(Or: Long Live Bilingual Canada!)

by Matthew Furrow 

I have a simple question for Andrew Long in reply to his editorial of November 23rd: Why do you care?

Why do you care whether games in Canada are shipped with two manuals rather than one? Does it make the game too heavy to carry home when it's got two manuals in it? What's wrong with throwing out the French manual if you can't or don't want to read it? Other than for five seconds of your life, how does the presence of a French manual harass or inconvenience you in any way, shape, or form?

Your essay leaves me unsure as to what your problem is. You begin by being (rightly) angry at Squaresoft for not sending the right manuals with your game. Then you embark on a several-paragraph diatribe against Canada's status as a bilingual nation as if this is to blame for Squaresoft's poor distribution. Who is really to blame for the delay in games reaching Canada, the fiendish "French Language Police" or the company which doesn't have its act together enough to get the manuals in its games fast enough? It seems to me like you should be blaming Squaresoft, not bilingualism.

In fact, you should be glad you have a French FFIX manual to read, since if the same distribution error occurred in the United States and you happened to live there, you would have no manual at all. Instead you claim that you are being "forced" to read a French manual for FFIX. Your claim is entirely ludicrous; the "French Language Conspiracy" is no more responsible for Square's botched distribution than Santa Claus is. And you are by no means forced to read the French manual. Simply throw it in the garbage, and enjoy having no manual at all until the English ones get here. That seems like a simple enough solution to me.

The rest of your editorial is a mass of wild accusations which seem unrelated to your argument, including a harangue at the dastardly "French Language Police" and the Québec sign laws. Whatever your position on the language laws of Québec, such matters are irrelevant to your argument and seem designed more to stir up hatred against French-speaking Canadians than to raise a valid point about the FFIX distribution problem. The Québec sign law does not apply to video game manuals. Nor does the supposedly Gestapo-like Language Police enforce the presence of French manuals in games published in Canada. Other than attempting to inflame anti-French opinion, I see no reason why this whole part of your essay should be included in your argument at all.

In fact, I find myself completely unable to understand why you target Canada's bilingualism, and by connotation, Canada's French-speaking population, as the causes of your FFIX woes. You seem to resent our bilingualism, and I'm unable to tell why. Other than a minor delay in game delivery (which is the fault of the game distributors, not of the French people of Canada), how does Canadian bilingualism hurt you at all? Does it offend you that your milk carton says "Lait" on it as well as "Milk"?

You seem to be bitterly upset that a large proportion of Canada's population DARES to put their language on your cereal box. I fail to see why you should care about whether French appears on cereal boxes, milk cartons or video games, when there is English there too and all you have to do is read the language you prefer. If you're English-speaking, fine. Read the English. That hardly seems to me like French is being "rammed down" your "throat." You've got your English. Don't complain just because a large number of people in Canada can't read your language and happen to have theirs on your cereal box too.

I'm not even going to attempt to write about Quebec's language laws, either in defence or criticism. They are an extraordinarily controversial issue and not particularly relevant to RPGs. However, I would like to point out that everyone who is upset about the French language laws in Québec should remember that the official language of Québec is French, not English. Furthermore, if you were a French-Canadian attempting to preserve your language, culture and heritage amid an onslaught of English language and media, you would have quite different views about the necessity for laws to protect the French language. I'm not asking people to embrace all the laws in Québec, but I would like people to try to understand, if possible, what it would be like trying to preserve your culture and society in such circumstances.

To all those who resent Canada's bilingualism: all I can ask is, why should you care? It requires no effort at all to turn the cereal box around to the English side instead of the French side. If you were an ethnic minority in an area, you'd certainly appreciate being able to read your mother tongue on your cereal box or milk carton there. Why such resentment against French-Canadians because our country attempts to embrace their culture as well as yours?

To all those who are angry because their games are delayed or are shipped with the wrong manuals: Don't get mad at the Canadian government. Get mad at the companies which can't be bothered to treat their Canadian customers with the same respect as customers in other countries.