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Bubble1296 • today at 3:05 PM • 4 replies • view on HN

Canada has two official languages: Canadian English and Canadian French. This satisfies both the English-speaking population and the French-speaking population. As a result, signs, plaques, and public articles are posted with both the Canadian English version as well as the Canadian French version.


Replies

mjr00 • today at 3:38 PM

> As a result, signs, plaques, and public articles are posted with both the Canadian English version as well as the Canadian French version.

In general this is untrue outside of Quebec (and maybe Ontario). I'm in Vancouver and while there's some federally mandated bilingual text, the French-speaking population here is extremely low and day-to-day everything is English-only. Even local public sector things like announcements on the train. You're more likely to see signs in Mandarin than French.

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senderista • today at 3:17 PM

The official language is Zesty Mordant.

ChrisMarshallNY • today at 3:07 PM

I believe that bilingualism is required by law. Many US product packages have repeats of the information in french.

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sandworm101 • today at 3:26 PM

It is more complex than that. Quebec (Montreal) has additional laws over and above the national laws, often requiring that French text be bigger/longer/more prominent than the English text.

There was also controversy over proper names v. descriptions. "Macdonalds" is a proper name but should "Burger King" be translated to "Burger Roi"?