Canadian Language Demographics

With Canada Day around the corner, what’s more apropos than a post about Canadian Languages? Check out these statistics on Canadian Languages to see how you stack up language-wise to the rest of the country.

Of course we all know the two official languages of Canada are French and English. Over 98 per cent of the Canadian population can converse in either of these languages. Almost 58 per cent of the population considers their mother language (first language learned at birth) English. French is considered to be the mother language of 22% per cent of the Canadian population while 20 per cent of the population has a mother language other than French or English. Just over 17 per cent of the Canadian population is bilingual in French and English. Montreal is the largest bilingual metropolitan area. Over 70 per cent of the Montreal population is able to converse in both English and French.

Of the ten provinces and three territories in Canada, New Brunswick is the only official bilingual province. The rest have declared either French or English as their official language.pantai indrayanti

There are many other languages that are spoken throughout Canada, brought to our country through immigration. According to the most recent census done by Statistics Canada, there are over 200 different languages spoken at home by Canadians. The top ten most spoken languages among immigrants are Chinese Languages, Punjabi, Spanish, Italian, Arabic, Aboriginal Languages, German, Tagalong, Vietnamese and Portuguese. The Tagalong Language is the quickest growing language in Canada with a growth rate of 64.1 per cent between 2006 and 2011. In large metropolitan areas such as Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto Ottawa – Gatineau and Montreal, it is more likely for families to speak a language other than French or English at home.

Recently, a research article was release that took French and English out of the equation to show the prevalence of other languages amongst the Canadian population. The study found that the Tagalong and Arabic languages are popularly spoken among Canadian citizens and immigrants. The interactive map can be found here.

So, what languages does your family speak at home? We’d love to hear your input!

Happy Canada Day!

http://blogs.vancouversun.com/2014/05/23/what-are-the-most-popular-languages-in-your-province-interactive-map/?__federated=1

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/11/21/bilingualism-canada_n_4317165.html

http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/10/24/canada-census-in-graphics-the-new-face-of-language-in-canada-less-french-and-english/?__federated=1

http://www.cbc.ca/news2/interactives/map-languages-canada/

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/06/24/canada-language-map-english-french_n_7648452.html