What’s the French for “Pizza?”

Out of my hotel room window, I can watch cars line up at the McDonald’s drive-thru. They are there almost any time I look. If I tilt my head just a bit I can see the blue “t” of a Walmart sign. Though I can’t see it, I know there is a Taco Bell just around the corner. But such evidence is misleading. I’m clearly not looking out a hotel window in Columbus, Ohio, or Hereford, Texas. The McDonald’s sign promotes their “Saucisse McMuffin avec oeuf.”

I am in the old city of Quebec (founded 1608). The first European settlers in the area spoke French and the Québécois have never gotten over it. The official language of the province is French. All the road signs are in French—only French; ironically, the neighboring provinces of Ontario and New Brunswick use both English and French on their road signs. Fortunately, stop signs (“Arrêt”) are octagonal.

Pat and I sometimes couldn’t find anyone else who spoke English; when we did, it was often an older person. The problem wasn’t insurmountable. I even resurrected enough of the French I had studied years ago to order breakfast one morning (Saucisse McMuffin avec oeuf sans fromage). Okay it wasn’t elegant.

I often thought of the old 1953, Jimmy Kennedy song about Constantinople becoming Istanbul. It has the line, “Istanbul was Constantinople/Now it's Istanbul, not Constantinople . . . Why did Constantinople get the works? /That's nobody's business but the Turks.”

That the Québécois have chosen to hold onto the French language is nobody’s business but theirs.

An old joke goes:

“What do you call someone who speaks three languages?”

“Trilingual.”

“What do you call someone who speaks two languages?”

“Bilingual.”

“What do you call someone who speaks one language?”

“An American.”

Americans do sometimes brashly assume everyone speaks English or, at least, ought to speak English. (Not an unreasonable assumption: in much of the world people are eagerly studying English.) We Americans are sometimes provincial; convinced everyone ought to be like us.

But I know places in Columbus where signs are in eight languages. I was recently in a hospital room where there was a phone that allowed doctors speak to patients, though interpreters who spoke one of 200 languages.

As individuals we Americans might be a bit narrow-minded from time to time. But on the whole we know we’re not the only folks in the world. And, contrary to widespread rumors, we want strangers to feel welcome. It’s a good attitude. N'est-ce pas?