Most readers will know that issues of language and culture are central to current Canadian social and political life. Recent constitutional crises have, one regrets to say, made the country – and Quebec in particular – excellent contexts in which to observe languages in contact, minority-group and ethnolinguistic dynamics, the relationship between language and nationalism, and the strains under which officially sponsored policies of ‘social engineering’ (bilingualism and multiculturalism) must now operate. In some settings, disputes over language and culture are largely symbolic; deeper problems between groups lie elsewhere, usually in political or economic domains, and language, or religion, or tradition act mainly as team jerseys. To discuss symbolism, of course, is not to discuss something inconsequential. The power attaching to what people believe best represents their culture can be considerable. Indeed, the intangible strength of ‘blood and belonging’ has made itself all too evident historically. In Canada, it is quite clear that this sort of powerful symbolic marking is at work but, in addition, the force of nationalism is itself central to much of the debate. It is not economic deprivation or lack of effective political representation which most accurately characterizes the Quebec sovereignty movement, for example. It is, rather, what John Stuart Mill referred to more than a century ago: