The Cosmopolitan Blog

My mom is french, so French is my mother tongue. But I grew up in London, so by the age of 4, i knew both languages, my parents had made sure of it. For many years after that, I was told how lucky I was to fluently speak 2 languages, and how it’s an advantage because it helps in a child’s development and in her abiliity to learn more languages more quickly later on in life. So do Montrealers know how lucky they are? By its very history and location, Montreal is a fully bilingual city.

For those of you who don’t know, Canada has 2 official languages, English and French. English is predominent in most of the provinces in the West, all the way to East to Ontario. Quebec province is mainly french, but, Montreal, even though it’s in Quebec, is also a few kms away from Ontario, so both languages are common.

Sure, the city has a french side and an english side, but you can speak either language in either side and you will be understood. What’s amazing (my friends in the States and in Toronto still don’t believe me on this one), is that you can live in Montreal very comfortably even if you only know one of the 2 languages. All shopowners, taxi and bus drivers, business owners, everyone is bilingual. All products, restaurant menus, official paperwork, everything is written in both languages. There are parts of NDG and Westmount (areas of Montreal), where you have to search to find the french speaker, and there are still areas in Old Montreal and in the East where a shop owner will answer you in french even if you spoke to him in English, for sure, but that’s not the norm.

So, seriously, do they know how lucky they are? I don’t think so. The fact that my friends who live 3 states away in Massachussets or even those who live in the same country (in Toronto, in the neighboring province!) don’t know this, to me, means that Montreal, in it’s advertising, reputation and history does not count this as an advantage, or something to brag about. Unfortunately, I feel that language is this city is always used as a political argument or weapon (long story, i won’t get into the politics in this post), it’s always like a competition, it’s always a cause for controversy (such as deciding which school you can go to depending on the main language of your parents or where you were born).

Somehow, in Montreal, you’re constantly having to pick sides, you’re either an Anglophone or a Francophone… WHY??? I mean, sure, assert your identity and claim your preferred method of communication. Absolutely. But once you’re done with that, be proud of living in a city where there is a 2nd important language, embrace your differences!

Did no one every explain to you that 1+1=2 (and even sometimes 3: the concept of synergy, that together 2 things can have a greater effect that if they were separate, i.e. where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts)?

I don’t care how separatist you feel, surely no one can deny that having 2 languages (and thus 2 cultures) is a benefit. No, it doesn’t not mean that one will swallow the other, if you play it smart, if you value each other, your differences and your similarities. It was a benefit to me to learn 2 languages as a child, it’s a benefit today still to have Montrealer kids learn both languages, it’s a skill that will help them in their lives later on. Learning to live with someone who doesn’t speak the same language, that doesn’t have the same culture, learning this without having to leave your own city, that is priceless.

So, Montrealers, do you know how good you have it????