# French-speaking people in world cities outside France



## eklips (Mar 29, 2005)

Metropolitan said:


> Try to talk more respectfully to people Virtual. There's no reason to get offensive here.
> 
> You can go anywhere in Brazzaville or Pointe Noire and everyone speaks French there. I know this because I've been there and this is my direct experience. It not simply the elite, but anyone, even in the Shanty towns and even in the countryside.
> 
> Of course, some are speaking more fluently French than others, that's sure, but you can ask questions in French to anyone in Congo and they'll always answer you in French.



Sorry Metro, didn't really intend to be rude by saying that 

Well, I don't know about Congo specificaly, but I have red some stuff, and talked with Senegalese and Malian people about the subject, and they all said that french was only spread amongst the elites, and that people generaly spoke Wolof (for Senegal) or other languages.


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## Metropolitan (Sep 21, 2004)

jmancuso said:


> port-au-prince, haiti - population 1.3 million would probably be #2 after montreal


Well, in the specific case of Port-au-Prince, people are talking Haitian creole which is still very different from mainstream French and not understandable by most international French speakers. That's the city I've hesitated the most to add to the list... but as the official language of Haiti is French, I considered it would be discriminatory to remove it.


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## Metropolitan (Sep 21, 2004)

dennol said:


> @Metropolitan
> 
> What about Liège in Belgium? I would say it's big enough to be on your list.
> 
> ...


Thanks for the link Dennol. Actually, I've based my list on the one from world largest metropolitan areas from World-Gazetteer. In that specific list, Liège is included in a huge conurbation they've called "Alma" which spreads over the Netherlands (Maastricht), Germany (Aachen) and Belgium (Liège). That conurbation makes 2 million people, but as many of them are Dutch and German speaking, I don't believe it could be included as a whole. It's true that I've added their Lille-Kortrijk metropolitan area, but French speakers are still the majority of the 1.7 million people listed in that metro area.

Okay, as I haven't made this table for a universitary thesis, I think I could still add the 600,000 figure you've mentionned for Liège.


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## Brice (Sep 11, 2002)

virtual said:


> Sorry Metro, didn't really intend to be rude by saying that
> 
> Well, I don't know about Congo specificaly, but I have red some stuff, and talked with Senegalese and Malian people about the subject, and they all said that french was only spread amongst the elites, and that people generaly spoke Wolof (for Senegal) or other languages.


This is true is Rwanda or Madagascar or Democratic Republic of the Congo but not in Senegal, Mali, Cote d'Ivoire and Centrafrique. French is widely spoken by everyone.


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## Josh (May 30, 2004)

Metropolitan said:


> That's a total myth. When you go in African French speaking countries, everyone speaks French. Everyone. Not 20% as some mentioned, everyone.
> 
> I agree that some speaks it better than others, but that's completely another story. I don't consider that someone doesn't speak French as long as he has not read Racine or Corneille. As long as you can have a conversation with someone without much problem, I consider people speak the language.
> 
> ...


I know that French is taught in schools and there's many people who understand and speak French but it's not their mothertongue, it's not their first language. In Kinshasa or Brazzaville most people have an African language as their mothertongue, not French. Just like in Antwerp for example, were virtually everyone understands and speaks French but Dutch is the mothertongue of the people there.


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## Metropolitan (Sep 21, 2004)

virtual said:


> Sorry Metro, didn't really intend to be rude by saying that


There's no problem. 



> Well, I don't know about Congo specificaly, but I have red some stuff, and talked with Senegalese and Malian people about the subject, and they all said that french was only spread amongst the elites, and that people generaly spoke Wolof (for Senegal) or other languages.


Well, it depends about what we're talking about. There's nothing absolute in languages and that's even more true in Africa where the borders between languages are very blurry.

Congolese may not speak French in their own family (I haven't spied them so I don't really know), but they still speak it in social life. Now how much they speak it varies a lot according to their level of wealth, education, and so on and so forth. That's rather obvious... but bilinguism and even trilinguism are still very widespread. Indeed, often Congolese speaks an African dialect with their family, but they use Lingala or French for business. TV and most radio are in French, and they are a lot more spread among the society than we could believe.

