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Montreal moments, part 1
(The following is the first instalment in what I hope will become an irregularly-updated series of tongue-in-cheek vignettes about living in Montreal.)
Early morning, a coffee shop. I reach the head of the line, put on a pleasant smile, and start my order: "Bonjour! Je prendrai une tisane au citron."
The barista smiles back, but something is amiss. Something in my accent must have revealed me for what I am: an anglophone. Though her own accent clearly marks her as a francophone, she is quick to show off her verbal virtuoso, "of course. Just a moment."
She brings me my tea. I refuse to let her get the upper hand in our dance of languages, "ça fait combien?"
"One-sixty-six," she says, barely pausing despite the challenging numbers.
I hunt through my change purse, "un-et-vignt-cinq, un-et-cinquante, un-et-soixante-quinze, un-et-soixante-seize!" Triumphant, I hand over my change. She takes it.
Finally, the numbers have vanquished her, and she reverts to her native tongue: "un-et-soixante-seize," she says, ringing open the cash register. "Et dix," she finishes, handing me a dime.
I smile broadly, "merci!" I take my tea and beat a hasty retreat, proud in the knowledge that my mastery of French is ever-so-slightly better than her mastery of English.
Montreal is hardly unique as a city with two primary languages. Many cities in Europe boast two or even three official languages, and many cities in the southern United States have unofficially adopted Spanish at least as much as Quebec has accepted English. What marks Montreal as special is the subtle games we play whenever we face a speaker of the opposite language.
In France, a visiting tourist who tries to speak in French will likely find the shop clerk switching to English, just like my barista this morning. The difference is that in France, the clerk almost always speaks better English than the tourist does French. In Montreal, the odds are good that both speakers are equally comfortable in their second language.
Why the verbal gymnastics, then? Why not stick to the inital language, instead of stubbornly keeping to the other person's tongue? One thing that gives Montrealers intense glee is demonstrating that they are "better" than the other side. Anglos want to be better than francos; francos insist that pure laine is best. Any demonstration that one camp is better than the other gets touted in one language's papers and dismissed in the other's. One area of potential one-upmanship is our ability to speak our second language. This leads to the ironic situation of an anglophone trying to champion the anglo cause by speaking French, while a francophone demonstrates their superiority by answering in English.
Most people don't think about these things when they subconsciously shift to another language, of course. They may think they're being helpful. But we know the real reason for Montreal's verbal Olympics: beating the competition at their own game will win you the gold.
Early morning, a coffee shop. I reach the head of the line, put on a pleasant smile, and start my order: "Bonjour! Je prendrai une tisane au citron."
The barista smiles back, but something is amiss. Something in my accent must have revealed me for what I am: an anglophone. Though her own accent clearly marks her as a francophone, she is quick to show off her verbal virtuoso, "of course. Just a moment."
She brings me my tea. I refuse to let her get the upper hand in our dance of languages, "ça fait combien?"
"One-sixty-six," she says, barely pausing despite the challenging numbers.
I hunt through my change purse, "un-et-vignt-cinq, un-et-cinquante, un-et-soixante-quinze, un-et-soixante-seize!" Triumphant, I hand over my change. She takes it.
Finally, the numbers have vanquished her, and she reverts to her native tongue: "un-et-soixante-seize," she says, ringing open the cash register. "Et dix," she finishes, handing me a dime.
I smile broadly, "merci!" I take my tea and beat a hasty retreat, proud in the knowledge that my mastery of French is ever-so-slightly better than her mastery of English.
Montreal is hardly unique as a city with two primary languages. Many cities in Europe boast two or even three official languages, and many cities in the southern United States have unofficially adopted Spanish at least as much as Quebec has accepted English. What marks Montreal as special is the subtle games we play whenever we face a speaker of the opposite language.
In France, a visiting tourist who tries to speak in French will likely find the shop clerk switching to English, just like my barista this morning. The difference is that in France, the clerk almost always speaks better English than the tourist does French. In Montreal, the odds are good that both speakers are equally comfortable in their second language.
Why the verbal gymnastics, then? Why not stick to the inital language, instead of stubbornly keeping to the other person's tongue? One thing that gives Montrealers intense glee is demonstrating that they are "better" than the other side. Anglos want to be better than francos; francos insist that pure laine is best. Any demonstration that one camp is better than the other gets touted in one language's papers and dismissed in the other's. One area of potential one-upmanship is our ability to speak our second language. This leads to the ironic situation of an anglophone trying to champion the anglo cause by speaking French, while a francophone demonstrates their superiority by answering in English.
Most people don't think about these things when they subconsciously shift to another language, of course. They may think they're being helpful. But we know the real reason for Montreal's verbal Olympics: beating the competition at their own game will win you the gold.
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Also, I think it's so much our accents that give us away, as it is our conjugation of verb modes.
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I like that you just pressed on en francais. Would it be rude to say (in french) "Thank you! I'm learning french and need to practice" and finish up with a big friendly grin.
Long ago, I think I heard with Skylab and the Russian/American space program partnership, each of the astro-cosmo-nauts learned and spoke the other language. The theory was it's easier to hear your most native language, so the Russians would speak English and the Americans would speak Russian. And they all spoke math ;-) Seemed to work for them.
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The thing is, I'm *not* learning French. I consider myself at least good enough in French to handle a simple conversation with a barista. When I spent 10 minutes speaking to my ESL students in French yesterday (it was the last day, and I'd promised), they claimed to have caught only one mistake in all that time.
Yes, I'm still learning French. But I'd consider myself at least at the high-intermediate level. I don't speak in French to the shop clerks because I want to practice, but because I geniunely consider myself good enough in French to carry on a conversation in their language.
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I am certain I am being Polly-annaish about it, but hey... Feels better :-)
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1) they're trying to be helpful
2) it's the policy of the company
3) it's just easier to switch back and forth
4) they're trying to show off
Not everyone does it for all of those reasons, but those, I think, are the common ones.