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Jan 10 / Great Apes

A Quick Thought On: Language Politics

I just posted this over at Pension Plan Puppets, and I think it encapsulates my feelings on language politics in Canada (and elsewhere) pretty well, so I thought I’d share it here as well for those of you who aren’t rabid Leafs fans, and also so that I have it written somewhere a bit more accessible for posterity:

There are very real issues facing Francophones in Canada, but my position on language politics is simple – language can’t be controlled by the government and it shouldn’t try. I have no problem with official bilingualism in terms of government services and departments, but a government can not control how language is used in the populace at large; L’Académie française has been fighting that failing battle in a predominantly French country for centuries. It doesn’t work, and it won’t. Language can, does, and will evolve, and it’s not the government’s job to get involved in trying to “fix” that.

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