RICKY BLUE

French & the way she is written

I have a friend who argues that if Bill 101 was about preserving the language of his ancestors, instead of the language of France, he might be more sympathetic.

In his view the last 30 years of language legislation has done more to eradicate the few centuries of genuine Quebec culture then any English influence by far.

He has a close friend who always writes to him in Quebec French. But her last missive included a semi-official invitation to him as a representative of a committee. So she wrote that part of her e-mail in formal French, adding a comment at the end that she could still write well if she so chose.

This triggered a rant that my friend shared with me.

He told her that he never doubted that she could write proper French. But he believes that real language is the ear version, not the eye version.

Writing was invented to use language over distance and to record it. But writing is inferior because so much is lost: pauses, tone, inflection, and volume and body movement. The verbal form should dictate the written form, not the other way around.

And because the people use language verbally, this should dictate what real language is. A language belongs to those who use it, not to professors who study it. There are different languages throughout the world only because different peoples evolved them, not because professors and academicians invented them.

The people give life to a language, and the people, over generations, create culture.

The language as spoken by the people of Quebec is the only language that should be preserved. Let France preserve "French."

If Quebec wants to speak of sovereignty, then let it stop behaving like a colony of France and let it stand up and be true to itself by recognizing it's own language: the language brought to life by our ancestors. It is the only culture that we can call our own, he tells me.

Many in Quebec are capable of writing Québécois, but only a handful do. Instances are labelled 'joual.' And 'joual' is a negative word. It has the unfortunate effect of making everyday French seem inferior to proper written French.

It implies that spoken French is a kind of 'common' or 'slum' language, an 'uneducated' language, especially when committed to paper.

It might not be as easy to write French as it is spoken, but then neither is it easy to write so-called proper French. But were this kind of writing to be found in newspapers, he believed it would make it much easier for people of other cultures to relate written Quebec French to the French they hear around them everyday, and of a consequence, make it just that much easier for them to assimilate into "Quebec culture."

He paused to take a breath. Then he showed me how he had finished his e-mail to his friend.

"So, all this to say that your comment "(j'écris bien quand je veux!)" is in the wrong place. T'écris "propre" quand tu veux, mais t'écris bien mieux quand t'écris en Quebecois, d'apres moén, pis si plus de Quebecois y insisterais, peut-être qu'on y arriverais enfin a faire reconnaître et respecter la vrai langue du Quebec, celle qui vaudrais la peine, qui vaudrais toute cette maudite chicane."

"It sure ain't Molière," I said. "More Plume Latraverse. But it does have a certain Genesis Coy!"