Languages

Description: This thematic series groups different statistical products related to ethnicity, languages, and immigration. It features analytical documents of varying scopes, such as population profiles, reference materials, data products (including tables and factsheets), among other document types.

Description: Based on results from the 2022 Survey on the Official Language Minority Population, this research note provides contextual information on the combined reporting of English and French in the Census of Population language questions. It answers common questions on the interpretation of some language concepts, such as knowledge of official languages, mother tongue, language spoken at home, and first official language spoken.

Description: Release published in The Daily – Statistics Canada’s official release bulletin

Description: This publication brings together and analyzes a wide range of data sources in order to provide information on various aspects of Canadian society, including labour, income, education, social, and demographic issues, that affect the lives of Canadians.

Description: This report draws on data from the 2021 Census of Population, alongside previous census cycles to clarify the characteristics of the “silent speakers” of Indigenous languages in Canada. This term refers to those who have an Indigenous mother tongue that they still understand but can no longer speak well enough to conduct a conversation. Silent speakers thus represent a valuable reservoir of cultural and linguistic knowledge. By examining census data across multiple years, this study aims to illuminate the demographic makeup, geographic distribution, and long-term trends of this pivotal group.

Description: This report draws on data from the 2021 Census of Population, alongside previous census cycles to identify changes over time in the linguistic profile of Indigenous language speakers living in a Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) or Census Agglomeration (CA). In addition, supplementary statistics using the 2022 Indigenous Peoples Survey, which asks questions on the importance of Indigenous languages, were also included. Finally, 12 CMAs and CAs were selected for focused analysis, in order to highlight the specific linguistic communities in these areas.

Description: This study provides an overview of how minority official languages are integrated into child care services across Canada, using data from three sources. Data from the 2022 Survey on the Official Language Minority Population (SOLMP) provides information on the participation in minority official language child care among children eligible for instruction in the minority official language and their educational pathways from early childhood to primary school. Data from the 2022 Canadian Survey on the Provision of Child Care Services (CSPCCS) is used to highlight the use of minority official languages within child care facilities, while data from the 2021 Census of Population offers insights into language use among child care workers.

Description: Release published in The Daily – Statistics Canada’s official release bulletin

Description: Official language of daycare and reasons for attending, by elementary school language and type of program, age group and gender, for Canada, Quebec, Canada outside Quebec, by provinces and select regions, among sub-populations of children in a minority official language situation, 2022.

Description: Preference for daycare in the minority official language, by elementary school language and type of program, age group and gender, for Canada, Quebec, Canada outside Quebec, by provinces and select regions, among sub-populations of children in a minority official language situation, 2022.

Description: Proportion of centre-based, licensed home-based and unlicensed home-based child care providers, by the languages spoken with children and parents by employees, Territories.

Description: Data on use of English and French at work by healthcare professionals living in private households, by occupation and first official language spoken.

Description: Data on knowledge of official languages, first official language spoken, age and gender for employed healthcare professionals in private households, 2006 to 2021.

Description: Use of the minority official language to obtain services or information from municipal, provincial and territorial, and federal government employees by age group and gender, Canada, Quebec, Canada outside Quebec, by select provinces and regions, among adults in the official language minority population, 2022.

Description: Frequency of health care or services obtained in the community in the minority official language by age group and gender, Canada, Quebec, Canada outside Quebec, by select provinces and regions, among adults in the official language minority population who consider it important to receive health services in the minority official language, 2022.

Description: Main language of instruction at the post-secondary level, by level of study, by age group and gender, Canada, Quebec, Canada outside Quebec, by select provinces and regions, among adults in the official language minority population, 2022.

Description: All Indigenous languages spoken at home by single and multiple responses of language spoken at home, Indigenous identity, Indigenous language spoken at home and age for the population in private households.

Description: Data on knowledge of languages by generation status, mother tongue, age and gender for the population in private households of Canada, provinces and territories and economic regions.

Description: Data on knowledge of languages by immigration status and period of immigration, all languages spoken at home and age for the population in private households of Canada, provinces and territories and economic regions.

Description: Languages used by the business or organization in providing services or performing activities over the last 12 months, by North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), business employment size, type of business, business activity and majority ownership, fourth quarter of 2024.

Description:

This article looks at the prevalence of French-language knowledge among sales and service workers (salespersons, food servers, cashiers). Information is also provided regarding their use of French at work. There is a special focus on the metropolitan areas of Ottawa-Gatineau, Moncton, Sudbury and Montréal.

Description:

The Aboriginal Children's Survey (ACS) provides an extensive set of data about Aboriginal (Métis, Inuit, and off-reserve First Nations) children under 6 years of age in urban, rural, and northern locations across Canada. The Aboriginal Children's Survey (ACS) was designed to provide a picture of the early development of Aboriginal children and the social and living conditions in which they are learning and growing.

The survey was developed by Statistics Canada and Aboriginal advisors from across the country and was conducted jointly with Human Resources and Social Development Canada.

Description:

This is an analytical report on Services to Official-Language Minorities by Health Professionals. This report explores the availability of health professionals who can work in either official language to serve the needs of official language minorities and compares the number of those professionals with the distribution of minority and majority populations in each region of the country.

Description:

This article uses data from the 2001 and 2006 Census of Canada to look at the use of non-official languages at work among immigrants. Owing to the growing contribution that immigrants are making to Canada's labour force, languages other than English and French are being used more often in Canadian work places. The article examines which languages are used most often. It also looks at the impact of age, gender, year of immigration, education, official language ability and the presence of others who speak the mother tongue in the community where they work, on the likelihood that immigrants will use a non-official language on the job.

