After Wolfe defeated Montcalm on the Plains of Abraham in 1759, the victorious British fully expected that the French of Quebec would quit speaking French and become Anglophones. Eighty years later in 1839, Lord Durham advised that being patient with the backward French Quebeckers would be the best policy, for they would surely soon assimilate. Another 184 years have passed and there’s no sign that is going to happen any time soon.

In 1755 the French-speaking Acadians were forcibly removed from their homes in Nova Scotia, Many of them found their way back to New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island and they kept on speaking French. The provincial governments didn’t allow French language schools, but they kept on speaking French anyway. It took until the latter part of the 20th century until French language schools were allowed.

Some of the Acadians made their way to Louisiana, where there were other French speaking people. The state of Louisiana didn’t allow French language schools until the beginning of the 21st century, when they finally admitted they weren’t going to stop these people from speaking French.

When the Canadian prairies were being settled, Clifford Sifton was the minister of immigration in the Canadian government. He was determined to swamp the French speaking people of the prairies with Eastern European people who would assimilate to the English language. In large measure he was successful, but there were many French people who stubbornly continued to speak French. They tended to be discreet about speaking French in public because of the hostility towards French.

Times have changed. The descendents of those people are now mostly in the cities and are not at all afraid to be heard speaking French. The number of French-speaking people on the Canadian prairies is being increased by immigration and by children who attend French immersion schools. These schools are particularly popular with parents of Hispanic and Asian backgrounds. The chairman of the French language school system in Saskatchewan (for children who have French-speaking parents) is of African origin. The director of the Francophone cultural association in Saskatoon is a native of Argentina. A large number, perhaps the majority, of those who identify as francophones in Saskatchewan do not have family names that indicate a French origin.

And yet we read reports all the time in the English media that French is dying in Canada. Just remember that English speaking people have been making the same predictions ever since 1759 and it hasn’t happened yet. Statistics can be made to lie. The number of people who identify as having French as their mother tongue is no indication of the number of people who actually speak French on a daily basis.

This is true on a world-vide level, where there are approximately 100 million people who speak French as their mother tongue and 320 million for whom French is their primary means of communication. This number is growing rapidly and is predicted to reach 500 to 700 million by 2050. A large part of this growth is happening in Africa where there are many countries with French as the national language and the main language of education. These countries have a multiplicity of tribal languages and the difficulty and usefulness of operating an educational system for each of these languages should be obvious.

French is spoken on every continent and in more countries than any other language except English. There are other languages that are spoken by more people, but in most cases those people can only speak to others of the same ethnic background. French has become a bridge language, enabling people from a vast variety of ethnic backgrounds to understand one another.

Rumours of the demise of French should not be trusted. No matter where you live on this planet, it probably won’t take much effort to find someone near you who speaks French.