"Province de Québec" Research Thread

[rookie_one]

No, that's patronizing.

That's like going to france and complaining that everyone speak french there, and that everything is written in french there.

Also, more than 85% of the population speak french in quebec as their main language, why in the blue hell should they all use english in their daily live instead of french just to please the rest of the continent ?

And saying that the federal government should standardise this is non-relevant, it's not under their purview, only under the purview of the provinces.

BTW, fun facts : most of the road signage in Quebec is inspired from the US, not what the other canadian province use

[bobgrey1997]

You forgot one fact: France is an independent country. Quebec is only a state withing a larger, primarily English-speaking country (though, like the US, I don't believe they have an official language).
While the majority of locals may speak French, the majority of citizens do not. Demanding all citizens of Canada learn French to be able to drive to another area in their own homeland nation is patronizing.
Just look at the video. Even the Quebec government agrees there, as they otherwise wouldn't have chosen to do anything to improve the signage.
No one is suggesting Quebec learn a foreign language. Just suggesting they use a secondary language they all most likely know anyway for a specific use in the sake of standardization with the rest of their own country.

[rookie_one]

Quebec is a nation by itself, and has been recognized as such by the chamber of common of the federal government(btw, yes, multinational countries exists, Switzerland and Belgium are example).

Second, pictograms were done during the 60s, and it was not to make it easier for outsiders to understand, but to make it easier for the people in the province to understand signage, as at the time we had the lowest rate of education in North America, consequence of what we call "the great darkness" (we managed to fix that after the reform of education started under the Lesage government).

Third you are wrong about for whom it's patronizing. Telling people on their homeland that they should abandon part of their culture (in this case language) to please their neighbors is patronizing. It's well known that Quebec main language is french, and if someone wants to move in Quebec, they should learn it instead of complaining like an idiot.

Finally, you know nothing about our history, so until you really want to learn instead of complaining "hurr hurr french is bad, hurr hurr English better because", shut up.

[bobgrey1997]

You keep forgetting one major fact, likely purposely to please your own case: no one is suggesting anyone abandon anything, but rather branch out with alredy pre-existing knowledge for a single aspect of daily life and infrastructure.
Also, Quebec is not an independent nation within Canada, though a movement does exist in the hopes to achieve independence. It might be best they win, as they have many differences beyond language that simply make managing it within Canada not very feasible, it would seem. While it remains part of Canada, demanding one a fellow Canadian citizen learn French simply to go the likely nearest large city to do some shopping on the weekend is just... dumb.
Also, who said anything about English being better? The only reason anyone suggests using it in road signage is because, regardless of how "good" English is (whatever that even means), it is the most spoken language in the world, and is by far the dominant one in North America. If anything can be considered standard, it is the use English in North American infrastructure. Not saying that to prove that is better, just saying that because it is true.
In any case, this thread is about the province (not nation) as it currently exists, or is maybe likely to by the time SCS gets around to researching it. As it seems, this French signage might be a think of the past by that point in favor of pictograms (with the obvious exception of cities and such on navigation signs, as those places will continue to use their existing names, for hopefully obvious reasons).
The only reason this "debate" started is because I was curious about this one place in North America that is completely surrounded by primarily English areas using only French on what is undoubtedly an essential element of a safe transportation infrastructure (using "safe" loosely here). I see no way simply being curious as to how a situation like this occurred is in any way patronizing.

[rookie_one]

First, ontarians can shop easily in their own cities, they don't need to come to Quebec.

Second, even if english is dominant in north america, it's nearly impossible to live in english in quebec outside of Montreal. Go live in Trois-Rivières or Sept-Îles only in english and tell me how well you will fare (spoilers : not well at all). The vast majority of the province live in french and barely use english in their daily lives, at home,at work, in public (I suggest you research the Charter of French Language BTW), to the point where if we switched to english for road signage, it would cause issues simply because it would not be the main language of the population. Hell, about 50% of the population is still unilingual french(a good part of those learned english, but never practiced it after school....which means that they lost the language since they never needed to use it).

Finally, the way you worded your question was worded as "Quebec should use english", which is patronizing as hell. There is ways to be curious without saying "it should not be like it is right now".

[TROPtastic]

I'm in full agreement that Québec should not make English the "standard language" for road signs. Given how many people are French-only speakers there, it's as unworkable a suggestion as saying that all the anglophone-majority provinces should switch their road signs to French.

A more reasonable suggestion could be that Québec should have all complex signs be bilingual, but IMO that should only happen if every province and territory does the same with French. I would quite like this (it would make the rest of Canada appropriately welcoming for francophones), but I don't have any realistic expectations of that happening. Even if it did happen, this suggestion would run into complex questions about the preservation of the French language in its primary North American home.

bobgrey1997, as a somewhat neutral third party to this discussion (I'm Canadian like rookie_one, but I'm mostly an anglophone), I think that you have missed a lot of the Canadian context that makes the French language inspire such passions in Québec. Canada is an officially bilingual country (unlike the US, which doesn't even have English as its legal official language), but outside of Québec and parts of the Maritimes, French is not widely spoken. If you go to the West Coast, for example, BC has bilingual road signs for federal facilities (ex. major airports), but all other signs are in English alone. Thus, if a Québécois(e) wants to go to another province, they have to learn English to read complex road signs just like how anglophones have to learn French to read some road signs in Québec.

Québec is the only bastion of the French language in North America, and this role is something that many in the nation take seriously even while desiring to remain part of Canada the state. This pride and protection of the French language can sometimes go too far (for example, a high profile case when a Québec government agency blocked a native French speaker from studying there because she had a single paragraph of English in her French thesis, or the controversial BIll 96), but generally the protection of the French language adds greatly to the richness of Canada as a whole, not just to that of Québec. While other provinces' road signs remain monolingual in English, keeping Québec's road signs monolingual in French is really a small price to pay to protect French and Canadian culture.

[Bob123412]

Personally I believe in freedom, so if the people of Quebec want to run there province and have everything in french than so be it, I don't live there. As much as it inconveniences me when I have to drive through to get home, I am able and willing to work around such issues.. Canada also doesn't have an interstate system like America does and the federal government. There are no real highway standards in Canada and each province is responsible for its own infrastructure and the federal government has no real jurisdiction. The real truth is, most signs don't have much text on them. Most signs just have numbers and names. and the few signs that do have words on them, well, its only one or tow words. Sure, the first time you go to quebec without knowing any french it might be a bit confusing at first. But most of it is pretty self explanatory and anyone with a working brain cell can quickly figure out what the few signs with text on them means.

The only sign that confused me for a long time was the wind warning sign and the only reason I figured it out is because New Brunswick has bilingual signs that have both the quebec and English pictures on them

[gt379]

I am glad everyone expressed themselves.

I want this research thread for the road system and ideas on how to build this massive province in the game.

[bobgrey1997]

I'd say it should be represented as-is at the time it is being developed.
If these signs are all in French in reality, they should be in-game as well. If they are bilingual, they should be in-game. If they are being changed in reality, and are at a certain stage of change at the time of development (such as cities being bilingual, but rural being French), then that is how they should appear in-game.
The only exception would be if they are being changed, but are projected to be done within the year at the time of development, SCS should probably represent them in their finished phase even if the DLC is released a few months before that is reality.

I say this because how we each may feel about this doesn't change how it is in reality. The people in charge of these decisions in reality couldn't care how we feel about it, so SCS shouldn't either. These games are beat when the areas they depict are done in a realistic way, not in the easiest or prettiest way.

[rookie_one]

Except for the few cities that have a bilingual status (and as such have the (in)famous stop-arrêt sign in real life), keep it in french, like it is in real life.