Description: This article explores the implications of working in a language other than English or French for immigrants in Canada. It looks at the occupations and industries in which immigrants who use non-official languages on the job are found. Holding other factors constant, it also looks at the impact on employment earnings and the financial returns to education for immigrants who work in languages other than English or French.

Description: This article uses data from the Youth in Transition Survey (YITS) to link the self-rated ability of youth to converse in both English and French at age 21 to the type of language schooling they had received in elementary and high school. YITS collected information on mother tongue, language of school system (at age 15) as well as information (from parents) on whether and when students had been enrolled in some form of immersion, extended or intensive language program. Information was also collected on self-rated ability to converse in French and English. It is therefore possible to look at rates of bilingualism for youth with varying amounts of second-language schooling.

Description:

Aboriginal people are confronted with the fact that many of their languages are disappearing. Over the past 100 years or more, at least 10 once-flourishing languages have become extinct. However, declining trends in the intergenerational transmission of Aboriginal mother tongues are being offset (to a degree) by the fact that Aboriginal languages are increasingly being learned as second language

Description:

Immigrants to Canada must face numerous difficulties during their first years in the country, the two most important being to find an appropriate job and language barrier. But does a better knowledge of official languages increase the chances for an immigrant of occupying a high-skilled job, a job in the intended occupation, a job similar to the one they had before immigrating, a job related to their training or field of study, or to have a higher hourly rate?

In an attempt to answer this question, the data from the Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Canada (LSIC) were used. In the LSIC, a cohort of immigrants was interviewed at three points in time being 6 months, 2 years and 4 years after arrival in the country. For this study, we used the information about the job occupied at the time of each interview, as well as the English and French self-assessed spoken ability levels at each of these moments.

Description:

This monograph focuses on the differences in performance on the IALSS tests between people whose mother tongue is French and those whose mother tongue is English in Canada, particularly those living in a minority situation. Various factors are examined with the goal of explaining these differences. Schooling, age, reading and writing habits of everyday life, as well as the living environment explains a large part of the differences between linguistic groups.

Description:

Using data from the 2002 Ethnic Diversity Survey (EDS), this article examines the preservation of ancestral languages by looking at the extent to which allophone immigrants (i.e. those whose mother tongue is neither English nor French) have transmitted their mother tongue to their Canadian-born children. The analysis focuses on the factors associated with the probability of the ancestral language being the respondent's mother tongue, the respondent's ability to speak the ancestral language, and his or her regular use of this language in the home.

Description: The Survey on the Official Language Minority Population (SOLMP) user guide contains a description of the survey, along with survey concepts and definitions and an overview of the content development. The target and survey populations, the sample design and sample size are described in the Methodology section, while the Data Collection module provides the collection period and instrument, modes of collection, collection and communications strategies and response rates.

Updates to the guide include descriptions of the survey data processing, survey error and weighting, and guidelines for tabulations and analysis. Appendices will provide a listing of questions and variables which changed between the current and previous occasions of the survey, as well as various primers on the survey methodology.

Description: This fact sheet offers a summary of content changes for the 2026 Census specific to the following topics: languages and language of instruction. The tested changes for each topic are explained, along with the resulting approach for 2026.

Description: The Survey on the Official Language Minority Population (SOLMP) user guide contains a description of the survey, along with survey concepts and definitions and an overview of the content development. The target and survey populations, the sample design and sample size are described in the Methodology section. Finally, in the Data Collection module, the collection period and instrument, modes of collection, collection and communications strategies and response rates are provided.

Description: This report presents the results of a study on the estimated number of children eligible for instruction in the minority official language, pursuant to section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, who were classified as ineligible in the 2021 Census because relationships between family members living at different addresses could not be established within this data source. Using other data sources, including previous censuses and administrative data (such as vital statistics and tax data), we were able to establish these family relationships within the 2021 Census. This report presents the methods and data sources used first, then the results by selected regions and age groups.

Description: This video will help you understand the concept of first official language spoken. It explores the usefulness and relevance of the first official language spoken and how it is developed, disseminated and analyzed. You will also learn how the concept of first official language spoken takes into account knowledge of both official languages, mother tongue and language spoken most often at home.

Description: This video will help you understand the question about languages spoken at home and the main concepts and variables that flow from them. You will also learn to understand the differences between the concepts of all languages spoken regularly at home, languages spoken most often at home and other languages spoken regularly at home. It will also help you understand the changes that have been made to the question of languages spoken at home since the last census.

Description: This video will explain the concept of minority official language. It provides information on the new census questions regarding instruction in the minority official language, eligibility for education in minority official language and the usefulness of data on language of instruction for planning purposes.

Description:

This reference guide provides information to help users effectively use and interpret language data from the 2021 Census. This guide contains definitions and explanations of concepts, questions, classifications, data quality and comparability with other sources for this topic.

Description: This reference guide provides information to help users effectively use and interpret instruction in the minority official language data from the 2021 Census. This guide contains definitions and explanations of concepts, questions, classifications, data quality and comparability with other sources for this topic.

Description: This video provides basic information on the census questions on languages used at work and the main concepts and variables derived from them. It explains the concepts of languages used at work, language used most often at work and other languages used regularly at work. It also helps you understand the changes to the questions since the last census and the impact on historical comparability of this data.