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Not far from where I walk almost every day is a well-travelled Montreal street, Victoria Avenue. It is situated on a north-south axis in the central west part of the city and possesses multiple personalities. If Victoria Avenue were a person, it could be characterized as exhibiting a dissociative identity disorder.

But I jest.

This street is actually very lively, densely populated and worth getting to know.

Victoria Avenue north is a mixed bag of languages and ethnicities. The diversity of languages heard and seen in the shops, schools, eateries, services, hospitals and every possible sort of work-life here have a greater variety than anywhere else in the megapolis of Montreal (Statistics Canada 2016). Although French is posted in the linguistic landscape, rather haphazardly I might add, upon entering the shops one is more likely to hear the dominant language of the shopkeeper, or indeed, on some occasions, English.

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