The thing is that everyone has still at the very least enough notions in French to explain to you your way in the street if you've got lost. As I've told earlier, the level of fluency varies a lot, it's not a binary system with Mister Alpha speaking French and Mister Beta not speaking it. Actually, if you would arrive in Bamako and ask to your taxi driver or anyone else if he speaks French, he will seriously consider this as an insult.

What I say here in the case of Congo is true in most of Africa. Well in Kenya it would be English and not French, but the system would be somewhat the same.


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## Metropolitan (Sep 21, 2004)

Josh said:


> I know that French is taught in schools and there's many people who understand and speak French but it's not their mothertongue, it's not their first language. In Kinshasa or Brazzaville most people have an African language as their mothertongue, not French. Just like in Antwerp for example, were virtually everyone understands and speaks French but Dutch is the mothertongue of the people there.


Maybe, but at the difference of Antwerp, everything is in French in Congo : TV, Radio, ads in the streets, newspapers, and so on and so forth. There's not the equivalent of the Dutch language which would be spoken by everyone. The thing is that there are many languages in those countries, which are themselves divided in dialects.

In Europe, we're used to cross a border and see suddenly everyone speaking the same language which is different from the language at the other side of the border. When you're in Lille, everyone speaks French... and when you arrive in Kortrijk, everyone speaks Flemish. It's a lot more blurry in the case of African languages as there haven't been any kind of uniformisation according to a specific territory. As such, French is by far the national language spoken by everyone.

However, Brice is still right. There's a slight difference between Congo (Brazzaville) and RD Congo (Kinshasa) in this specific case. I'm not sure you'll find many French speakers in Lubumbashi (RD Congo). Actually I don't know as I've never been there. However, I'm sure that everyone speaks French in Pointe Noire (Congo) and in the parts of Brazzaville I've seen (most likely in the whole city). Generally speaking Brice is right in mentionning RD Congo, Madagascar and Rwanda as the exceptions compared to the other French speaking countries in Africa.

Anyway to put this in a nutshell. There's really nothing wrong in putting most African cities in the list of French speaking cities, as the large majority of people speak French.


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## Taller Better (Aug 27, 2005)

Metropolitan said:


> Well, in the specific case of Port-au-Prince, people are talking Haitian creole which is still very different from mainstream French and not understandable by most international French speakers. That's the city I've hesitated the most to add to the list... but as the official language of Haiti is French, I considered it would be discriminatory to remove it.


Fairly often one encounters someone from Haïti in Montreal or even here in
TO, and I can usually understand some of what they are talking about ( I am 
not completely fluent). Maybe is it a question of education?


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## Taller Better (Aug 27, 2005)

Brice said:


> Bucarest in Romania and Tombouctou in Mali


Does anyone out there truly know about the state of the French language in
Romania? I used to know a man from there who told me it was a pretension
but that in reality French is not used by the vast majority. I would no more have considered Bucarest a French speaking city than I would have Manila a Spanish speaking city, but I have never been to either.
Call me old fashioned, but I would consider a French speaking city to be
one where you could walk up to most people, ask a question in French,
and they would answer you. 
In this respect, I don't think cities like New Orleans would ever qualify as
a French speaking city.


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## 2 for the road (Dec 5, 2005)

jmancuso said:


> port-au-prince, haiti - population 1.3 million would probably be #2 after montreal


but montreal isn't 2nd, more like 5th


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## DonQui (Jan 10, 2005)

2 for the road said:


> but montreal isn't 2nd, more like 5th


In terms of total language speakers it most likely is.

:|


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## HirakataShi (Feb 8, 2004)

Josh said:


> I know that French is taught in schools and there's many people who understand and speak French but it's not their mothertongue, it's not their first language. In Kinshasa or Brazzaville most people have an African language as their mothertongue, not French. Just like in Antwerp for example, were virtually everyone understands and speaks French but Dutch is the mothertongue of the people there.


The same is true in South Africa. Everyone can speak English, since it is taught in schools, but less than one-tenth the population speak it as their mother tongue. Still, no one would say South Africa isn't an English-speaking country or that Johannesburg isn't an English-speaking city.


