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Results from the 2016 Census: Aboriginal languages and the role of second-language acquisition

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by Thomas Anderson

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Today, Insights on Canadian Society is releasing a study based on 2016 Census data. This study uses census data on Aboriginal languages.

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Introduction

Much of Canadian society has been constructed on the capacity to speak either English or French in public life.^Note In 2016, over 99% of those who were employed in the previous year reported that they used English or French at least on a regular basis in the workplace. This reality may present some challenges for many Aboriginal-language speakers to participate in the larger culture, academia or the labour force.

According to the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, centuries of colonial history have had a profoundly negative impact on the use and transmission of Aboriginal languages in Canada.^Note The abuses of the residential and federal industrial school system have been well-documented by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, including their negative effects on the transmission of Aboriginal languages.^Note Assimilationist policies that have weakened Aboriginal-language use in the past have had an impact on the promotion of Aboriginal languages.^{Note Note}

Literature surrounding the long-term survival of Aboriginal languages has noted the particular challenges that arise when language speakers of two or more groups come into sustained contact with one another.^Note In rare cases, this contact can facilitate the creation of an entirely new language—such as the creation of Michif from Cree and French.^Note In others, the smaller language can be pushed out, even to the point of extinction.^Note

And yet, despite the obstacles of history and the pressures of the contemporary world, Aboriginal languages have endured.

Over the past two decades, the share of the Aboriginal population^Note with the ability to speak an Aboriginal language has declined. In 1996, 29% of Aboriginal people were able to speak an Aboriginal language well enough to conduct a conversation. In 2006, just over 22% of the Aboriginal population could speak an Aboriginal language. By 2016, this figure had dropped to 16%.

Simply viewing the decreasing share of speakers within the Aboriginal population may overstate the total decline. As past research has demonstrated, the Aboriginal population is growing rapidly, in large part due to an increased likelihood of self-identification.^Note This change means that many people who previously did not identify with the Aboriginal population now do. Much of this growth has occurred in large cities where Aboriginal languages are less commonly spoken.

Examining the number of people who can speak an Aboriginal language, rather than the share of speakers, presents these details from a different vantage point. For example, in the 2016 Census, 263,840 people could speak an Aboriginal language well enough to conduct a conversation. Over a 20-year period, from 1996 to 2016, the total number of people who were able to speak an Aboriginal language went up by 8%.

In recent years, learning a second-language^Note has often been cited as contributing to the number of people who can speak an Aboriginal language.^Note Efforts and calls to support Aboriginal languages have become increasingly common.^{Note Note} Nevertheless, the question remains: can learning these as second languages revitalize languages that have declined?

This paper examines two different groups of Aboriginal-language speakers^Note —those who acquired their language as their mother tongue and those who learned it as a second language—and examines the increase in second-language learners. It also considers how the increase in second-language acquisition among Aboriginal-language speakers could impact the future and vitality of Aboriginal languages in Canada.

Second-language acquisition on the rise

The 2016 Census of Population provided data on close to 70 Aboriginal languages, which can be divided into 12 distinct language families.^Note Almost all Aboriginal-language speakers^Note were part of the Aboriginal identity^Note population (99%). First Nations people made up 79% of all Aboriginal-language speakers, followed by Inuit at 16%, and Métis at 4%.^Note The proportions of the entire population with an Aboriginal identity (1,673,785 people) were First Nations at 58%, Métis at 35% and Inuit at 4%.

A mother tongue is defined as the first language learned in childhood that a person still understands. Of the three Aboriginal groups, Inuit Aboriginal-language speakers were the most likely to have acquired that language as their mother tongue. Of the more than 41,000 Inuit who could speak an Aboriginal language, 88% acquired it as their mother tongue. First Nations Aboriginal-language speakers were the next most likely to have acquired that language as their mother tongue at 73%, followed by Métis at 58%.

