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Quebec Language Police Target Store Owner's Facebook Page

Posted by timothy on from the at-least-they-don't-require-german dept.

New submitter wassomeyob writes "In Canada, the province of Quebec has their Official Language Act of 1974 (aka Bill 22) which makes French their sole official language. It has famously been used to force business owners to modify signage to give French pre-eminance over other languages. Now, the Quebec language police seem to be extending their reach to Facebook. Eva Cooper owns Delilah in the Parc — a shop in Chelsea, Quebec near the Quebec/Ontario border. She received a letter from the language office telling her to translate everything posted on her store's Facebook page into French."

3 of 506 comments (clear)

  1. much ado about nothing by vux984 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Ok, its a stupid law, and I'm not going to defend it.

    But if the Quebec based store is maintaining a website, it needs to have a french translation, and a company's facebook page is little different than a geocities site from 1998, and is just another form of advertising for the company so this is entirely consistent with how the law has been enforced in the past.

  2. Re: And in other news... by kbdd · · Score: 4, Insightful
    As an immigrant who started learning English in school, I have no objection to anyone using the language of their choice for whatever private purpose they want to. However, I have an issue with the government (local, state or federal) spending taxpayer's money to make government services available in languages other than English. It seems to be common courtesy that if you want to move in and live in a country, you learn the local language as a courtesy to the locals you are invading as a mark of respect.

    Similarly, I am very offended when I call a bank or any other local business and the first thin I am asked is if I speak Spanish, to press '9'.

    Now, I also recognize that "speaking English" is not a strict definition. Many natives don't do that very well.

  3. Re: And in other news... by iCEBaLM · · Score: 4, Insightful

    shut the fuck up asshole. we all know english people won't make any efforts to learn french even if the live in france directly.

    I am Canadian, I live in Ontario, I am an anglophone, and I went to french immersion school for 4 years, with about 90 other students in my class, and studied with Rosetta Stone for two, but I live in an almost exclusively english area.

    I can read french pretty well, but I can't really speak it well due to lack of practice. So anyways, english people do make efforts to learn french. It's usually the French people who put us off of it with attitudes like yours.