Learning French: A Gateway to Canada

Amritsar, March 20, 2025: Department of Foreign Languages, Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar celebrated "International Francophone Day" on Thursday with an academic talk on the topic of "Learning French: A Gateway to Discover Canada" by Prof. (Dr.) Abhijit Karkun, former Chairperson of Centre of French and Francophone Studies, School of Languages, Literature and Culture Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

At the commencement of the programme, Sunaina, Assistant Professor in French, GNDU threw light on the relevance of French in the literary, cinematic and everyday sphere and how the International Francophonie Day plays a major role in making this language and its contributions visible world over. She also said that this day is celebrated annually on March 20th by the International Organisation of La Francophonie's 88 member states, to promote the French language and Francophone culture, uniting French speakers and lovers of the language worldwide. On an estimation, there are over 321 million French speakers across five continents. The objective of this talk was to elaborate on language and culture of Canada, especially of French speaking Canada.

Prof. (Dr.) Sunil, Head, Department of Foreign Languages, GNDU, Amritsar gave the welcome note by saying that today is the day and age of multilingualism and international competition. He highlighted the importance of French by saying that French is the second most taught language and fifth most spoken language in the world. As Indian literature is influenced by Rabindranath Tagore so is world literature by the French. Even words of English contain around 30% words of French. Coming to our Eminent Speaker Prof.(Dr.) Abhijit Karkun, he said that the more languages you know, the more you know of their cultures, which becomes a fertile ground for intercultural studies. Learning a Foreign Language widens one's perspective.

People who speak French are known as francophone and countries where French is spoken are Francophone countries. Though this language came to India due to colonisation but it has its benefits. In India, French is spoken in Chandernagore (West Bengal) and Puducherry. Then Prof. Karkun talked about the specificities of Canada, geographically, culturally and linguistically and emphasised on how French is promoted in all parts of Canada not just in Quebec, especially during the formation of government policies of that country.

Students attended the talk in large numbers, not just from the Department of Foreign Languages but also from other departments. Faculty members from other languages like Punjabi and Hindi also graced the occasion.