User:CJ Withers/Quebec French (socio-political history)

Language Policy

For information on all of the various languages spoken in Quebec, see article on Language demographics of Quebec.

This is particularly due to historical and socio-economic ties as well as to the predominance of Quebec French in French Canadian media and cultural productions.

Although one can observe first hand that Quebec French is the de facto dominant variety in Canada and Québec, there are no statistical data specifically on Quebec French. The reason for this goes back to the meaning of the word "French". Both in official legislation and in all materials for the Canadian Census conducted by Statistics Canada, the term "French" is meant to include all varieties, be they domestic or from overseas. However, due to Québec's demographic and cultural weight, one should infer that the majority of native speakers of French in Canada, as well as in and around Québec, do indeed use Quebec French in a host of situations.

What's more, the census data on second language speakers is derived from self-reporting. On the census questionnaire, participants are asked whether or not they can hold a conversation in French. Given that what is meant by "conversation" is undefined or vaguely understood, responses to this question are unreliable not only for attempting to estimate the number of non-native speakers of Quebec French but also for varieties of French all together.