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## Taller Better (Aug 27, 2005)

DonQui said:


> In terms of total language speakers it most likely is.
> 
> :|


 60% of Montrealers have French as their mother tongue, and
the total population of Montreal is 3mill+. Kinshasha has a population of 9mill+. Math wasn't my best subject either, but what are the chances
of Montreal having the most French language speakers? Give it a bit
of thought.....


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## Metropolitan (Sep 21, 2004)

Taller said:


> 60% of Montrealers have French as their mother tongue, and
> the total population of Montreal is 3mill+. Kinshasha has a population of 9mill+. Math wasn't my best subject either, but what are the chances
> of Montreal having the most French language speakers? Give it a bit
> of thought.....


Okay, to end the debate on Montreal, I guess we all agree that it's economically speaking the 2nd most powerful French speaking city in the world.


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## snot (May 12, 2004)

virtual said:


> I think Brussels is something like 80% french speaking or something like that, however it will be politicaly incorrect to call it a french speaking city, as it is in flemish area


The french speaking are with more than 80% in Brussels. It's more close to 90%. Officially 85%-90% are french speaking, 15%-10% flemish (dutch speaking).
But in reality most dutch speaking people are billingual and a lot of new migrants don't speak Dutch or French. And Brussels has a lot of migrants! But most migrants end to speak french. With the internationalisation of Brussels english is also rising.

It's correct to call Brussels a billingual french-dutch city but it's more realistic to call it a french speaking city with dutch and other minorities.
Brussels is not in the flemish area but surrounded by it, even if the northern border is only 2 kilometers away from the french speaking part of Belgium.


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## carlisle (Nov 10, 2005)

I don't know if this is true, but I'm sure that when I did French in school we were taught, on more that one occasion that Montreal was the largest French speaking city in the world... larger than Paris they said. It's only in this thread that I remembered that and thought 'hang on... isn't Paris bigger' is anyone else being taught this? Is it still being taught in British schools?


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## snot (May 12, 2004)

The blue part is Brussels, officially billingual, in practic overall french speaking.
Arround Brussels are Flemish suburbs with important french speaking comunities. 6 flemish municipalities have a special billingual status.
The red line is the Belgian 'language border' . South of this border is the french speaking Walloon region.
Brussels suburbs extend over this border. Many (rich!) french speaking suburbs are there.
Brussels has 1.018.000 people and most of them have french as first language. In the Flemish suburbs more than 100.000 people are french speaking. In the Walloon suburbs and satelite towns live also 150.000 or more.









This is the map of the huge commuting area of Brussels. Everyday more than 362.000 ppl commute to Brussels. 200.000 of them are flemish, the rest is french speaking. The red line is the language border. 
Depending of the critics used Brussels has a metro area between 2,5 and 3,3 million. About 1,5-2 million of them are french speaking.


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## snot (May 12, 2004)

carlisle said:


> I don't know if this is true, but I'm sure that when I did French in school we were taught, on more that one occasion that Montreal was the largest French speaking city in the world... larger than Paris they said. It's only in this thread that I remembered that and thought 'hang on... isn't Paris bigger' is anyone else being taught this? Is it still being taught in British schools?


Stupid conclusion:

inside city limits:
Montréal: 1,9 million / 60% french is about 1,1 million french
Paris: 2,1 million is about 2,1 million french :sleepy: 

with suburbs Paris has about 10 million ppl, more than al french speaking canadians!


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## snot (May 12, 2004)

Xäntårx said:


> In Europe, some regions around France are almost 100% French-speaking, in rural Wallonia,


Not rural Wallonia, but whole Wallonia except a very small German speaking part. Wallonia has officially 3,3 million ppl, about 70.000 German speaking and a few thousands Dutch speaking.


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## snot (May 12, 2004)

Metropolitan said:


> This list is certainly incomplete, but I've tried to pick the main cities which are officially French speaking. However, I haven't listed cities in which it's very easy to find French speakers as Cairo or Ottawa since I didn't consider them as "officially" French speaking. The figure stands for their metropolitan area according to World-Gazetteer :


This list is not correct. Metro area Brussels is bigger. And Lille-Kortrijk is not a real metro area, just an European transfronterial cooperation.
In most of colonial countries french is not really a first language.

