The bilingual belt is a term for the portion of Canada where both French and English are regularly spoken. The term was coined by Richard Joy in his 1967 book Languages in Conflict, where he wrote, "The language boundaries in Canada are hardening, with the consequent elimination of minorities everywhere except within a relatively narrow bilingual belt."
Joy's analysis of the 1961 census caused him to conclude,
| “ | the pattern so common during the 19th Century, of English- and French-speaking communities intermingled within the same geographical region, is now found only along the borders of Quebec Province, within a zone of transition separating French Canada from the English-speaking continent. This ‘Bilingual Belt’ includes Northern Ontario, the Ottawa Valley, Montreal, the Eastern Townships of Quebec and the northern counties of New Brunswick. | ” |
Read more about Bilingual Belt: A Bilingual Region Between Two Increasingly Unilingual Solitudes, Regions Within The Bilingual Belt, Demographic Trends in More Recent Years
Famous quotes containing the word belt:
“The shore is composed of a belt of smooth rounded white stones like paving-stones, excepting one or two short sand beaches, and is so steep that in many places a single leap will carry you into water over your head; and were it not for its remarkable transparency, that would be the last to be seen of its bottom till it rose on the opposite side. Some think it is bottomless.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)