Native language policy and planning in Quebec

Abstract

The use of Native languages in Canada has been in decline, and these languages are in considerable danger of becoming extinct. While the Native languages in Canada are surrounded by one official language, English, most of the Native languages spoken in Quebec are surrounded by two, English and French. Nevertheless, some of the Native languages spoken in Quebec appear to have maintained their vitality as a result of language planning. In this thesis I argue that the language planning that was carried out in the late 1960s and 1970s in Quebec had a direct effect on the percentage of people who spoke a Native language as a mother tongue in the 1980s and early 1990s. As evidence, I use statistics from Statistics Canada from 1951 to 1991 that document the number of mother-tongue speakers of Native languages in Quebec. These statistics show a definite decline in the percentage of mother-tongue speakers of Native languages before language planning began. Conversely, there was a stabilisation in the percentage of mother-tongue speakers of Native languages after considerable language planning efforts had been undertaken.