When did French and English become the official languages of Canada?

Answer 1

French has been the official language since 1992[2] (although previous legal text have made it official since 1539, see ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts). France mandates the use of French in official government publications, public education outside of specific cases (though these dispositions are often ignored) and legal contracts; advertisements must bear a translation of foreign words.

Answer 2

Canada's Official Languages Act was passed in 1969.

Under section 2 of the Act, the purpose is to ensure respect for English and French and ensure equality of status and equal rights and privileges as to their use in federal institutions; support the development of English and French linguistic minority communities; and advance the equal status and use of English and French.

Section 16 of the Act very clearly states, "English and French are the official languages of Canada and have equality of status and equal rights and privileges as to their use in all institutions of the Parliament and Government of Canada."

Answer 3

It depends entirely on two major issues: (1) what you are willing to consider as "French" and (2) what part of France you are discussing.

(1) What you consider French: Language goes through numerous intermediate stages that are only different from one another in slight ways but become incomprehensible to each other centuries later. We have documents and petroglyphs in Paris and its environs that show the slow change from Proper Latin to Gallic Latin variants to Older versions of French (such as those spoken by the Normans in 1066) to modern French. A modern speaker of French would probably be able to go back to the 1200s or 1300s in Paris and be able to have near fluency with the people of that time. He could probably go back to the 700s or 800s and have a degree of communicativity, but not true fluency (imagine talking to an immigrant who only speaks 500 words of English or so -- how fluid would the conversation be). Beyond that point, the language would be so divergent from Modern French, that the French speaker could guess at meanings, but not well enough to have a proper conversation unless he also spoke Latin and would be able to bridge the gaps.

(2) Where in France: Numerous languages developed in the former Roman Empire and France was no exception to this. Other Romance languages that developed in France included: Occitan (also called Langue d'Oc), Burgundian, Provencal, Gascon, Normandian, and dozens more. There are also other languages that developed in France that are not Romance languages like Breton (closer to Gaelic), Alsatian (closer to German), and Basque (unrelated to any extant languages). The French language used today derives from the region of Paris and only extended to other regions of France through Parisian Cultural Imperialism over much of France. Regions in France's center were easier to "Frenchify" since their linguistic differences from Parisian were more nuanced. The Parisianization of their languages happened around 500 years ago. More distant areas, especially those on the periphery of French control and those that spoke non-Romantic languages were the hardest to subject to Parisianization. Some areas of Brittany and Alsace did not become majority-French speaking until the 20th century.
People began speaking the langue d'oil or Old French around 1200. But it wouldn't be till about 1650 that Middle French had beaten Old Provençal (langue d'oc) and Modern French was heard spoken out only in mainland France. But in Wallonia (southern Belguim, at the time part of Holland), Switzerland, (western part), Africa, Asia, and the rest of the Francophonie world!

Answer 4

By inventing the language. Before the Romans cam, the Gauls spoke a Celtic language. This got so heavily overlaid by Latin that most of the Celtic words disappeared. The Gaulish Latin was later modified by the Frankish invaders, which produced Old French, which gradually developed into the modern language.

Answer 5

Canada has been a bilingual nation for as long as it has been a nation. Both French and English were protected in the constitution in 1867. Both have been official languages ever since.

Answer 6

the first written document said to be in French is the "Serments de Strasbourg". The Oaths of Strasbourg date from 842.

Answer 7

the first written text to be considered French is part of the oaths of Strasbourg, dated 743 AD.

Answer 8

How did french become Frances official language