Kennesaw Tower
Our language
Paris Jensen, Wesleyan University
Imagine that an American student and an Algerian philosopher, each in their own way, utter the following sentence: “I speak French.” Do they speak the same language? And whether it is the same or not, what are we supposed to understand by such a proclamation? At the very least, the world is increasingly adapting to the idea that speaking French does not necessarily mean speaking like the French. When the term “Francophonie” was invented in the late 19th century, it was to effect a grouping[1]: today, it covers not only the geographical extent of a common language, but the particularities, the imbrications and sometimes the refusals that are part of this “speaking French.” Language theorists such as Étienne Brunet describe a modern linguistic field in which identity “rests on the affirmation of a difference” (740) and French does not always refer to the French of France. But in the same breath, Brunet invokes "our language" and "its value" (748). If there are plural Frenches, which we use without wanting to "reduce... languages to the One" to borrow Derrida's phrase (69), do not the diverse linguistic "we" also exist? How is such an identity formed?
For those who are not trying to defamiliarize themselves with language but the other way around, this question – how do you build a separate identity? – is a challenge that is not so much philosophical as practical. This is the case for the Melanson family, who share their daily struggle for – and sometimes with – the French language in the documentary En Français SVP . The Melansons live in Halifax, Nova Scotia, a province that is only 4% French-speaking (00:50)[2]. The father, Fabien, is bilingual, and the mother, Christine, knows some French as well, as they both come from the bilingual framework of New Brunswick, the neighbouring province.[3] Nevertheless, they built their lives as a couple “in English,” and English thus became the first language of their two sons, Mateo and Malec. But after the youngest, Malec, was born, Fabien realized how far he had strayed from his Francophone roots (02:54). He wondered how he could prevent the extinction of French in the next generation of his family.
The documentary begins when Mateo is old enough to move from daycare to kindergarten (the "big school" [06:11]). His father decides that the time has come to ensure that his children learn French, and that Mateo goes to a French-speaking school. In addition, the parents resolve to make radical changes to their family's linguistic habits, in short, to exchange English for French. The documentary depicts their experiences and progress over the course of a year. In short, it is the story of a young couple who make a conscious and conscientious effort to transmit a certain identity to their children through French. But this identity has little to do with France. So what does the concept of "our language" mean in En Français SVP ? How has the Melanson family redefined its relationship with language, expressed by this "we"? And what are the stakes for them in speaking French in Halifax?
"We" the family
From the beginning of the documentary, Fabien, as narrator, situates French in a familial context. It is the language he has always spoken in his parents' family (01:55), and now that his family has grown, he wants the new arrivals to be included in this linguistic "we." Consequently, the decision to speak French affects family belonging: it is important both for Fabien's new family to be integrated into his family of origin (so that Mateo and Malec can communicate with their grandparents, for example) and so that Fabien no longer feels "like a minority" at home (32:37). The changes the family makes to their routine (calling each other French, playing in French, and eating in French, for example [05:46]) represent a reworking of what it is like to be "at (us) the Melansons." They redefine themselves as a family: they are no longer Daddy, Mommy, Mateo, Malec and Honey (the chihuahua), but Papa, Maman, Mateo, Malec and Miel (08:58)!
At the beginning of this process, Fabien is the only one among them who feels "at home" in French. Malec has rarely heard French spoken (03:11), and for his part Mateo is revolted by the first French "experiment" attempted by his father, when Fabien dares to change the language of a favorite film (05:58). Christine does not feel comfortable either, because she has lived most of her life in English (02:09). A "family language" is therefore distinct from a "mother tongue": for Mateo and Malec (and for their mother) French is not the language they learned from their mother nor the first language they spoke at home.
