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From: tjhorton@utai.UUCP
Newsgroups: can.francais
Subject: le monde nouveau
Message-ID: <3999@utai.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 19-Jul-87 15:35:43 EDT
Article-I.D.: utai.3999
Posted: Sun Jul 19 15:35:43 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 19-Jul-87 17:36:44 EDT
Reply-To: tjhorton@ai.UUCP (Timothy J. Horton)
Distribution: can
Organization: CSRI, University of Toronto
Lines: 38

J'ai une questionne pour les etudiantes de la histoire:

   Quelles excentricites passes a conduissait a la situation
   du l'amerique du nord actuel, dominee par la langue anglais,
   quand les Francais et les Espagnol ont fait les efforts a
   prenner une piece de ce conntinent.

Maybe I had better try in english:

   Why was it that english inhabitation dominated the formation
   of the New World, while both French and Spanish forces were
   taking chunks at the same time.  Was it the social structures at
   the time, the home governments' policies, the state of affairs
   in Europe, the strengths of navies...?

The reason I am asking is that had the New World been dominated by
the French, the current language of technology and commerce would most
probably be francais, as it was for a period of about 400 years.

North American society (even California :-) would be a bastion of
French hauteur:  perhaps the English would be trying to sneak in 
in boxcars, and the Spanish (not necessarily Mexican) would be putting
through "loi 101" to protect the spanish culture.  No engulfing 
discussions about whether to include accents in computer postings :-)

After all, it's funny that France is south of England, while Quebec is
north of anything english.  Was it that someone navigated better, or what?

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Timothy J Horton (416) 979-3109   tjhorton@ai.toronto.edu (CSnet,UUCP,Bitnet)
Dept of Computer Science          tjhorton@ai.toronto.cdn (EAN X.400)
University of Toronto,            {seismo,watmath}!ai.toronto.edu!tjhorton
Toronto, Canada M5S 1A4               "Lobster quadrille, anyone?"
-- 
Timothy J Horton (416) 979-3109   tjhorton@ai.toronto.edu (CSnet,UUCP,Bitnet)
Dept of Computer Science          tjhorton@ai.toronto.cdn (EAN X.400)
University of Toronto,            {seismo,watmath}!ai.toronto.edu!tjhorton
Toronto, Canada M5S 1A4