Punjabi,Bengali among growing immigrant languages in Canada

Almost one-third or 2,145,000 people reported that the only language they spoke at home was a language other than English or French,that is,a non-official language. The remaining two-thirds spoke a non-official language in combination with either English or French.

The 2,145,000 people who spoke only a non-official language accounted for 6.5 per cent of the population,unchanged from 2006.

In total,58 per cent of the population or 19,225,000 spoke only English at home,while 18.2 per cent or 6,043,000 spoke only French. Both proportions were down slightly from 2006,government agency 8216;Statistics Canada8217; reported.

The use of multiple languages at home has increased. In 2011,11.5 per cent of the population reported using English and a language other than French,up from 9.1 per cent in 2006. Similarly,1.3 per cent of the population reported using French and a language other than English in 2011,up from 1.0 per cent. Most of these people lived in Quebec.

The home languages showing the strongest growth between 2006 and 2011 were primarily Asian. The population that reported speaking the Philippine-based language Tagalog increased by 64 per cent,the highest growth. Nearly 279,000 people reported speaking Tagalog most often in 2011,up from 170,000 five years earlier.

Seven other language groups also saw their numbers increase by more than 30 per cent. They included Mandarin 50 per cent,Arabic 47 per cent,Hindi 44 per cent,Creole languages 42 per cent,Bengali 40 per cent,Persian 33 per cent and Spanish 32 per cent.

The top 10 immigrant languages spoken most often at home in 2011 were: Punjabi,Chinese other than Mandarin or Cantonese,Cantonese,Spanish,Tagalog,Arabic,Mandarin,Italian,Urdu and German.