I would say Paris, of course and Montréal and Brussels are most important french speaking cities.


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## snot (May 12, 2004)

I don't know exactly but Algiers and cassablanca for example is in fact arabian speaking. Not?
And Kinshasa is french the lingua franca for the Babylonian melting pot of Congolese languages?


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## Taller Better (Aug 27, 2005)

The Montreal statistic is near and dear to people's hearts, and I strongly suspect 
most will simply not want to recognise that African cities are larger... I think
there are a lot of socio-economic forces at play here.


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## snot (May 12, 2004)

Metropolitan said:


> Thanks for the link Dennol. Actually, I've based my list on the one from world largest metropolitan areas from World-Gazetteer. In that specific list, Liège is included in a huge conurbation they've called "Alma" which spreads over the Netherlands (Maastricht), Germany (Aachen) and Belgium (Liège). That conurbation makes 2 million people, but as many of them are Dutch and German speaking, I don't believe it could be included as a whole. It's true that I've added their Lille-Kortrijk metropolitan area, but French speakers are still the majority of the 1.7 million people listed in that metro area.
> 
> Okay, as I haven't made this table for a universitary thesis, I think I could still add the 600,000 figure you've mentionned for Liège.


Alma is bullshit. There is no reasonable statistic that can argue for a metro area. It's just a transfronterial European region.
Same with Lille-Kortrijk, its only because some count Lille Kortrijk as 1 urban area it becomes a metro area. If you count them as 2 seperate urban area ( in fact they are seperated) they are not a metro area at all because there is no commuting between the two agglomerations.


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## streetscapeer (Apr 30, 2004)

Taller said:


> Fairly often one encounters someone from Haïti in Montreal or even here in
> TO, and I can usually understand some of what they are talking about ( I am
> not completely fluent). Maybe is it a question of education?


education in what? French?

Haitian-Creole (Kreyol) and French are not mutually intelligible...you won't understand Kreyol if you only speak French, you could probably pick up some words here and there....but that's the same thing among many related languages.

The great majority Haitians speak Kreyol and French!


_N'a we pita _ (see ya later)
_Á plus tard_ (see ya later)


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## Metropolitan (Sep 21, 2004)

snot said:


> Alma is bullshit. There is no reasonable statistic that can argue for a metro area. It's just a transfronterial European region.
> Same with Lille-Kortrijk, its only because some count Lille Kortrijk as 1 urban area it becomes a metro area. If you count them as 2 seperate urban area ( in fact they are seperated) they are not a metro area at all because there is no commuting between the two agglomerations.


Yeah I agree with this Snot, but I'm not responsible about this it's simply World-Gazetteer which works this way and it's the only decent list of international metro areas I can come with.I could probably replace the Lille-Kortrijk figure from WG with Lille official one from the INSEE. People wouldn't be angry about that I guess.


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## snot (May 12, 2004)

Josh said:


> Just like in Antwerp for example, were virtually everyone understands and speaks French but Dutch is the mothertongue of the people there.


I don't know if everyone in Antwerp speaks french!
Most understand basic words but that's all, no? Only few can speak french as a second language.


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## Taller Better (Aug 27, 2005)

streetscapeer said:


> The great majority Haitians speak Kreyol and French!
> 
> QUOTE]
> 
> ...


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## Josh (May 30, 2004)

snot said:


> I don't know if everyone in Antwerp speaks french!
> Most understand basic words but that's all, no? Only few can speak french as a second language.


Not really, most people do speak French very well.


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## snot (May 12, 2004)

^^
Do you mean that flemish people speak french very well generally of especially in Antwerp, cause I wouldn't say that most flemish speak french very well, certainly not the younger ones. A lot of flemish don't speak french at all or very bad.


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## You are to blame (Oct 14, 2004)

snot said:


> This list is not correct. Metro area Brussels is bigger. And Lille-Kortrijk is not a real metro area, just an European transfronterial cooperation.
> In most of colonial countries french is not really a first language.
> 
> I would say Paris, of course and Montréal and Brussels are most important french speaking cities.


