Quebec Says 'Non' To English-Only Video Games 554
daveofdoom writes "The French-Canadian government of Quebec is saying 'non' to English-only video games if French versions are available. 'It's causing a lot of consternation among retailers and gamers alike, who fear the rules will lead to delays in video games arriving in the province, and may not accomplish what the law intends, which is to promote and protect the French language.' This is a ridiculous rule, as game companies can simply stop creating French versions of games to bypass the restriction."
Re:many questions (Score:3, Interesting)
English only with French available? (Score:2, Interesting)
Does this make sense to anyone? If it is english only, then it would seem to me that french is unavailable by definition.
Re:Sigh. (Score:4, Interesting)
If this was an april fools day joke, they did a good job of making it subtle. This sort of thing is par for the course for the Quebec government. Mostly with these laws and media ownership/controls Quebec sovereigntists want to create a closed society where people don't feel an affinity with the country of Canada. Which is working over time, as Quebeckers more and more make that claim. I've heard many soverigntist youth make that statement. "Oh I don't feel Canadian I feel I am a Quebecois" or whatever. Well of course you do. Your mind belongs to your society in that way. They're certainly entitled to feel that way, but its intellectually dishonest I believe to manage a society this way, especially when society as a whole is becoming more global, Plus, its all words. The first Canadians were essentially Quebeckers. Quebeckers not associating themselves as Canadians just because of the existence of the rest of Canada is like Canadians not calling themselves North Americans, because American's "ruined the term". And also, theres really no point in trying to stave it off. I mean, Japan today isn't the same as Japan 100 years ago, but they're still a unique culture. Ah well, the best thing for Canada would be if they really did separate. Then we could actually stop giving them money, and appeasing them at every turn. Plus we could get rid of "official bilinguism" which doesn't really accomplish anything but keep qualified individuals from getting jobs. You need to speak English and French to get a government job, but in Quebec English is shunned. It's the hypocrisy of political correctness really. It really is a shame as most Canadians, myself included, generally like Quebec and are happy for them to speak french and be part of the social fabric. But when they bitch and moan over and over, it's just ridiculous.
I'm ashamed (Score:3, Interesting)
...There are some days when I'm ashamed to live in the province of Québec; not many but they do exist and today is one of those days...
For me, language is just a form of expression and has nothing to do with Nationality. Unfortunately, some of our leaders are so paranoid of being 'corrupted' by other cultures and loose their french 'identity' that they would go to any length to protect it. Most of them are too stupid to learn English and act like morons to hide their fears.
The Loi 101 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loi_101) with dictates this behavior is often mis-interpreted and goes too far.
A film is a form of art like music and is created in one and only one language. Subtitles can be put to help understand the dialogue but the original voice and emotions of the artist should be heard.
I mean for years; Arnold Schwarzenegger's voice has been dubbed by a guy who sells washers and dryers and picks lottery numbers on TV here in Québec. Talk about a mood killer. Fuck you Corbeil... (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yves_Corbeil)
Anyways, the same goes for music and to a lesser degree, to video games. Let the market regulate itself and let the game publisher decide if it is in their best interest to have a french version.
To regulate that is to go too far and intervene in private business matters.
Re:Choice fodder! (Score:1, Interesting)
As someone from Quebec. I cannot agree more.
Quebec laws about french are about segregation and creating two class of citizens.
To get my diploma, even if my native language is french, I had to go to an English school because my written french was not good enough.
That's right, the language laws have forced me to learn English to get a job, because my french was not good enough. Logical as hell.
Re:Choice fodder! (Score:2, Interesting)
As a quebecer, I was so fed up with this crap that I moved to BC.
Movies are better in their original language. I watch french movies in french and english movies in english.
Same for books.
Same for any technical profession where you have to talk to someone or learn cutting edge stuff not yet translated.
The french language is beautiful but not that useful and people fail to recognize it.
Hi, I speak French and I am sorry. (Score:5, Interesting)
As some people said in a few comments, Quebec has a law to claim the right of French speaking people to be served, to work, live, dream and eat in French. Why you ask? BECAUSE YOU ARE 350 MILLIONS OF ENGLISH SPEAKING AMERICANS AND CANADIANS! Is that so hard to understand? Yeah, we lost a war, so what? We are 80% of French canadians in the province of Quebec. English speakers are protected by the federal laws saying that every service must be available in French and in English (this is applied in Quebec, New-Brunswick and Ontario, but mostly in Quebec as there is no other place in the country where you will really get service in both languages).
Now, because you all like separatists scandals, I will disapoint you. It is not forbidden to sell an English game. Understood? Here's the catch that the evil French speaking aliens set up : you will be forbidden to sell the game in English if, and only if the game is made elsewhere in French. This means that if France (by the way, you just cannot get a game in English in France, by law) does not have the game until a few months, we in Quebec will have the English only version until then. When France (and Quebec) finally gets the game in French, well guess what? The two versions will be available! Bilingual like movies, or books, or every service offered by the Government of Quebec (unlike all other province). Thank yooooouuuuu bilingual country! Naturally, a lot of games are now localized, which means have more than one language in the same CD.
Now, what do you do for us, Rest of Canada, except insulting every frog in Quebec? All I hear is the eternal speak white, only said differently (and usually some stuff about the English Canada who won the war). Live in the 21st century, people. Let us, minority in Canada, speak French as we let you, minority in Quebec speak English. We pass great laws that preserve French and does not affect English in any ways. We almost all know a little of English in Quebec, but hey, IT'S NOT OUR NATIVE LANGUAGE. You just cannot think as good in an other language than your own. For example, all this text was great in my head, and now I don't know where I'm going. But hey, just come in Quebec, speak English in any store and you will be gladly served. French people will switch to English automatically, speak an English sounding more like a wookie, but we will try. I think we deserve the same thing. And in our case, we are only 7 millions in a sea of 350 millions. It is for our protection.