However, it is possible that the concept of "mother tongue" is not useful in a bilingual case such as this one, because it was formulated in a historical context of diglossia. The idea that there was a natural language "succees avecques le Laict de la Nourice" (Du Bellay 113) was a counterweight to Latin and the "learned" culture learned at school. For the Melanson family, there is no natural language. There are only habits (French or English), which represent different social situations relative to language: a minority situation and a majority situation. Furthermore, the language spoken at school is no longer socially isolated from the one spoken at home. On the contrary, the family language is socially defined, with school being the main place where this language can be remade or reinforced.
“We” the French-speaking community of Halifax
The ability of schools to integrate children into the social world can be a dilemma for a minority population. On the one hand, schools have often served as a tool of assimilation, a site where the family language was absent or even openly forbidden. [4] On the other hand, one must attend school to benefit from the support and resources of institutions, without which one risks being erased from the public space. As a solution, Halifax francophones have established their own school system, which offers an alternative to compulsory integration and general exclusion. These schools function as the “nuclei” of the community (47:50). For the Melansons, school reinforces the family linguistic “we”—the idea that they are part of a francophone family—at the same time as it connects them to a much larger francophone network—that is, the idea that linguistic identity becomes an identity that they share with many other people. “Our language” expands to mean the language of a community.
Every day at kindergarten, Mateo sees the truth of what Fabien told him: that “it’s not just Dad who speaks French” (06:58). French is part of all his habits during the school day. The linguistic changes that Fabien imagined making in their family life (05:23) are realized for the first time at school: Mateo eats in French (with French-speaking friends [27:27]), he plays in French (26:42), and he works in French. Then, he brings these habits home: for example, when Mateo does homework at the kitchen table with his mother and they share moments focused on French (14:15). If you live together, habits are contagious: because Mateo's life is increasingly conducted in French, there is a stronger motivation for his mother to help him in French, and to take French classes herself to be able to better educate him (Christine and Fabien both take classes at the Alliance Française d'Halifax [17:22]). Thanks to Mateo and the École Beaubassin, the Melansons live (and describe themselves!) in French more and more. Take for example Mateo's "monte et raconte", the presentation he makes to his classmates about his family (20:20). By presenting a project in French about his family life, he attaches the language to the figures in his story ("nous sont francophones"), and he also attaches himself to his French-speaking audience ("ma famille et moi, nous sommes comme vous"). We cannot speak of "my family" (instead of "my family" or "min familie" for example) if there is no one outside the family who would be able to understand! Linguistic habits are necessarily relational.
Using Mateo's school as a starting point, the Melansons work to Frenchify their social and cultural milieu in Halifax. Over time, the "we" with which they share (and support) their linguistic identity grows. Mateo makes French-speaking friends, and Mateo's parents meet his friends' parents (24:28). Fabien works to find French-language services in Halifax for the entire family, including a French-speaking veterinarian for Honey (aka Miel) the Chihuahua (34:45). Even Santa Claus becomes French-speaking (29:13)! The family also seeks out new cultural experiences: the parents take their sons to French-language concerts and museums (30:15, 37:37). Together, they put away all their English-language books, and they borrow new books from the library (this time in French) (22:45). Through the ways in which they learn and share French, a linguistic space opens up for them. The Melansons develop a network large enough – of people, places and concepts – to allow them to live in French. This space is different from both Halifax English and other French spaces such as that of French in France: even if the processes of familiarization are similar, the connections and experiences that compose them are different, and therefore the resulting identity is not the same.
Each language community has a specific relationship with time as well as space. Over time, “ties” become lineage and “experiences” shared by a community become stories and myths. When the Melanson parents express their motivations for having their children learn French, they speak in terms of time: they suggest that it is a question of “their future” (49:16) and “our heritage” (03:42). But what heritage are they talking about?
