Our bilingualism—a model for Mauritius?

The island of Mauritius is a multilingual, tropical paradise. Its 1.3 million citizens speak Mauritian Creole, a mixture of French and African languages, in everyday life. Thanks to a large immigrant population, many speak other languages such as Bhojpuri, Gujarati, Arabic and Cantonese. The Mauritian government uses English as the official language but French is also very important. Journalist Lorraine Malinder describes how the various languages and cultures of Mauritius thrive while the country strives to balance the use of English and French. The story unfolds at Mauritius sees Canada as a model of bilingualism (www).