Map Monday: Exploring International Francophonie Day and the francophonie in Canada in maps (and words)

I bet most of you didn’t know that March 20 is International Francophonie Day. Or even what it is! Established in 1970, UNESCO describes the Francophonie as a coming together of nations and states that celebrates the cultural and linguistic diversity that makes up the world. That is a reason I can buy into. Language represents far more than just a means of communication (good and bad), it represents one’s culture, history, and sense of pride. Just ask people whose cultures have had their language taken away or who feel their native language is at risk. Just ask people whose hearts are warmed by hearing others speak their native language.

According to a Canadian government website:

La Francophonie, officially established in 1970, is currently a group of 88 states and member governments and observers that share French as a common language, as well as values in common. It is an important player in international relations that represents 1 billion people, including 300 million Francophones, on the five continents.

[To view any of the maps in more detail, just click on its image.]

I’m not so sure I believe this claim that all these member states share values in common, although it’s a noble aspiration. If you look at the map you’ll quickly realize that many of the countries where French is the spoken language, or one of the main spoken languages, speak French because they were colonized by France. As we know, colonization was almost always another way of saying being subjugated by others in your own homeland. I’m pretty sure francophones around the world don’t embrace similar values any more than all the people in the world who speak English (or Chinese or Spanish or Russian) share the same values. If only! To that point, I noticed in one Francophonie map I looked at that Myanmar has been expelled from the Francophonie. I’m guessing it was a values issue!

As most people who ever read my blog will have figured out, I am a strong believer in the world finding common ground on which to get along and appreciate one another, including each other’s history, culture, and language. That’s why I’m such a huge fan of Canada’s Multiculturism Policy, established in 1971, which is intended to preserve the cultural freedom of all individuals and provide recognition of the cultural contributions of diverse ethnic groups to Canadian society.

Undoubtedly, another reason this is something I am fairly passionate about is that I live in a country that is officially bilingual – English and French – and that I live in the only province in Canada where both English et français are recognized as official languages. I understand just how important the preservation of the French language is to my fellow New Brunswickers who are Acadians – and francophones; it’s far more than their language, it’s the recognition of the survival of their history and culture against all odds. Quebeckers feel similarly about their history and culture. Because of this, Canada actually has three members in the Francophonie: Canada, the province of New Brunswick (Nouveau-Brunswick), and la province de Québec.

This map shows how French speakers are distributed across Canada in percentage by population.

Québec has a large majority of francophones and is officially unilingual French. Les québécois work diligently to protect and promote their history and culure in the middle of an English-speaking continent. But some of these percentages above are misleading. Ontario has a population in excess of 15 million people, meaning that the 3% of their population that is French-speaking counts for around 500,000 people. That’s nearly 3 times the population of Prince Edward Island!

Here’s a map showing the distribution of francophones (franco-Ontarians) in Ontario.

And here’s a map showing the distribution of francophones (Acadians) in New Brunswick.

Now let’s take a look at the history of the Acadians and why preservation of their culture and language (and music and fun) is so important. French settlements existed throughout what is now the Maritime provinces starting with the arrival of the first French settlers (as opposed to even earlier seasonal fishermen) in 1604. They fished, but they also farmed. They learned to get along with their Mi’kmaq neighbours, and would occasionally band together to keep the British at bay.

In the 1600s, Acadia looked like this. The island labelled Île Saint-Jean is, of course, now known as Prince Edward Island. Few people pay any attention to the fact that it already had a name when the French arrived. The Mi’kmaq had known it as Abegweit long before any Europeans arrived.

In 1755, when the British had taken over several strategic locations in what’s now Nova Scotia (including Halifax) and the Acadians refused to sign oaths of loyalty to the British Crown, the Brits began what they were known for, brutally expelling people from land they wanted. They rounded up the peaceful Acadians, locked them in their churches, burned their barns, and forced them onto ships whose captains had been given no clear direction on where to take them. These “deportations” lasted for a several years, until the Brits were satisfied that they had taken over the land. BUT … many Acadians had fled to the woods of northern New Brunswick and even to the Magdalen Islands (Îles de la Madeleine). And eventually, many found their way back to New Brunswick. However, many more ended up in Lousiana, hence the word “Cajun”. This map shows the forced deportations in 1763-67.

A reminder of which European colonizers were where in North America in the early 1700s.

And now a reminder to us all of who have been there for millennia but who are so rarely mentioned in these historical disputes and incursions between European colonizers. To our collective shame.

As we welcome people into our communities who have left homelands around the world because of war, famine, climate crises, discrimination, or for better opportunities for their children, and as they’re working hard to learn English or French and a new way of life, may we appreciate the importance of their native language and its ties to what was and what might have been.