Speak blanc

Abstract

Hugh Hazelton is the translator of the poem “Speak blanc”, by Sylvain Campeau, a poet and art critic in Québec. The poem was published in full in 2019, and was then adapted for a video by Alain Lefort for the 2021 Festival International du Film sur l'Art (FIFA) in Montréal. It is a long poem that examines the roots of the Quebec people; their struggle to preserve themselves as a people, especially through their language, under British rule; the impact of the arrival of immigrants from all over the world who enter the Francophone sphere, while retaining the memory of their own languages and cultures; as well as reflections on the fate of French Quebec in the future. The author also talks about indigenous peoples and their languages and links between them, as well as a new multilingual slang that is emerging among young people of all origins lately. This text is a shortened version of the original.