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Quebec Cracks Down On Translated Videogames
Thanks to VE3D for their story revealing that the Quebec government is cracking down on videogames without complete French-language packaging, meaning that game stores in Quebec are having to return or amend significant portions of their stock. The article says that "...the likes of Electronic Arts, Sony and Microsoft have been following this law for sometime, but everyone else has ignored it", and a game store worker on the Gaming-Age forums indicates stores "...can't sell anything that doesn't have a French cover", so this new enforcement means that "...the cover that says 'Only on Xbox' must read 'Seulement sur Xbox'."
The Canadians have silly regulations.
More obvious news later today. Stay tuned.
~foooo
It makes me wonder what the reasons behind this are.
Quebec is the only French speaking state or province in North America. The 5 million French speakers in Quebec are surrounded by 300+ million English speakers in Canada and the US. People in Quebec worry that French will disappear in a generation, making Quebec just another English speaking part of North America and losing (or at least muting) a distict culture. So they pass laws encouraging the use of French (the law in question here applies to much more than video game sales). Personally, I think their fears of being assimilated are understandable.
"Canada sucks"
"US sucks more"
"We're Americans too"
"France sucks"
"Drug costs"
Have I missed anything?
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
All the rudeness, none of the scenery. /me ducks.
If it is in the companies best interest, it should be the company that does it to protect their interests. If it does not effect the companies bottom line, why should they be forced to do it? The government should not enforce it, free markets should.
However, I am not from Canada, so I really have no say in such a matter.
This has been a problem for a while now for merchants in Quebec, and there have been numerous stories. What gets me is that even if you only speak English, your signs and advertising still have to have French in it. Just silly.
"...today consumers have been conditioned to think of beer when they see a bullfrog..."
I'm not going to defend the status quo in Quebec or the shaky relationship they have with the rest of Canada. Those struggles are up to the the Canadians to figure out.
HOWEVER, I will defend the right of the Quebecois government to uphold their laws and the laws of Canada. Those laws were put in place for a reason, a legitimate reason, and, being an American who lives in Detroit and travels to Canada (including Montreal) quite frequently, I think it is an imperfect, but workable, solution to the social and cultural issues Canada faces.
As for the software publishers:
Everyone else can translate their packages for the Canadian market. You can, too. It just isn't that hard of an undertaking. My suggestion is that the publishers take a hint from many of the DVDs sold in Canada: use reversible cover inserts in the keep cases. One side is Canadian English, one is Quebecois French.
Well, the thing is moving to France isn't an option.
Not simply in the sense that uprooting yourself and moving to a different country is a difficult, and in some senses risky, proposition. Rather, French as spoken in Canada, and French as spoken in France are such different 'dialects' that they border on speaking different languages...
At least, that's what my obsessed with linguistics, raised on the Canadian border, lived a few years in France fiance says on the matter... And given that she speaks both Quebecois French, and actual French, I'd say she's probably right.
You know, if Sony et al. decided not to translate their game covers to English for U.S. release, you know what would happen? No one would buy them. Thus any respectable profit-driven company would quickly recify the situation.
Bingo, problem solved -- without adding more bureaucracy to the system. "Take THAT" indeed.
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
While this is true, the problem doesn't seem to be products that have their packaging written entirely in English so much as products whose packaging is in some amalgam of English and French.
I can understand why Quebec might want to pass a law agains this - prevention of dilution of the language an' all that. Actually, not really dilution of the language - as one of the most spoken languages in the world, French is hardly in any danger of disappearing from the face of the earth. I think the Quebequois are worried that their kids will just start speaking English, which would be a major step toward their disappearance as a distinct ethnic group.
But still, I see two problems with this law other than the knee-jerk "stupid foreigners rejecting the God-Given language of the American People" reaction a lot of folks seem to be spouting on this subject.
First - Does it outlaw a shopkeeper selling imported products which were never meant to be marketed in Quebec in the first place? (I'm thinking video games that haven't been translated into French.)
Second, it seems like it could discourage commerce in Quebec. Requiring 100% of a product's packaging, even the small stuff that doesn't matter like an Official Nintendo Seal of Quality or somesuch, is increasing the bottom line for companies that wish to market products in Quebec, and might succeed in causing some products to simply not be sold there. Here I'm primarily thinking stuff that won't be sold outside of Canada or North America, where the french-speaking population is small enough to make such an increase in bottom line really matter.
The problem is that this is a cynical anti-competitive law, designed to make it difficult for other countries to sell products into Quebec.
There clearly is a market for English-only products, or they wouldn't be on the shelves. The removal of these games harms the consumer who can't buy them and the games company who is losing a sale.