Je vous aime quand même.
mclc
Re:Sigh. (Score:2, Interesting)
Culture is important, and the seperatistes seem to want to preserve their linguistic "purity", politics, history or somesuch, but it ain't gonna happen. Unilingual French youth in Quebec have discovered the internet and are exploring beyond the predetermined boundaries. If I were cynical I'd mention that keeping Quebec unilingual would be a nice way to keep the locals voting for single-issue politics and keeping the home boys down on the farm and ignorant of the rest of the world. Again, ain't gonna happen, the damn kids are too curious, good for them!
Re:Choice fodder! (Score:4, Interesting)
Looks like its about time to surrender, eh?
If, by "surrender", you mean label the Catalan version of the game as French, then I agree. Let them fight over the definition of a language (if they refer to Catalan as Spanish, they'll discover what a real fight is).
Alternatively, just label the Spanish version as French. Then let them study the dialect of French spoken in rural parts of the Haute-Pyrenees departement of France (it's also intermediate between French and Spanish, but differing from Catalan). The inhabitants insist that it's French with no traces of Spanish.
Re:Color Me Unsuprised (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously, are any languages other than English going to be anything more than a curiosity in 100 years?
Wow... Wow. You are so wrong.
Right now, depending on how you define language users, there are over 1 billion English users in the world. Only around 375 million of those are native speakers. The remaining are non-native speakers.
Do you see what that means?
What that means is that people are adopting English as a second language; not using it at home. In fact, a lot of the "outer circle" English-speaking countries (e.g. India, Malaysia, Nigeria, Singapore) principally use English as a lingua franca due to the linguistic complexity of their geographical area. African countries adopt English because it's better for business, and because picking any of the local languages could fan the flames of aeons-old tribal rivalries. The Indian subcontinent just has too many languages and dialects to bother with, so they use English for business.
Nowhere are these people's first languages dying out.
Furthermore, large countries of lingua franca English users, like India, tend to develop their own variety of English, resulting in there not being a single English in the world, but World Englishes, an important concept introduced by the noted Indian linguist Braj Kachru. [wikipedia.org]
A "World English" is a variety of English that is comprehensible and regular within a certain population For example, in Singapore, the verb "reply" is transitive, i.e. people say "I replied his email," with the noun phrase "his email" functioning as the object of the verb "reply." Inner circle English speakers use it only as an intransitive verb, necessitating a prepositional phrase: "I replied to his email." This usage cannot really be considered a mistake, because every user of this variety of English uses this word this way.
Moreover, this idea of "one billion English speakers" really doesn't sit well with me. Pack up your things and take a long holiday sometime. Travel to a lot of different countries, and see how many people you can find who speak English. You'll find a lot more in Europe than elsewhere, but you might be surprised at how many people don't. I live in Japan, and despite English being a compulsory subject in jr. high and high school, finding anyone who speaks more than a couple horribly-pronounced words is pretty difficult. They just don't have an opportunity or need to use it most of the time, and classes are designed to get them to pass entrance tests, not actually speak or use the language (believe me--I've taught at every level of the Japanese education system--from first grade through university).
Then there is the oft-cited statistic about China becoming the biggest English-speaking country in the world. I really have no idea what that is supposed to mean. They, too, have compulsory English education, but backpack around China for a month or so and you can probably count on one hand how many people you ran into who spoke English. Furthermore, China is never, ever, ever going to let Mandarin lapse for English. Never never never. When your country is named "The Central Nation" (i.e. "the center of the world"), you take your language and culture very seriously. Mao's revolution was largely to kick Western influence out of the country (Japan was considered Western--that was not a mistake by any means). However, after taking power, even he could not convince people to abandon the Chinese character system (hanzi) in favor of the Pinyin romanization system. People saw even this literacy-boosting move as a betrayal of their Chinese cultural identity. So there's another English language myth busted, I hope.
Finally, let's look at that term I've been kicking around in this growing reply: Lingua Franca. ...The French language. Now, historically, it's a little more complex than that, but basically, a form of French used to be the trad
Re:Choice fodder! (Score:3, Interesting)
At one point, a movie/tv show from Quebec, in French, was shown in France. They had to use sub-titles so that the people in France could understand it.
Re:Choice fodder! (Score:3, Interesting)
Here, here! I am an Ontarian married to a Quebecoise! And I speak 3 languages. We right now life in Switzerland with 4 languages.
My point is that we in Canada need to get along!
I for one would like to see more Alberta politics! Alberta is not Quebec, bat Alberta, BC, and even the Newfies need to be more present!
Re:Most of these rules are. (Score:5, Interesting)
Every time I hear about protecting a culture I can't help but remember those displays in museums where they have dummies dressed as people of a bygone era, engaged in activities typical of such people. I fear that these "cultural protectionists" see people much like these dummies: not as people but as decorations, something to be kept in its place for their enjoyment.
If a culture dies, all it really means is that no one chooses to adhere to it. Why should they be deprived of the freedom to choose? The world isn't a museum and people aren't wax dummies on display.
Re:Not so much! (Score:3, Interesting)
I bought a game in Belgium, all the packaging was in Dutch. I figured since I can understand it (sort of) and it was in the bargain bin for only a few beers I'd give it a go.
When I opened it it was trilingual - English, French & German.
Re:many questions (Score:3, Interesting)
If even the people who grew up speaking these languages aren't interested in them any more, shouldn't they be allowed to change? Isn't restricting a language from evolving going to restrict a culture from evolving?