The list is more correct than you may think. Most people in those African cities have a knowledge of french but also of other languages. All media, print and televised is in french, all government documentation is in french. If you don't have a knowledge of french you would find it difficult to get into a profession and life will be much harder. 

Why is it so hard to except that Montreal is the 5th french city?


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## Josh (May 30, 2004)

snot said:


> ^^
> Do you mean that flemish people speak french very well generally of especially in Antwerp, cause I wouldn't say that most flemish speak french very well, certainly not the younger ones. A lot of flemish don't speak french at all or very bad.


I mean Antwerp specifically. The Jewish minority in Antwerp is usually French-speaking and the city in general is pretty "French-loving". A lot of (older) people from Brussels often go shopping in Antwerp.


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## Mekky II (Oct 29, 2003)

snot said:


> This list is not correct. Metro area Brussels is bigger. And Lille-Kortrijk is not a real metro area, just an European transfronterial cooperation.
> In most of colonial countries french is not really a first language.
> 
> I would say Paris, of course and Montréal and Brussels are most important french speaking cities.


Of course Lille is not a real metro area, it's more a tentacular and spectacular conurbation of more that 3.7 millions inhabitants (1/3 of belgium population) and give gigantic slaps to Lyon and Marseille that believe are the second most populated areas of France.


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## PhilippeMtl (Aug 17, 2005)

Économiquement, Montréal est deuxième. En terme d'investissement, Montréal est deuxième. En terme de visibilité, Montréal est encore une fois la bonne deuxième. En terme de culture, Montréal tient toujours le deuxième rang. 

Il n'y a pas que la population qui compte pour déterminer l'importance d'une ville à l'échelle mondiale. Bruxelles, Marseille, Lyon (...) et même Québec vont suivre bien avant les villes africaines ou antillaises.


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## eklips (Mar 29, 2005)

^^ the point is not wether or not the city is important, but the population, and anyways, it is a "western-centric" vision that makes you say that, for many people accross africa, culture coming from kinshassa or Dakar are much more important than far away Montréal


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## Bikkel (Jun 8, 2005)

That's very true virtual. http://www.budamusique.com/ or the Netherlands based Dakar Sounds label. It's a crying shame how we underrate culture in Africa.

My city probably has a high percentage of people speaking French, even Arnhem's football club is named in French: Vitesse. Seat of Paribas for example too - though bombed about ten years ago. On a Spring Sunday, you'd see many old Citroëns cruising the streets here. Arnhem got a nice present from Paris in 1823 which was the tallest building after the main church; the Belvedère in Park Sonsbeek. France's historical ties with Rumania and Poland also may have lead to particular cities having a disproportionate amount of francophiles.


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## Liverpool8 (Feb 3, 2006)

snot said:


> ^^
> Do you mean that flemish people speak french very well generally of especially in Antwerp, cause I wouldn't say that most flemish speak french very well, certainly not the younger ones. A lot of flemish don't speak french at all or very bad.



Snot, you need to be able to differentiate between what you want to be the case and what is the case. Don't let your Francophobia weigh you down. You Phlegmboys are all the same - no wonder you call yourself snot! I went to Antwerpen on a school trip (or should that be Anvers  )and everyone, everywhere spoke perfect French! :yes: Snot - stop putting the *twerp* into Antwerpen. You are letting a great city down with your obsessions.


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## snot (May 12, 2004)

^^
From what do you make your conclusions?, by the moment I'm in my fathers home in CHIMAY, Wallonia. My father is a french speaking Bruxellois. And I speak french with him. In fact I spoke french until my 5 years when my mother moved to Gent in Flanders. 
I could say i'm billingual, but my french isn't that perfect. But the only flemish people who speak french as good as me are VERY uncommon, except around Brussels. Yes, overall flemish people are good in french but more and more english is taking over. A lot of young people don't speak french anymore. A lot of older people also never learned it. Here in Gent I know a few french speaking people and they moslty communicate in English with flemish. I don't know why the situation would be that much different in Antwerp. By the way I'm sometimes working in an Antwerp company with people from Antwerp and the rest of flanders and their is also a french speaking Bruxellois and mostly he communicates in ENGLISH with the other flemish colleagues.
It's true that flemish are good in french, and in shops or in public they will try to speak french with a francophone but not more than 25% of flemish can speak a descent french. 25% of the flemish even have a very poor french. The other 50% can help them quit good in french but not real conversations.
The level of french amongst the flemish is a lot higher in and aroud Brussels of course.