"We" the Acadians
The Acadians were among the first settlers to arrive in this part of North America, in 1604 (Turcot). They were French by origin (therefore French-speaking), but the territory on which they settled changed hands constantly between France and Great Britain for a century and a half. It was a multilingual region from the beginning: a "mosaic of customs, nations, languages, legal and political enclaves still enjoying effective autonomy" as France had been in the previous century (Clerico 160). But the eighteenth century saw the rise of linguistic nationalism in Europe, and France and Great Britain were embroiled in perpetual religious and territorial wars (Hornsby). The English colonial government began to feel the presence of a French-speaking and Catholic community on "its" land as a threat. After a succession of failed assimilation initiatives, the English government decided to expel the Acadians (Turcot). Almost no one escaped deportation: either the Acadians were "deported" to a France they had never seen, or they were dispersed elsewhere in the colonies. It was only after the American War of Independence and the weakening of British power in the region that some of the deported population settled in Nova Scotia, close to their former lands.[5]
Because of the Great Upheaval, as it is called, “Acadia” has become a bit like the Francophonie—not a legal identity, not a territory, not something necessarily related to genealogy (Desjardins). It is an identity that “rests on the affirmation of a difference” (Brunet 740), and because of regional history, it is French that “makes us different,” as Mateo’s school principal asserts (47:55). The use of French in Halifax (the capital of Nova Scotia, the region where the deported Acadians settled) is part of a still-living Acadian tradition that has always differentiated itself in this same way.
For the Melanson family, speaking French connects them to Acadia. When Fabien suggests “manger en français” as a way of Frenchifying their family life, for example, this does not simply mean that they will speak French at mealtimes. This idea conceptually connects to Acadian traditions—such as cooking fricot, a soup that Fabien made with his parents as a child (32:04). Here’s another example: at the same time as the Melansons change the decorations on their walls from English to French (“family rules” becomes “rules de la maison,” for example), they decorate photos of Mateo and Malec with the Acadian flag (41:00). The fact that Mateo and Malec are the thirteenth generation of the Melanson family in Canada and have not been assimilated represents the survival of Acadians in the world and of Acadian traditions into the future. Historically, French was the fabric of Acadian life, so speaking French situates the Melanson children in this history. They themselves become the links between the past and the future.
In short, the “we” associated with a language can change a lot in the course of a year! For the Melanson family, its scope has changed from family to school, from school to Halifax, and from Halifax to Acadia (past and future). It is not a linear trajectory (except for the needs of the documentary!) but a compacting of links, a set of contexts that mutually define each other: the school brings a new perspective to the family language, the historical situation changes the role and stakes of the school, etc. At the level of experience, therefore, identity is relational and not categorical. The same goes for languages, which take on their meaning in the way they are used and in their situation in relation to other languages – like English and French living together in Halifax, in the Melanson family and in each of them. We ourselves are the intermediaries of the languages which are intermediaries in our lives, of this “we” which we seek and which we pronounce at the same time.
1. The word first appears in the book La France, de l'Algérie et des colonies , by the geographer Onésime Reclus. Reclus saw the spread of the French language as a way to ensure the perpetuity of the colonial empire (Baron).
[2]. Whenever specific time references are given without further information, they are referring to the documentary En français SVP
3. New Brunswick is the Canadian province with the largest proportion of French speakers outside Quebec, approximately 31% ("Statistics on Official Languages in Canada"). French in New Brunswick enjoys a protected legal status, requiring that it be used on an equal footing with English by the government ("Language Rights in New Brunswick").
4. For example, several laws prohibiting the teaching of French were instituted in the early 20th century, such as Regulation 17 in Ontario and the Thornton Act in Manitoba. The Thornton Act was not abolished until 1967 (Radio-Canada).
5. More information on the deportation and return of the Acadians can be found on the website of the Canadian-American Center at the University of Maine ( https://umaine.edu/canam/publications/st-croix/la-deportation-la-migration-et-le-retablissement-des-acadiens/ ). An extensive timeline of Acadian history is available on the website of Acadian Affairs and Francophonie of Nova Scotia ( https://acadien.novascotia.ca/fr/frise-chronologique-de-l-histoire-acadien ).
