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Chinese: English Canada's second language
French expected to be surpassed in 2001 census
Hattie Klotz; With files from Jennifer Pritchett
The Ottawa Citizen
October 27, 1999
The nationwide census of 2001 is expected to show that the Chinese family of languages has replaced French as the second-most common language spoken in homes outside Quebec, according to a new book.
Jack Jedwab, executive director of the Montreal Association for Canadian Studies and a lecturer at McGill University, predicts that with growth continuing to follow patterns set at the time of the 1996 Canadian census, the French language will be pushed into third spot in English Canada. The predictions are outlined in Mr. Jedwab's new book Ethnic Identification and Heritage Languages in Canada.
In 1996, census results showed that the distance between French and Chinese was closing fast. (The census questionnaire does not distinguish between the Chinese languages Mandarin and Cantonese.)
English remained the most-used language, spoken at home by 86.3 per cent of Canadians outside Quebec. French was the second-most-common language, with 2.9 per cent, or 588,885 people, compared with 553,045 people who said they speak Chinese at home. The difference, just less than 36,000, will be erased by 2001, Mr. Jedwab concluded.
He expects that Chinese will overtake French in Ontario first, since the difference in the 1996 census amounted to just more than 13,000 French speakers. "In Ontario, which is the most multilingual and multi-ethnic province in the country, that particular group (Chinese speakers) will overtake the number of persons that speak French at home in 2001," he said.
These statistics represent a general trend across the country, but regional fluctuations are strong. There are large Chinese communities in British Columbia and Ontario, while in provinces such as Manitoba and Saskatchewan, German or Cree may be more commonly spoken in the home than Chinese or French.
Twenty-five years ago, Italian was the leading home language in Canada after English and French, followed by German and Ukrainian, but Chinese has shown rapid growth since the 1980s due to increased immigration from Asia, particularly from Hong Kong and the People's Republic of China.
Between 1991 and 1996, the number of people who reported Chinese as their mother tongue increased 42 per cent to 736,000 in the 1996 census.
Nearly 80 per cent of the 1,039,000 immigrants who came into Canada between 1991 and 1996 reported speaking a non-official language in the 1996 Census. More than half of them were from Asia and the Middle East. Chinese was the mother tongue of almost a quarter of these recent immigrants while Arabic, Punjabi, Tagalog, Tamil and Persian mother tongues accounted for another one-fifth.
"This may be true, that Chinese has replaced French at home outside of Quebec, but to a certain point it is a nuanced perspective," said University of Ottawa mathematics professor Charles Castonguay, who has published many papers on linguistic demographics in Canada. "We will really see in the year 2001 which language is number 2."
He's not convinced the number of people who speak Chinese as a mother tongue will surpass the number of French-speaking Canadians soon after the turn of the century because of fluctuations in immigration
"It is a question of timing," said Mr. Castonguay. "It all has to do with the composition of recent immigration." Were immigration patterns to change with fewer Chinese arriving in Canada, and more immigrants from elsewhere, then the situation would again change temporarily.
According to Mr. Jedwab, those who speak Chinese may have an advantage over the others: Chinese spoken at home in the community may not dissipate in the way that other languages have had a tendency to do, because "the degree of mixing in this community is not as high as in other communities."
Retaining language may be strengthened in areas like Toronto where there are Chinese-language media outlets. Toronto has two daily newspapers, Sing Tao and Ming Pao, as well as Chinese-language radio stations and at least one Chinese-language television station.
This trend is reflected in Canada's extremely diverse linguistic community. In the Northwest Territories, eight official languages are spoken, while across the whole of North America, Quebec has the highest number of allophones -- people whose mother tongue is neither French nor English.
Quebec also has the highest level of multi-lingualism in Canada. There are more people who can speak four languages there than elsewhere in the country, so much so that "Quebec resembles Europe to a greater extent in terms of its multi-lingualism," said Mr. Jedwab.
What Mr. Jedwab's book shows is that the rest of Canada is changing demographically. "It is becoming increasingly multi-ethnic, and multiple identities are on the rise," he said.
But he also points out that the numbers may change over time "because in reality one would presume that this community (the Chinese), which is not an official language community, will from one generation to the next, see the numbers begin to dissipate. But at the same time there is a continued immigration."
Some demographers predict that increased immigration will contribute to an emerging multi-ethnic majority in many major cities. This developing trend -- expected to be the largest demographic shift in the history of North America -- will give way to new majority-minority population that will exist without a dominant racial or ethnic group.
Canadian census data from 1996 show that whites are already a minority in parts of Toronto and that Vancouver is well on its way to becoming a majority of minorities.
In Scarborough, visible minorities make up 52 per cent of the population.
Mr. Jedwab says those people whose mother tongue is Chinese will be among the majority of those minority groups, but dismissed notions of demands for a third official language.
"I think Canada will have to strike a balance between a country that has to continue to promote diversity while it also desires a set of common values for the population," he said.
But according to Mr. Castonguay, "It is too early to speculate on whether Chinese will ever become an official language of Canada. But if Quebec were ever to secede, then it may become more important, but as long as Quebec is there, it is clear that French is far more important."