As was stated earlier, the total number of people who could speak an Aboriginal language well enough to conduct a conversation rose by 8% from 1996 to 2016. However, the number of people with an Aboriginal language as their mother tongue declined by 1% over the 20-year period from 1996 to 2016. This difference shows that the growth in Aboriginal-language speakers is mostly due to second-language acquisition.

Among those who could speak an Aboriginal language, the share who learned it as a second language increased over the 20-year period from 1996 to 2016 (Chart 1). In 2016, one-quarter of all Aboriginal-language speakers learned it as a second language.^Note

This change reflects both the increase in the Aboriginal second-language population and the decrease in the Aboriginal language mother-tongue population: the net increase from 1996 to 2016 in the total number of people who could speak an Aboriginal language was due to an increase in the number of second-language learners.

Those who acquired an Aboriginal language as a second language are younger than those who acquired it as their mother tongue

Among those who reported an Aboriginal identity, a similar proportion of women (16%) and men (15%) were able to speak an Aboriginal language. Among them, 25% of both Aboriginal women and men learned it as a second language.

There were significant differences in the age distribution between those who learned their language as their mother tongue and those who learned it later in life (Chart 2). The average age of people who had acquired an Aboriginal language as their mother tongue was 37.1 years, compared with 30.8 years for those who had learned it as a second language.

The fact that the age of those who learned an Aboriginal language as a second language was so much lower than those who learned it as their mother tongue suggests a number of things. First, it could reflect the language dynamics at home of many First Nations, Métis and Inuit children: despite not learning their Aboriginal language first, these children still learn it from parents or grandparents who are living with them. Another factor is that many children learned their Aboriginal language at school, in daycare or during other early childhood programs.^Note This would suggest that programs that encourage Aboriginal languages in these settings are having a positive effect.

Those in the second-language group less likely to speak it at home than those in the mother-tongue group

The practice of speaking one’s language at home has often been considered in linguistic research.^Note Home language use measures one aspect of language vitality: the degree to which a population uses its language in everyday life, indicating the health of a language in a way that simply considering the number of people who speak it does not.

The majority of second-language learners spoke their Aboriginal language at home, either as the language they used most often or on a regular basis (Table 1). Of this group, 73% spoke an Aboriginal language at least regularly at home. The prevalence was, however, higher, at 90%, for those who acquired an Aboriginal language as their mother tongue.

The difference was even greater for those who spoke an Aboriginal language most often at home. Of those who learned an Aboriginal language as a second language, 18% spoke it most often at home compared with 63% of those who had learned it as their mother tongue.

Yet, while those in the second-language acquisition group were less likely to speak their Aboriginal language at home, Aboriginal language use at home increased for both those who acquired their language as their mother tongue and those who acquired it as a second language (Chart 3).

In 2006, the share of those who spoke their Aboriginal language at home at least regularly was 38%. By 2016, 73% of those in the second-language group spoke their Aboriginal language at home. Among those in the Aboriginal language mother-tongue group, 8 in 10 spoke their Aboriginal language at home at least regularly in 2006. This figure was almost 9 in 10 in 2016.^Note

Within the Aboriginal language mother-tongue group, the increase was driven by those who reported speaking their language regularly at home, but not most often, and was largely found for five Aboriginal languages: Cree languages,^Note Ojibway, Oji-Cree, Dene and Inuktitut made up just under 80% of the difference in those who spoke their Aboriginal language regularly at home from 2006 to 2016.^Note

Within the second-language group, there was an increase in both in the number who spoke their language most often at home and those who spoke it regularly. Less than 70% of the difference in those who spoke their language most often at home and close to 70% of the difference in those who spoke it regularly at home comprised Blackfoot, Cree languages, Ojibway, Salish languages and Inuktitut.

Transmission of Aboriginal languages greater within families where at least one parent has an Aboriginal language as their mother tongue

It is also important to assess the extent to which Aboriginal languages are transmitted from parent to child.

