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Bilingual belt
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The bilingual belt is a term for the portion of Canada where both French and English are regularly spoken. It extends from northern New Brunswick in the east through southern Quebec, Eastern Ontario, Northern Ontario and Southern Manitoba.
Major cities in the belt include Moncton and Edmundston in New Brunswick, Montreal and Sherbrooke in Quebec, Ottawa and Cornwall in Eastern Ontario, Greater 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 overwhelmingly anglophone 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 in Western Canada, where the once significant French speaking populations were vanishing.
- Joy, Richard, Languages in Conflict: The Canadian Experience, Carleton University Press, 1972, ISBN 0-7710-9761-1.