Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
A French-language road sign in Repentigny, Quebec. French was named the official language of the province under the Official Language Act. Until 1969, Quebec was the only officially bilingual province in Canada and most public institutions functioned in both languages. English was also used in the legislature, government commissions and courts.
Quebec's population accounts for 23.9% of the Canadian population, and Quebec's francophones account for about 90% of Canada's French-speaking population. English-speaking Quebecers are a large population in the Greater Montreal Area, where they have built a well-established network of educational, social, economic, and cultural institutions.
Quebec is the only one of Canada's provinces to feature a Francophone (French-speaking) majority, and where anglophones (English-speakers) constitute an officially recognized minority group. According to the 2011 census, French is spoken by more than 85.5% of the population while this number rises to 88% for children under 15 years old. [ 1 ]
Franglais is commonly spoken in French-language schools in Ontario and Alberta, as well as in DSFM (Division scolaire franco-manitobaine) schools in Manitoba, where students may speak French as their first language but will use English as their preferred language, yet will refer to school-related terms in French specifically (e.g.
Although there is a sizable English-speaking population in Quebec, French is the only official language of the provincial government. At the same time, many services are provided in English, such as health services, education, legislative activities and judiciary services. [71] Many government services are available in English and French.
It is very uncommon for Canadians to be capable of speaking only the minority official language of their region (French outside Quebec or English in Quebec). Only 1.5% of Canadians are able to speak only the minority official language, and of these most (90%) live in the bilingual belt. [52]
Knowledge of the two official languages is largely determined by geography. Nearly 95% of Quebecers can speak French, but only 40.6% speak English. In the rest of the country, 97.6% of the population is capable of speaking English, but only 7.5% can speak French. [89]
A Quebec French stop sign A Québécois French speaker, recorded in Slovenia. Quebec is the only province whose sole official language is French. Today, 71.2 percent of Québécois people are first language francophones. [16] About 95 percent of Quebecers speak French. [3]