Languages

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

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: 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: Frequency of using the minority official language in public, by language in which the person is most at ease to speak, ease of using the minority language in the community, official languages spoken at home, gender, age group and immigrant status, among adults in the official language minority population, 2022.

Description: Language spoken in public in various situations, by official language in which the person is most at ease to speak, official languages spoken at home, gender, age and immigrant status, among adults in the official language minority population, 2022.

Description: This interactive dashboard allows users to visualize the breakdown of speakers of some of the most frequent languages spoken in Canada in 2021 by age group, generation status, place of residence and languages spoken at home.

Description: Infographic displaying poverty rates for French/English bilingual populations by mother tongue and region of residence.

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This table details population by knowledge of official languages, showing age groups.

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This table details population able to speak various non-official languages, showing age groups.

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This table details population by mother tongue, showing knowledge of official languages and sex.

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This table details population by home language, showing age groups.

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This table details population by mother tongue, showing home language and sex.

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This table details population able to speak various non-official languages, showing age groups.

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This table details population by mother tongue, showing knowledge of official languages and sex.

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This table details population by home language, showing age groups.

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This table details population by mother tongue, showing home language and sex.

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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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This work is an updated version of a study published under the same title following the population censuses of 1991 and 1996. The text and tables have been adapted to reflect the more complete data from the 2001 Census, in which the usual questions on knowledge of languages, mother tongue, and language spoken 'most often' at home are supplemented by a question on languages spoken 'regularly' at home , and a two-part question on language use at work, that is, the language used 'most often,' and other languages used 'regularly,' in the workplace. This enrichment of the content has allowed us to expand our analysis while remaining true to the initial goal of presenting in a straightfoward manner basic statistics on the country's demolinguistic reality.

Description: This article compares the reading achievement of Canadian 15-year-olds enrolled in immersion and non-immersion programs in English-language school systems in the 10 provinces.

Description: French immersion programs were introduced into Canadian schools in the 1970s to encourage bilingualism across the country. Thirty years later, immersion programs are offered in every province. French-immersion students score significantly higher in reading achievement than non-immersion students. What accounts for this difference?

Description: This report examines the lower reading performance of students from French minority language schools in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Ontario and Manitoba. It looks at a number of individual, family and community characteristics of students in French and English school systems.

Description: This fact sheet presents a data ecosystem comprised of a set of data sources that, together, provide information on children eligible for instruction in the minority official language.

Description: This video will explain why and how census collects data on language and its importance and relevance for governments, researchers and community groups. It provides an understanding of how data on mother tongue is collected, how mother tongue variables are created and how they are disseminated and analyzed. In addition, the video explains the concept of single and multiple responses and the three ways of dealing with multiple responses, that is, separate treatment, inclusion and distribution.

Description: This video will allow you to identify the census questionnaire questions on knowledge of official and non-official languages. It will also allow you to understand how variables on knowledge of official and non-official languages are created and how they are disseminated and analyzed.

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This fact sheet offers a concise overview of updated—new or modified—content for the 2021 Census of Population that is specific to the theme of immigration, ethnocultural diversity and languages in Canada, which includes the following topics: immigration and citizenship, place of birth of person/parents, ethnic or cultural origins, population groups, religion, language, and minority language educational rights. The changes considered for these topics are explained, along with the resulting approach for 2021.

Description: This document deals with the addition of questions to the 2021 Census questionnaire about minority language educational rights. Section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees certain educational rights to French-speaking minorities outside Quebec and English-speaking minorities in Quebec. This document presents a detailed description of the activities and analyses carried out by Statistics Canada to meet the need for data on this population.

Description: This guide focuses on the following topic: Language. It provides information that enables users to effectively use, apply and interpret data from the 2016 Census. Each guide contains definitions and explanations on census concepts, talks about changes made to the 2016 Census, data quality and historical comparability, as well as comparison with other data sources. Additional information will be included for specific variables to help general users better understand the concepts and questions used in the census.

Updated on November 29, 2017 to include information on language of work.

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The Language of work Release and concepts overview provides an overview of the concepts, definitions and key measures used in the 2016 Census of Population Language of work release, as well as the products which will be available on release day and later.

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The Language Release and concepts overview provides an overview of the concepts, definitions and key measures used in the 2016 Census of Population Language release, as well as the products which will be available on release day and later.

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The main objective of this document is to raise awareness among Statistics Canada data users of the different sources of language data available at Statistics Canada. Along with the census, surveys with an important sample of official-language minority groups and/or with information on languages are listed by themes. Users will find a description of the survey and its target population, sample sizes (total and according to available linguistic characteristics), available language variables based on questions asked, date of the first release, year for which the data is available and a direct internet link to additional information on the various surveys.

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The National Household Survey (NHS) Dictionary is a reference document which contains detailed definitions of concepts, universes, variables, and geographic terms used in the NHS. By referring to the NHS Dictionary, both beginner and intermediate data users will gain a better understanding of the data.