🚀 go-pugleaf

Sirius wrote in message <362e1ba6.0@news.total.net>...
>Welcome to Montr�al, you seem open-minded, unlike most of other English
>here. I am sure that if you stay here long enough you will try to speak
>French and you will not regret it. French is a beautiful and rich language.
>You will also find that if you have questions about the French language,
>everybody will be very pleased to answer you. Most of educated people love
>their language and are delighted to share it. What amazes me is that
English
>here do not jump on the opportunity to learn French. Well I understand why,
>but believe me, the language is everything and you will not see the world
>exactly the same after you know French. English here are stubborn and do
not
>learn French because they are lazy and for them it is a language of
loosers,
>and they would not make any money out of it. They are wrong. Do not be like
>them.

Thank you for this intelligent post.

I can't help but notice that your post (like everyone else's) is biased
towards your own preferred language.  Nonetheless, your post presents many
true points.

Most languages are rich and possess much beauty, but that's not the problem
with this debate.

What you say about English-speaking folks that live in Montreal (stubborn,
lazy, not open-minded)can be applied to just as many French-speaking folks,
and even "allophones" as they are called.  Most adults are lazy and don't
want to, or are too old, to learn a new language.  What I find hard to
believe, though, is that there are people living in the Montreal-area that
were born here and have lived here all their life and they cannot at least
understand both languages!

I don't believe that most people are anti-"French" or Anti-"English" either.
These just happen to be the languages that are involved in this absurd
debate.  It could have been Spanish and Portuguese, or Chinese and Japanese.
This is just the way it turned out because ships sailing from England and
France landed up this way and invaded this land hundreds of years ago and
they couldn't get along.

Today, the Anglophones are upset with the Francophones because the
governments of Quebec are Francophone and they represent the persecution
that the English language has suffered by these same governments.  It is
very upsetting to know that the manner in which the government is
"promoting" French is by squashing English.  You might think "Well, Quebec
is a French land".  Well, that's your opinion.  Don't force it on me by
acting as if it is true.  This reminds me of what I wrote about animal
rights on my home page at
http://www.pubnix.net/~rook/AnimalRights/animals.html, but I digress.

The Francophones are upset with the Anglophones because they feel that
Anglophones had too much control of the government and business and were
treating Francophones exactly as the current Francophone governments are
doing.  I think this may be why Quebec's license plates have been changed to
"Je Me Souviens" from the less vindictive, "La Belle Province".

Well, look at that, even my post is biased.  I guess it is hard to post
anything neutral.

                            -Ray.