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: 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, third quarter of 2023.

Description: Percentage and average percentage of employees required to be bilingual in English and French, by North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), business employment size, type of business, business activity and majority ownership, third quarter of 2023.

Description: Data on the mother tongue of the population of Canada and Canada outside Quebec, and of all provinces and territories, for Census years 1951 to 2021.

Description: Data on the first official language spoken by the population of Canada and Canada outside Quebec, and of all provinces and territories, for Census years 1971 to 2021.

Description: Data on the language spoken most often at home by the population of Canada and Canada outside Quebec, and of all provinces and territories, for Census years 1971 to 2021.

Description: Knowledge of Indigenous languages by single and multiple knowledge of languages responses, Indigenous identity, Indigenous mother tongue and age for the population in private households.

Description: Data on mother tongue by generation status, number of languages known, age and gender for the population in private households in Canada, provinces and territories, census metropolitan areas and census agglomerations with parts.

Description: Data on knowledge of official languages by income statistics, highest certificate, diploma or degree, immigrant status and period of immigration, work activity during the reference year, age and gender for the population aged 15 years and over in private households in Canada, provinces and territories, census metropolitan areas and census agglomerations with parts.

Description: Data on first official language spoken by mobility status 1 year ago, place of residence 1 year ago, immigrant status and period of immigration, age and gender for the population aged 1 year and over in private households of Canada, provinces and territories, census metropolitan areas and census agglomerations with parts.

Description: Data on first official language spoken by mobility status 5 years ago, language used most often at work, occupation - National Occupational Classification (NOC) 2021, highest certificate, diploma or degree and age for the population aged 15 years and over who worked since 2020, in private households of Canada, provinces and territories and census metropolitan areas with parts.

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 main purposes of this survey are to gather information at the Canada level and, where possible, at the regional level on the size of the industry, its characteristics and the role played by foreign students. It also gives decision makers necessary tools to design appropriate policies, and the survey providers a profile of their industry.

Description: The data will be used to calculate contributions to the provinces for enrolments in minority-language programs at the postsecondary level.

Description: The purpose of this survey is to determine the official language preference of the clients of various government departments. The data will allow the department to decide if they need to provide services to clients in the minority language according to the rules of the Official Languages Act.

Description: The objective of this survey was to collect new statistical information on the economic production of the Canadian language industry and its sectors for the purpose of creating an industry profile and collecting benchmark data for future surveys to track industry performance.

Description: This survey pertains to the vitality of Canada's official-language minorities, namely anglophones in Quebec and francophones outside of Quebec. The information collected allow for a more in-depth understanding of the current situation of individuals who belong to these groups on subjects as diverse as instruction in the language of the minority or access to different services in the language of the minority (i.e., health care), as well as language practices both at home and outside of the home.

Description: The survey is sponsored by the Office of the Official Language Commissioner (OCOL). As part of its mandate, the OCOL reviews the use of both official languages in federal institutions. The evaluation is done for employees in a minority situation (i.e., English in Quebec and French in New Brunswick and in bilingual areas of Ontario).

Description: Complementing the data collected by the census, the National Household Survey (NHS) is designed to provide information about people in Canada by their demographic, social and economic characteristics. In October 2014, Statistics Canada will be conducting a voluntary test in selected locations to evaluate the processes, procedures and systems that will be used for the 2016 Census Program. This ensures that quality data are available in 2016 to support a wide variety of programs.

Description: The Survey on the Official Language Minority Population (SOLMP) is a postcensal survey of the English-speaking population in Quebec and the French-speaking population elsewhere in Canada. The data will provide a better understanding of the current situation of official language minorities regarding issues such as education and access to various services in the minority language.