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## snot (May 12, 2004)

Josh said:


> I mean Antwerp specifically. The Jewish minority in Antwerp is usually French-speaking and the city in general is pretty "French-loving". A lot of (older) people from Brussels often go shopping in Antwerp.


Ok, I was ignoring this. 
But don't generalize this to much.


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## snot (May 12, 2004)

Mekky II said:


> Of course Lille is not a real metro area, it's more a tentacular and spectacular conurbation of more that 3.7 millions inhabitants (1/3 of belgium population) and give gigantic slaps to Lyon and Marseille that believe are the second most populated areas of France.


Of course Lille has a real metro are but this case is blowen up a lot.
Mais avant de ruiner ce thread sur le cas de l'aire urbaine Lillois je t'invite a discuter dans le bar à vin sur le forum francophone.


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## snot (May 12, 2004)

snot said:


> The level of french amongst the flemish is a lot higher in and aroud Brussels of course.


And a little bit higher in Antwerp, especially with older ones.


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## snot (May 12, 2004)

PhilippeMtl said:


> Économiquement, Montréal est deuxième. En terme d'investissement, Montréal est deuxième. En terme de visibilité, Montréal est encore une fois la bonne deuxième. En terme de culture, Montréal tient toujours le deuxième rang.
> 
> Il n'y a pas que la population qui compte pour déterminer l'importance d'une ville à l'échelle mondiale. Bruxelles, Marseille, Lyon (...) et même Québec vont suivre bien avant les villes africaines ou antillaises.


Des villes comme Lyon, Marseille, Paris, Montréal et Bruxelles sont aussi des vraies villes francophones, les villes Africaines sont plutôt des villes ou le français est la deuxième langue.


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## snot (May 12, 2004)

You are to blame said:


> The list is more correct than you may think. Most people in those African cities have a knowledge of french but also of other languages. All media, print and televised is in french, all government documentation is in french. If you don't have a knowledge of french you would find it difficult to get into a profession and life will be much harder.
> 
> Why is it so hard to except that Montreal is the 5th french city?


It's not about those cities in Africa but Lille-Kortrijk or Alma, those are not real metro area's.


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## Godot (Sep 25, 2005)

PhilippeMtl said:


> Économiquement, Montréal est deuxième. En terme d'investissement, Montréal est deuxième. En terme de visibilité, Montréal est encore une fois la bonne deuxième. En terme de culture, Montréal tient toujours le deuxième rang.
> 
> QUOTE]
> 
> ...


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## snot (May 12, 2004)

^^

Nice try? try yourself!

First argument: economics, true: no non-western city can match with the economics of a western city.

second argument: mottertongue, true: colonial countries don't have french as first language, the population have there own mottertongues. French is only used as lingua franca between different ethnicies and language groups and for official and foreign matters.

Racism???

Than you don't know the situation in Africa. It's western arrogance to say an african city is english or french speaking cause those countries have there own languages. Africans have to fight to see there mothertongues educated at school. African languages have to emancipate against the old colonial languages.
So if you tell Kinchasa for example is french speaking, you are true for big trading, politics, foreign affairs, communication with strangers,education and the elite. But most people have there own mothertongue: Kikongo, Lingála, Tshiluba or Swahili. French is the official language, vestige of colonial oppresion.

The maghreb countries have now Arab as official language, French is only the second language, in colonial past the official language and used for education.
Now French is the language of the governement, the companies, diplomats and tourism.


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## You are to blame (Oct 14, 2004)

snot said:


> ^^
> 
> Nice try? try yourself!
> 
> ...


