Last Thursday, Douglas Walker of the University of Calgary presented a public lecture entitled “French in the Canadian West” in Olin Hall. Walker is a professor of French and Linguistics at Calgary and was brought to speak at Whitman as part of the Visiting Educators Program. 
The Visiting Educators Program is one the oldest series of lectures at Whitman. Every semester, all academic departments are invited to nominate a professor or educator outside Whitman to bring to campus. Once here, the lecturer will usually attend and speak in one of the classes in their field of expertise, after which they’ll deliver a public presentation on a topic of their choice.
Walker began his lecture with a brief history of the origins and development of the French language in Canada, with its first roots extending back to the French colonization of North America in the 17th century. After the preamble, Walker moved on the main focus of his lecture, the ways in which francophone culture and language were influenced by the arrival of English on the Canadian prairies.
According to Walker, the 18th century wars fought between England and France over the territories in the New World laid the groundwork for the establishment of the English language in Canada. After the English defeated the French in a decisive battle at Quebec City, English became the dominant language in the province of Quebec and has continued to exert a profound influence on French-Canadian culture ever since.
This trend continues to the modern day. Walker has studied its effects in a number of isolated Alberta communities. Citing statistics from the Canadian Census, Walker said that while 44 percent of families in Alberta identified French as the sole language spoken in the household back in 1981, the same survey in 2001 reported a figure of only 11 percent.
Walker is currently involved in three different research projects. The first is an international effort to track different varieties of French spoken around the globe. Walker contributes his expertise on Western Canadian French to this project. The second centers around the evolution of Canadian French as it moves from Quebec to the western prairies. The third is a language and culture project in Western Canada with an emphasis on language spoken in minority communities.
During his presentation, Walker played three audio tracks recorded from a series of interviews he conducted as part of his research. The interviewees were three generations of bilingual French and English speakers, all members of the same family. Using the recordings, Walker tracked the evolution of French as it moved through generations. As new generations appeared, French became less fluent in a particular family.
Walker was careful to note that this trend should be considered an evolution of the language rather than a deterioration, explaining that linguists are usually reluctant to make value judgments. He said that many factors contribute to the gradual integration of English into Canadian French, such as urbanization, mixed marriages and the influx of foreign cultures into the industries of Canada. According to Walker, this is a self-propagating trend. The greater the presence of English becomes in Canadian culture, the more citizens begin to speak English. The Canadian government has taken measures to preserve the francophone culture in the country, such as improving the education system and creating more government offices where a French vocabulary is required.
Professor Edith Liebrand from Walla Walla Community College attended the lecture.
“I loved the lecture,” said Liebrand. “It was fascinating to see how languages changes so rapidly from generation to generation. It is important to keep a record of those changes. Walker went there and tape-recorded that, so in a sense, he is freezing this French knowledge, this spoken French. … I thought that was very interesting.”