Among census families^Note living in private households with at least one parent and at least one child,^Note there were 47,705 families where at least one parent could speak an Aboriginal language. Within this group, it was more common for children to speak an Aboriginal language if the parent(s) learned their language as their mother tongue than if they learned it as a second language.

Among families where at least one parent had an Aboriginal language as their mother tongue, 66% were home to a child who could speak an Aboriginal language (Table 2). This suggests that the language was successfully transmitted from parent to child.^Note Among families where no parent had an Aboriginal language as their mother tongue but at least one parent had an Aboriginal language as a second language, 49% had a child who could speak an Aboriginal language.

Within opposite-sex couple families,^Note those where both the mother and father had an Aboriginal language as their mother tongue were the most likely (78%) to be home to a child who could speak an Aboriginal language. In families where one parent had an Aboriginal language as their mother tongue and the other spoke an Aboriginal language as a second language, 68% had a child in the home who could speak an Aboriginal language. This rate was higher in families where it was the mother who had the Aboriginal language as her mother tongue (72%) than in families where the father had the Aboriginal language as his mother tongue (65%). This falls in line with past research that has cited women as having a profound impact on the health of Aboriginal languages.^Note

The majority (65%) of families where both the mother and father spoke an Aboriginal language as a second language had at least one child who could also speak it. Families where only one parent could speak an Aboriginal language were significantly less likely to be home to a child who was an Aboriginal-language speaker (19%); this discrepancy held true regardless of whether or not the speaking parent learned their language as their mother tongue (18%) or as a second language (20%). This suggests that the transmission of Aboriginal languages is influenced more by each parent’s ability to speak an Aboriginal language than by their type of acquisition.

Within lone-parent families, 70% of those where the parent had learned their Aboriginal language as their mother tongue were home to a child who could speak the language, which was higher than the 56% for those where the parent had learned it as a second language; the rates were roughly the same for male and female lone-parent families.

Inverse relationship between language continuity and the rate of second-language acquisition

The mother tongue continuity rate, in this paper, refers to the share of people with an Aboriginal language as their mother tongue who speak that language at home at least on a regular basis. The continuity rate can be seen as a measure of language retention among those who have an Aboriginal language as a mother tongue. The rate of second-language acquisition, on the other hand, refers to the share of speakers who learned their Aboriginal language as a second language.

Contrasting these two indicators for various Aboriginal languages reveals that an inverse relationship exists between language continuity and the rate of second-language acquisition (Chart 4). Languages with high levels of continuity, such as Atikamekw (96%), Inuktitut (97%) and Dene (91%), tend to have significantly lower rates of second-language acquisition (6%, 12% and 14%, respectively).

Conversely, Aboriginal languages with lower levels of continuity—for example, Sarsi (18%) and Tlingit (27%)—tend to have higher rates of second-language acquisition (83% and 73%, respectively).

Aboriginal languages more likely to be learned as a mother tongue in smaller, linguistically concentrated communities

Previous research has found that people with an Aboriginal language as their mother tongue were more likely to speak it at home if they lived in an area with a high concentration of other Aboriginal language mother-tongue speakers.^Note

Aboriginal languages with a large proportion of people who learned it as their mother tongue are often found in small, sometimes rural areas with a high geographic concentration of speakers. For example, in 2016, Atikamekw was spoken by 6,640 people in Canada, 6% of whom learned it as a second language—meaning that the majority of them learned it as their mother tongue. About 78% of all Atikamekw speakers lived on-reserve in three census subdivisions (CSDs)^Note in north-central Quebec. Within these communities, 98% of the population could speak Atikamekw well enough to conduct a conversation.

Similarly, Naskapi was spoken by 1,465 people in 2016; 94% of them learned it as their mother tongue, while the rest learned it as a second language. Of the Naskapi-speaking population, 83% lived on-reserve in two CSDs in 2016—one in Eastern Quebec and the other in Labrador. Within these combined communities, Naskapi was spoken by 79% of the population.