We know that they know other languages as well but French is the dominant one that is used by the media, government and education and other institutions. It doesn't matter if it's the populous 2nd or 3rd language because it’s the 1 language that everyone needs to know.


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## snot (May 12, 2004)

Not everyone needs to know french in Kinshasa, the trade language for example is Lingala.
Really, is it so difficult to accept that a colonial city is not really a French speaking city?
And cities like Cassablanca, Rabat or Algiers are Arab speaking not french. In Amsterdam nearly everyone speaks English but is it an English speaking city? No, the people speak Dutch.

So you have 3 degrees.
1. the real french mottertongue cities like Paris, Genève, Liège or Lyon, or Montréal and Brussels but the last 2 are billingual
2. colonial cities with french as official language, some of them are very french some have french as official language next to the national language(s), most people speak there own languages but the majority can use french for basic communication
3. colonial cities with an strong official language, french is used as the language for diplomats, some trade and bussiness and in higher education. Everyone speaks the local language but french is nowed by the majority for basic communication


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## Godot (Sep 25, 2005)

snot said:


> Not everyone needs to know french in Kinshasa, the trade language for example is Lingala.
> Really, is it so difficult to accept that a colonial city is not really a French speaking city?
> And cities like Cassablanca, Rabat or Algiers are Arab speaking not french. In Amsterdam nearly everyone speaks English but is it an English speaking city? No, the people speak Dutch.
> 
> ...


first, montreal IS a former colonial city. if had you ever visited it you would notice how much english is spoken. if you had read this thread you would know that only 60% of the people in montreal have french as their mother tongue. as for montreal being an economic powerhouse, it ranks 30th in north american cities. had you ever visited montreal, these are a few of the things you may have noticed. you want to dismiss the african cities and not rank them as a french speaking city larger than montreal, or let them into the 'club'. you do not want to be thought of as racist. choose one or the other. adieu.


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## snot (May 12, 2004)

^^


snot said:


> inside city limits:
> *Montréal: 1,9 million / 60% french is about 1,1 million french*
> Paris: 2,1 million is about 2,1 million french :sleepy:





snot said:


> the real french mottertongue cities like Paris, Genève, Liège or Lyon, *or Montréal and Brussels but the last 2 are billingual*


So I don't know where I was ignoring the case of Montréal.

Look I don't care if there is an African 'french speaking' city with more inhabitants than Montréal or Brussels. It's not important wich city is the biggest.
But the issue here is 'French speaking world cities outside France'
Some made a difference between Montréal and African cities and I only gave an argument for this statement.
You can't count Maghreb cities as real French speaking cities because the official language and the most spoken language is arab.
You can count Kinshasa as a french speaking city but you can argue about it. The elite and rich Congolees will speak perfectly French but for most people French is only the second language like Dutchmen, Danes or Fins speak english.

The case with Montréal is totally different the mothertongue for 60% of inhabitants is french and only french.

And it's more racist to denie the African languages than to accept those people to have very big language groups spoken by ten millions of people and that they deserve to learn there mottertongues at school, it makes education more accesible and it breaks with colonial tradition and cultural oppresion.


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## samsonyuen (Sep 23, 2003)

^ ^True, Montreal is also a colonial city, but the difference is that most of the Francophones are descendents of France, rather than formerly conquered peoples (as in Africa).


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## De Snor (Jul 28, 2002)

Godot said:


> first, montreal IS a former colonial city. if had you ever visited it you would notice how much english is spoken. if you had read this thread you would know that only 60% of the people in montreal have french as their mother tongue. as for montreal being an economic powerhouse, it ranks 30th in north american cities. had you ever visited montreal, these are a few of the things you may have noticed. you want to dismiss the african cities and not rank them as a french speaking city larger than montreal, or let them into the 'club'. you do not want to be thought of as racist. choose one or the other. adieu.


I have visited Montréal several times and it is no longer an economic powerhouse.Toronto hangs like a dark cloud over the city,MTL used to be important but this is no longer the case.
However why isn't it tolerated to use non french languages on public spaces ?
That famous "Bill 101" is in charge I guess but when you walk in the city you find some strange names like "Rue University" or "Beaver Hall"
On the other hand the french spoken here is far away from the french that is used in France. 
You are correct that alot of montrealers speak english and I never had any problems communicating to them altough I speak french very good.
Probably this entire language thing is one of the pleasant things in this city.


