In the last post I undertook to explain why language is such a big deal in Quebec, and how it lies at the heart of the separatist debate.
Let’s start by stating the obvious: language matters. Without shared language, it’s hard to carry out the most basic of human interactions. This much you know if you’ve ever visited a country where you don’t know the language.
The second, somewhat more subtle point is that language is hard. On one level this is obvious, too. But what you don’t realise as a monolingual is that it remains hard, even once you have a working grasp. We effectively take a decades-long intensive course in our native language, without ever giving it much thought. It’s very hard to match that investment later in life. In fact to some degree it’s impossible, because our receptivity to new languages greatly diminishes after childhood. (Using a language learnt in adulthood actually recruits different parts of the brain relative to languages learnt as a child.)
Consequently, operating in a second language is a challenge. Otherwise-trivial tasks cost mental effort. You make mistakes, kick yourself for forgetting a word, misunderstand and are misunderstood. You feel like your IQ has dropped. That’s the dynamic, modulated and amplified by thousands of individual experiences, that you have to imagine in thinking about the sociological import when a group of people raised on one language face economic and social pressures to operate in a different language. Continue reading “Separatism in Quebec – part 3”