‘No French, no more’: Language-Based Exclusion in North America's First Professional Accounting Association, 1879–1927

The authors discuss the overrepresentation of Anglophone accountants vis-à-vis Francophone 'comptables' in the formative years of North America's first professional accounting association. On July 24, 1880, the Quebec government granted a charter to The Association of Accountants in Montreal (AAM), making it the first professional accounting associating in North America. The authors argue that in a linguistic market, where English was taken for granted as the official language of commerce, the founding members of the Association of Accountants in Montreal possessed a 'distinctive' cultural and linguistic habitus. They observe that the Association of Accountants in Montreal enacted for many years a number of exclusion strategies to effectively limit its admittance of Francophone 'compatibles' who possessed a different cultural and linguistic habitus. They maintain that when the Association of Accountants in Montreal eventually did explicitly embrace Francophone memberships, this was in order to counter the threat of a rival accounting designation. The first Francophone president of the Association of Accountants in Montreal was Alfred Cinq-Mars, elected to that position in 1905. The Association of Accountants in Montreal is today known as the Ordre des comptables agréés du Québec. The phrase "No French, no more" is taken from the title of a Zachary Richard song describing the experience of French speakers in Louisiana and has nothing to do with the Association of Accountants in Montreal.

Accounting History Review

Vol. 21

no. 2

163-184

2011

en