French expected to be surpassed in 2001 census
Hattie Klotz; With files from Jennifer Pritchett
The Ottawa Citizen
October 27, 1999
The nationwide census of 2001 is expected to show that the Chinese family of languages has replaced French as the second-most common language spoken in homes outside Quebec, according to a new book.
Jack Jedwab, executive director of the Montreal Association for Canadian Studies and a lecturer at McGill University, predicts that with growth continuing to follow patterns set at the time of the 1996 Canadian census, the French language will be pushed into third spot in English Canada. The predictions are outlined in Mr. Jedwab's new book Ethnic Identification and Heritage Languages in Canada.
In 1996, census results showed that the distance between French and Chinese was closing fast. (The census questionnaire does not distinguish between the Chinese languages Mandarin and Cantonese.)
English remained the most-used language, spoken at home by 86.3 per cent of Canadians outside Quebec. French was the second-most-common language, with 2.9 per cent, or 588,885 people, compared with 553,045 people who said they speak Chinese at home. The difference, just less than 36,000, will be erased by 2001, Mr. Jedwab concluded.
He expects that Chinese will overtake French in Ontario first, since the difference in the 1996 census amounted to just more than 13,000 French speakers. "In Ontario, which is the most multilingual and multi-ethnic province in the country, that particular group (Chinese speakers) will overtake the number of persons that speak French at home in 2001," he said.
These statistics represent a general trend across the country, but regional fluctuations are strong. There are large Chinese communities in British Columbia and Ontario, while in provinces such as Manitoba and Saskatchewan, German or Cree may be more commonly spoken in the home than Chinese or French.
Twenty-five years ago, Italian was the leading home language in Canada after English and French, followed by German and Ukrainian, but Chinese has shown rapid growth since the 1980s due to increased immigration from Asia, particularly from Hong Kong and the People's Republic of China.
Between 1991 and 1996, the number of people who reported Chinese as their mother tongue increased 42 per cent to 736,000 in the 1996 census.
Nearly 80 per cent of the 1,039,000 immigrants who came into Canada between 1991 and 1996 reported speaking a non-official language in the 1996 Census. More than half of them were from Asia and the Middle East. Chinese was the mother tongue of almost a quarter of these recent immigrants while Arabic, Punjabi, Tagalog, Tamil and Persian mother tongues accounted for another one-fifth.
"This may be true, that Chinese has replaced French at home outside of Quebec, but to a certain point it is a nuanced perspective," said University of Ottawa mathematics professor Charles Castonguay, who has published many papers on linguistic demographics in Canada. "We will really see in the year 2001 which language is number 2."
He's not convinced the number of people who speak Chinese as a mother tongue will surpass the number of French-speaking Canadians soon after the turn of the century because of fluctuations in immigration
"It is a question of timing," said Mr. Castonguay. "It all has to do with the composition of recent immigration." Were immigration patterns to change with fewer Chinese arriving in Canada, and more immigrants from elsewhere, then the situation would again change temporarily.
According to Mr. Jedwab, those who speak Chinese may have an advantage over the others: Chinese spoken at home in the community may not dissipate in the way that other languages have had a tendency to do, because "the degree of mixing in this community is not as high as in other communities."
Retaining language may be strengthened in areas like Toronto where there are Chinese-language media outlets. Toronto has two daily newspapers, Sing Tao and Ming Pao, as well as Chinese-language radio stations and at least one Chinese-language television station.
This trend is reflected in Canada's extremely diverse linguistic community. In the Northwest Territories, eight official languages are spoken, while across the whole of North America, Quebec has the highest number of allophones -- people whose mother tongue is neither French nor English.
Quebec also has the highest level of multi-lingualism in Canada. There are more people who can speak four languages there than elsewhere in the country, so much so that "Quebec resembles Europe to a greater extent in terms of its multi-lingualism," said Mr. Jedwab.
What Mr. Jedwab's book shows is that the rest of Canada is changing demographically. "It is becoming increasingly multi-ethnic, and multiple identities are on the rise," he said.
But he also points out that the numbers may change over time "because in reality one would presume that this community (the Chinese), which is not an official language community, will from one generation to the next, see the numbers begin to dissipate. But at the same time there is a continued immigration."
Some demographers predict that increased immigration will contribute to an emerging multi-ethnic majority in many major cities. This developing trend -- expected to be the largest demographic shift in the history of North America -- will give way to new majority-minority population that will exist without a dominant racial or ethnic group.
Canadian census data from 1996 show that whites are already a minority in parts of Toronto and that Vancouver is well on its way to becoming a majority of minorities.
In Scarborough, visible minorities make up 52 per cent of the population.
Mr. Jedwab says those people whose mother tongue is Chinese will be among the majority of those minority groups, but dismissed notions of demands for a third official language.
"I think Canada will have to strike a balance between a country that has to continue to promote diversity while it also desires a set of common values for the population," he said.
But according to Mr. Castonguay, "It is too early to speculate on whether Chinese will ever become an official language of Canada. But if Quebec were ever to secede, then it may become more important, but as long as Quebec is there, it is clear that French is far more important."