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## Godot (Sep 25, 2005)

snot said:


> ^^
> 
> 
> So I don't know where I was ignoring the case of Montréal.
> ...


<C'est la profonde ignorance qui inspire le ton dogmatique>
-Jean de LA BRUYÈRE

pour la dernière fois adieu!


@samsonyuen- 
"^ ^True, Montreal is also a colonial city, but the difference is that most of the Francophones are descendents of France, rather than formerly conquered peoples (as in Africa)." 

as in.... they are white descendants? 'french speaking' is 'french speaking', my friend  do you believe all english speaking people in your city must be descended from english immigrants? you are english speaking; did you descend from english immigrants? or, did you descend from formerly conquered peoples? why is it you speak english? many people in montréal speak french for social or political reasons, not because they learned la langue de Molière in the cradle. be aware, decendants of most french speaking people in montréal came from france 300-400 years ago, and much has happened in the interim. 
believe what your choose!


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## 3tmk (Nov 23, 2002)

Say what you want about Montreal and Quebec, but that isn't french they're speaking 
I'm kidding, but damn they were sometimes hard to understand when I visited.
When I hear them talk, it sounds like they're in pain.


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## Sergei (May 20, 2004)

3tmk said:


> Say what you want about Montreal and Quebec, but that isn't french they're speaking
> I'm kidding, but damn they were sometimes hard to understand when I visited.
> When I hear them talk, it sounds like they're in pain.


 It is French, unfortunately. But I really hate the accent, it makes a beautiful language quite ugly. uke:


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## Metropolitan (Sep 21, 2004)

3tmk said:


> Say what you want about Montreal and Quebec, but that isn't french they're speaking
> I'm kidding, but damn they were sometimes hard to understand when I visited.
> When I hear them talk, it sounds like they're in pain.


It's easier for a French dude to understand people from Quebec than for an American to understand a Scott. Despite this, both Americans and Scotts speak English.


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## 3tmk (Nov 23, 2002)

Metropolitan said:


> It's easier for a French dude to understand people from Quebec than for an American to understand a Scott. Despite this, both Americans and Scotts speak English.


Yes, I do recognize the similarities between the two comparisons.
But in other cases like in the Balkans, they would already be called two different languages and people would probably be fighting wars about it.


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## Metropolitan (Sep 21, 2004)

3tmk said:


> Yes, I do recognize the similarities between the two comparisons.
> But in other cases like in the Balkans, they would already be called two different languages and people would probably be fighting wars about it.


That's also true.


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## streetscapeer (Apr 30, 2004)

Scottish English is basically another language...seriously


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## nanonano (Dec 5, 2005)

Metropolitan said:


> It's easier for a French dude to understand people from Quebec than for an American to understand a Scott. Despite this, both Americans and Scotts speak English.


It is like America/Jamaïque.I went to Montréal and could anderstand most things but it sound very funny! Old or rurale maybe.I think the Egnlish used a lot by many people. Many speak English and French mix.


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## DonQui (Jan 10, 2005)

nanonano said:


> It is like America/Jamaïque.I went to Montréal and could anderstand most things but it sound very funny! Old or rurale maybe.I think the Egnlish used a lot by many people. Many speak English and French mix.


I wonder if this is a common trend. There are several words that are used only in "American" English that are actually archaic English words. And countries like Argentina even use a verb conjugation that is so archaic that is used in the rest of the Spanish speaking world as specifically as an exaltation in religious writing.


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## brisavoine (Mar 19, 2006)

Metropolitan said:


> There's a slight difference between Congo (Brazzaville) and RD Congo (Kinshasa) in this specific case. I'm not sure you'll find many French speakers in Lubumbashi (RD Congo). Actually I don't know as I've never been there.


Apparently, French is widespread in Lubumbashi too, judging from these pictures taken in the city.









































































Bit of a Belgian influence I reckon. Lol.


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