The only beneficiary of this restriction on free trade is the Quebec economy.
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
Oh, you want that leet new First Person Shooteur, little Laurant? I'm afraid you can't have it ShootEmUp Games doesn't translate their box into la belle langue. You'll just have to envy the American kids and the kids in British Columbia you chat with in IRC. Maybe you'll end up so warped you become the next "Star Wars Kid", playing with your "light-sabre" in a closet.
But I think there's a simple solution that will allow Laurant his game (and his dignity), while sticking a finger in the eye of the tight-assed Quecbec goverment.
I call the solution Frauxcais. It's the French equivilent to "Engrish".
The Japanese (and other Asian countries) produce "English" translations that seem almost to be parody -- but are sincere but inept attempts to translate into English, because they want to sell to the large English speaking market.
There's no large Francophone market (apparently, or else the companies would produce translations just for the market share), so we'll intentionally produce fractured, ambiguous, meaningless French, and slap it on bozes for export to Quebec:
- "Les salivates verts de vache violemment." ("The green cow salivates fiercely.")
- "Actuellement bientot le bouton au fondle." ("Presently soon the button to fondle")
- "Baton sur la lumiere artificielle lentement, pleasuring la boisson." ("Stick upon lamplight slowly, pleasuring beverage.")
We print these out on sticky address labels, plaster them on the game box, and, as the French say, viola!, violin!, chello!Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
Actually, you're quite off in terms of main-spoken language and bilingualism
(from the 1996 Census)
Population by knowledge of official language
(Knowledge of official language: Refers to the ability to conduct a conversation in English only, in French only, in both English and French, or in neither of the official languages of Canada)
Total Population: 7,125,575
English Only: 327,045 (4.59%)
French Only: 3,831,350 (53.77%)
Both English and French: 2,907,700 (40.81%)
Neither English nor French: 59,485
Of the Both English and French category: 1,792,750 (61.66%) of those people live in Montreal
(from the 2001 Census)
Population by mother tongue
Total Population: 7,125,580
English: 557,040 (7.82%)
French: 5,761,765 (80.86%)
English and French: 50,060
Population by home language
(Home language: the language spoken most often or on a regular basis at home by the individual at the time of the census)
Total population: 7,125,580
English: 480,040 (6.74%)
French: 5,484,280 (76.97%)
English and French: 477,955 (6.71%)
So English *far* from being the main spoken language in Quebec. In fact 408,185 out of 557,040 of people identifying english as their mother tongue live in Montreal and 376,620 out of
480,040 'home language' as english people.
So it would be *far* more accurate to say that outside Montreal, english is barely used.
You are correct. They have a right to pass this law. However, while trying to avoid repeating what's been said here already : They are alienating any manufacturer or business that cannot afford to dual-market theier products.
For example, dual-language markets are always smaller, since businesses have to pick their battles, and multi-language isn't always worth the investment. But in some markets (Southern US), dual markets are great; Spanish/English commercials, labels and instructions attract a wider audience.
Quite frankly, Quebec suffers from a lack of purchasing clout. If/When their population grew in (and stayed agressive in accepting only) the French-only purchasing, we'd see businesses releasing dual-language products from the start. But right now they don't unless Quebec is tied to their survival (CA originated businesses mostly).
Curturally, I enjoy multilanguage environments, if they are ubiquitous. For people who don't know remedial Spanish, a trip to some areas can send them reeling. Same for Quebec; if we had French everywhere, I wouldn't mind, but since I don't know it, when I'm there i'm frustrated as hell to figure out things.
India is a prime example of a multi-language environment. There has been some cronyism and lack of cooperation due to language barriers, but since Hindi survives as a common level, India manages to form a cohesive country. If Quebec became too strict on the French-only rules, they may find themselves locked out of a lot of innovations or products that have no French equivalents.
PS. I doubt they'll ever impose this rule this for medical devices, car parts, or anything else deemed "essential" to their way of life.
mug
Where the hell did you see people in France don't like people from Quebec? This is news for me!
this is about people trying to protect their linguistic heritage, surrounded as they are by 300 million anglophones.
No, it's about a small number of people trying to force a large number of them to isolate themselves from the rest of the world's languages.
If the majority of Quebec's population wanted to speak pure French and nothing else, the government wouldn't have to do silly things like this, because English-labelled products wouldn't sell.
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
It's a strange attitude for a country that colonized a good tenth of the world, with a language that's spoken around the globe even today. They're one of the big five, and even if France and Quebec were bombed off the face of the Earth right now, students would still be learning French a thousand years from now to read 18th and 19th century literature.