Inuktitut is, perhaps, the most prominent example of this relationship between small communities with high Aboriginal-language concentration and the bulk of speakers learning the language as their mother tongue. The majority of those who could speak Inuktitut learned it as their mother tongue; 12% learned it as a second language.

In 2016, the majority (94%) of the Inuktitut-speaking population lived in either Nunavut or Nunavik. The population in these regions lives in a number of small communities that are accessible by air or water only. The largest municipality—Iqaluit—had a population of 7,590 people in 2016. Within Nunavut and Nunavik combined, 78% of the population could speak Inuktitut.

On the other hand, many languages with a greater share of second-language learners were less likely to be found in places with high concentrations of speakers. For example, 83% of those who could speak Sarsi (Sarcee) learned it as a second language; while 60% of all Sarsi speakers lived in the Calgary census subdivision, they made up only a small fraction of the 1.2 million people who lived there.

Squamish and Straits are two languages within the Salish language family, spoken predominately in British Columbia. Each of these languages had a population base that was mainly comprised of second-language learners.

Of the population who could speak Squamish, 68% lived on-reserve in two small communities under the administration of the Squamish Nation. However, these CSDs are located within the Greater Vancouver area; in these CSDs, the share of the population who could speak Squamish was less than 6%.

Of those who could speak Straits, 71% lived on-reserve in one of two CSDs.^Note Similar to Squamish, these CSDs are located within a large metropolitan area—in Victoria, British Columbia. This area is predominately English-speaking: 99% of the population could speak English and 73% of the population could only speak English. In 2016, 0.2% of the population in Victoria could speak an Aboriginal language. Within the two specific communities, 10% of people could speak Straits.

These examples suggest that it is not only the immediate community that matters for language acquisition, but the surrounding region as well. Aboriginal-language speakers who learned their language as their mother tongue often resided farther away from large metropolitan areas than those who learned it as a second language.

Conclusion

The number of people who have acquired an Aboriginal language as a second language is on the rise, while the number with an Aboriginal language as their mother tongue has fallen. However, regardless of the type of acquisition, for Aboriginal languages in Canada to not only continue to exist but also to thrive, past research suggests that it is necessary that these languages be transmitted to children and be used in everyday life.^Note

On this matter, however, there is conflicting evidence. On one hand, the use of Aboriginal languages at home is lower for those who acquired them as a second language. Aboriginal languages with high rates of second-language acquisition also tend to be those with lower levels of mother tongue continuity.

On the other hand, the proportion of those who speak an Aboriginal language at home is increasing. This is true for both people who acquired the language as their mother tongue and those who learned it as a second language.

The factors that are related to Aboriginal language use and retention can be grouped at the personal, family and community levels. First, at the personal level, the age structure of the population who learned an Aboriginal language as a second language is significantly younger than that of those who learned an Aboriginal language as their mother tongue. While the Census of Population does not account for factors such as the perceived importance of speaking an Aboriginal language, future research using other data sources, like the 2017 Aboriginal Peoples Survey, could examine this.

Second, for most people, family is the primary environment in which language is learned and spoken. Families where at least one parent had an Aboriginal language as their mother tongue are more likely to be home to children who can speak an Aboriginal language. Within two-parent families, the likelihood of language transmission for those where both parents could speak an Aboriginal language was significantly greater than in families where only one parent could speak an Aboriginal language. This seems to suggest that what matters most for Aboriginal-language transmission is being surrounded by other Aboriginal-language speakers.

Finally, community—in the sense of both people and place—is central to language maintenance. Language is a communal affair—for a language to live it must be shared. Aboriginal languages with high rates of continuity tend to be found in small, often isolated areas with a high concentration of speakers. Aboriginal languages with a small number of speakers who are widely dispersed, however, face particular challenges, as are those located within English- and French-dominant communities.

Thomas Anderson is an analyst with the Social and Aboriginal Statistics Division at Statistics Canada.

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