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Commentaire par Le Canard Réincarné le 12 Octobre 2009 à 18 09

Rompre le cercle de l'oppresseur/l'opprimé doit d'abord être écrit et digéré. Faut pas mettre la charrue avant les boeufs.

Commentaire par Paul J. Gutman le 27 Juillet 2009 à 12 21

Aux années soixante et soixante-dix, le français et la "culture française" semblaient être en vogue chez les Anglophones de notre continent. À ce temps là, on n'avait qu'aller manger au restaurant et lire les menus, des menus (en anglais!) qui se servaient de quelques galicismes ridicules qui sont restés populaires jusqu'à présent. Je vous donne à l'instant quelques exemples:

1. Soup du jour: Mais voyons donc! Si on veut vraiment écrire ceci en français, pourquoi ne pas respecter la bonne orthographe en écrivant soupe du jour? Soup of the day aurait eu plus de bon sens.

2. Apple pie à la mode: Aujourd'hui, je comprends qu'il s'agit de mettre un brin de crème glacée sur votre tarte aux pommes. (Peut-être une cuilliérée, ou deux!) Mais, au temps de ma tendre enfance, je me posais la question suivante: À LA MODE?!!? À la mode de chez qui? Je n'ai jamais eu de réponse à ma question.

I will continue now in English, because those who have difficulty with written French (who can nevertheless still speak it or at least understand it!) may find this something to think about. I still hear people sprinkle French phrases in their English conversation in attempts to sound elegant, or shall we say... chic! And yet, French as a second local language does not have the respect it deserves. When it is spoken (by native North American Francophones) at work or at social gatherings, it is all too often reacted to with suspicion, ("They're talking about us!"), or disdain. ("They don't even speak real French!") It's such an entrenched double standard in this society's social fabric that people are often oblivious to it, or they don't see why this is wrong! So, which is it? Laughable or shameful? I think it's BOTH, which is why I don't apologize for my accent, and which is also why I always use French when I am among Francophones. Those who don't like to hear it are welcome to choke on the soup of the day! And on that note, je vous dis tout simplement... À la prochaine.

Commentaire par Jon Tremblay le 27 Juillet 2009 à 8 39

Monday, July 27, 2009
07:30

I'll throw in my two cents on this because I definitely have an opinion here. My impression is that the French language is dying in the U.S. and what will survive is an ugly "textbook" French taught only as a foreign language.

How can I make such a bold statement? I used to work as the French editor of a local publishing company here in Saint Paul, Minnesota that publishes high-school foreign-language textbooks. I LEFT that job for political reasons. I quickly learned while there that the forces that are in control of French-language education in this country snub anything North American in favor of anything European. I would not have it on my conscience that I participated directly or even indirectly in their diabolical plot, so I left. A fine example, find me a high-school French teacher who can tell you what an effing bleuet is! Mind you, it's printed on every container we buy here at the grocery store in Minnesota whether they come from Canada, Michigan or Chile, but your average high-school French teacher would give you a blank stare like a deer caught in headlights. (Chez Yankois has served as an excellent place of affirmation for me to discover other like-minded individuals—AND to my delight and great surprise—people from France who also share my opinion.)

Conversely, I'm STUNNED that there is virtually nothing out there for the individual desiring to learn North-American French. So who REALLY is at fault here, if you're going to get into the blame game?!

So the response to your first paragraph is a resounding YES. I think we North-American Francophones have a lot in common and now with the Internet there is absolutely NO reason not to organize and to begin showing a little solidarity. God bless Joseph Theriault for having the wherewithal to launch a site like Chez Yankois!

Your second paragraph: I'm not sure what you mean by "glocalize." I think if any media is going to promote the North-American French language it is going to have to be something like the Chez Yankois web site. However, if people are going to learn or relearn (as in my case) our language, we're going to have to provide that material for that to happen. And again, I've been all over the Internet since its inception, every now and then, searching for material and writing to various organizations—even the Quebec government office and RIEN! So, like Joseph, I've decided to do something about it and am franticly working on a web site to debut some time before the close of 2009 dedicated to North-American French-language instruction for the North-American Anglophone.

The gay community uses the motto: Silence = Death.

That motto doesn't just apply to the gay community. North-American French is all but dead in my state of Minnesota.