- Bilingual belt
The bilingual belt is a term for the portion of
Canada where both French and English are regularly spoken. It extends from northernNew Brunswick in the east through southernQuebec ,Eastern Ontario ,Northern Ontario andSouthern Manitoba .Major cities in the belt include
Moncton and Edmundston in New Brunswick, Montreal and Sherbrooke in Quebec,Ottawa and Cornwall in Eastern Ontario, Sudbury, Timmins and North Bay in Northern Ontario, and Winnipeg (specifically the community of St. Boniface) in Manitoba.Outside of this belt the population is overwhelmingly
francophone in Quebec, and overwhelminglyanglophone in the rest of Canada.The term was coined by
Richard Joy in his book "Languages in Conflict", where he found that outside of this belt languages were becoming more firmly entrenched, but within it both were thriving. This was especially noticeable inWestern Canada , where the once significant French speaking populations were vanishing.References
*Joy, Richard, "Languages in Conflict: The Canadian Experience", Carleton University Press, 1972, ISBN 0-7710-9761-1.
ee also
*
Acadia
*Franco-Ontarian
*Anglo-Quebecer
*Bilingualism in Canada .
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