway.

Most of the French-speaking population is concentrated in the province of Quebec, the largest and most populous province in the country. One example that easily shows the coexistence of these two languages in the region is the use of the famous “bonjour, hi”, a typical greeting of Québécois shopkeepers. A sort of fusion of the two languages in a single expression, emanating bilingualism and inclusion.

QUÉBEC, CANADA

English and French have not always peacefully coexisted here. Over the years there have been numerous, more or less peaceful, struggles for the affirmation of one language or the other.

The use of the French language in the province of Québec is currently regulated by the Office québécois de la langue française, with the aim of safeguarding and encouraging its use.

Obligations and limitations in force in this province include the use of French as an official language of the government (with English alongside) and the obligation to mainly use French in advertising, in which English can also be used as long as it is in a text size half that of the French.

The pressure to speak French, and the considerable English influence, have led to the creation of real linguistic “case studies”. For example, the obligation to translate brand names has made the famous American fast food chain KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) become PFK (Poulet Frit du Kentucky).

The influence of English on the variety of French spoken in Canada can also be found in various expressions, quite different from the standard language spoken in France. It is therefore common to hear “bienvenue” instead of the more correct “je vous en prie” or “de rien” after a person says “thank you”, a clear legacy of the English language where the correct response is “you’re welcome”.  

To learn more, I highly recommend the 25th episode of the podcast Fluidité to all those who speak or understand French. To those who love books, I instead recommend the novel “Barney’s Version” by Mordecai Richler, in which the Canadian language struggles are the backdrop to a truly compelling plot.

See you next episode!

Stefano Gaffuri

English translation and adaptation by Sarah Schneider

L'articolo “MULTILINGUAL COUNTRIES” COLUMN. SEASON 2 – EPISODE 1 “CANADA” proviene da ASTW.

CROATIA: THE OFFICIAL LANGUAGE

The official language in Croatia is Croatian, which is one of the four standardised varieties of the Serbo-Croatian languages that uses the Roman alphabet. After joining the European Union on 1 July 2013, the Croatian language automatically became one of the 24 official languages of the EU.

The South Slavic language is spoken by about 95% of the population throughout the Croatian territory. There are diatopic variations within the language which are capable of forming dialects separated based on geographic region. There are three dialects:  Shtokavian, Kajkavian and Chakavian. However, these variations still allow the inhabitants of the various regions to communicate, as they are all dialects of the same language.

THE MINORITY LANGUAGES

Croatia has always been one of the countries with the lowest population growth rates, which has precipitated as a result of the many victims of its struggle for independence. With the aim of increasing its number of inhabitants, Croatia implemented a plan to welcome immigrant ethnic minority groups to its territory, which currently represent 10% of the Croatian population.

These groups are mostly Italian, Serbian and Czech.

This welcoming policy gives rise to the various laws and decrees protecting minority languages, whose fundamental rights are set out in Article 7 of the Constitutional Act on the Rights of National Minorities.

The only officially bilingual region of the Republic of Croatia is Istria, located in the Adriatic peninsula. Many of its municipalities were part of the Republic of Venice decades ago, and Croatian is accompanied by the second official language here, Italian. This Italian-Croatian bilingualism is founded on the presence of a considerable Italian community, historical and political events, as well as geographical proximity to Italy.

The Istrian region makes Croatia part of the three European nations in which Italian is an official language, together with Slovenia and Switzerland. For more information about the Italian language outside its national borders, I suggest learning more about the work carried out by the REI, (Network for the Excellence of Institutional Italian).

And with this we end the first season of our column. In the new season we’ll expand our borders by travelling to the Americas, exploring new Multilingual Countries.

Stefano Gaffuri

English translation and adaptation by Sarah Schneider

L'articolo “MULTILINGUAL COUNTRIES” COLUMN. SEASON 1 – EPISODE 7 “CROATIA” proviene da ASTW.

THE OFFICIAL LANGUAGES IN BELGIUM

The Belgian authorities officially recognise three languages: Dutch, French and German.

The country’s multilingual nature is the result of all the historical, cultural and linguistic influences which have affected it from the times of the Roman Empire to the present day. We obviously won’t retrace the entire linguistic history of the country, instead focusing mainly on the current situation. However, it must be remembered that over the years, the various factions have not failed to claim their right to express themselves in their traditional language.  

I’m mainly talking about the Flemish community in Flanders and the Walloon community in Wallonia, respectively in the north and south of the country.

FLANDERS

Dutch is the official language in northern Belgium, often referred to as Netherlandish or Flemish to distinguish it from the Dutch spoken in Holland, with slight geographic variations. Nevertheless, at the official and literary level the two spoken languages do not have substantial differences; in fact, the term Dutch literature is increasingly used to refer to books written in this language, whether in Belgium or in Holland.

Regardless of whether it’s called Dutch or Flemish, this is the most widely spoken language in the federal state of Belgium, spoken by about 60% of the population.

WALLONIA

French is the official language in the southern part of the country. Also in this case it is standard French with small geographic variations, for example the use of “septante” in Belgium and “soixante-dix” in France.

French is spoken by 40% of the Belgian population, which makes this language the second linguistic system in the country.

BRUSSELS-CAPITAL

Both the cultural and linguistic meeting of these two communities is centred in the region called Brussels-Capital. Dutch and French are the official languages here and they coexist well, from the city streets to the government offices, from those of the EU to the shops in the city centre.

Brussels is therefore the bilingual capital of a multilingual state, although it is geographically located in the Flemish (Dutch language) region. The current use of French, also by the institutions, is likely attributable to the European character of the city, considered by many to be the capital of the EU.

To get an idea of how present the European Union is in the Belgian capital, take a look at visit.brussels.

GERMAN-SPEAKING COMMUNITY

Of the three different language communities in Belgium, the German-speaking one is the least extensive. Not only in terms of speakers, as German is spoken by about 70,000 people nationwide (the country having about 11,300,000 citizens), but also geographically.

In fact, German is an official language in only nine municipalities, all belonging to the cantons of Eupen and Sankt Vith, which not surprisingly both border Germany.

See you next episode!

Stefano Gaffuri

English translation and adaptation by Sarah Schneider

L'articolo “MULTILINGUAL COUNTRIES” COLUMN. SEASON 1 – EPISODE 6 “BELGIUM” proviene da ASTW.