Street names and a city’s character
Julie from Metroblogging Orlando has recently asked me a pretty valid question: “I know some of your bloggers live downtown and I’d like to know if the situation really is getting worse…is Montreal losing its French soul a little because of so many English-speakers? (Not that I’m siding with the Language Police here. I’m just saying.)”
What brought this question are recent reports that Beaconsfield and a few other municipalities are refusing to change their street names so that French is predominant. While Montreal will be changing the names of about 30 streets, recently demerged Beaconsfield would have to make more than 200 changes. That’s a lot of new signs.
What irks me a bit is that some of the suggested changes sound really bad. To quote from The Chronicle, “City Lane should become Allée City Hall, East Gables Court to Place d’East Gables and Raspberry Crescent to Croissant Raspberry, the list suggested. Even historic Thompson Point should now be known as Place de la Pointe-Thompson”. I may be a French Canadian living in the West Island, but I still think that Lakeshore sounds way better than Bord du Lac.
The problem is that making exceptions is a slippery slope. Where do you draw the line?
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I’m in favor of keeping the original names just as many Quebec townships still have them. It’s part of the heritage, almost in the same way that tranferring everything into French is trying to preserve the French heritage. One of Montreal’s strengths is it’s bilingualism and sometimes these measures give the impression it should be squelched.
Where I grew up there are many French place names like much of Anglophone North America. Des Plaines, Belmont, Montrose, Des Moines, Fond du Lac, Sault Ste Marie, Detroit. It is part of the history of the place even if nobody knows what the words mean.
I prefer not changing the names, unless it’s into something easier to remember. Although, I can’t think of any street names that are difficult to remember.