MONTREAL: Canada is becoming a more multilingual society as the two official languages, English and French, lose ground to Mandarin, Italian, Spanish, Punjabi or Urdu.

More than 100 languages are spoken in Canada today, according to the 2001 Census Analysis Series entitled “Profile of Languages in Canada: English, French and Many Others,” released on Tuesday.

Sixty years ago, Canada counted only some 20 languages, most of which were European.

In 2001, over 5.3 million people, about one in six, had a mother tongue other than English or French, a 12.5 per cent increase since 1996.

The 2001 census reaffirmed the position of Chinese as Canada’s third most common mother tongue. Italian remained in fourth place, and German fifth, although their numbers declined. Punjabi moved into sixth place, and Spanish slipped to seventh.

Over 872,000 people reported Mandarin Chinese as their mother tongue, an increase of about 18 per cent from 1996. The increases were particularly pronounced in Vancouver and Toronto.

Last year, the bulk of Canada’s immigrants were from China, India ,Pakistan and South Korea, and the Philippines. These five countries accounted for 42 per cent of immigrants.

Not surprisingly, the language groups which reported the largest gains since the 1996 census were Punjabi, Arabic, Urdu, which almost doubled its 1996 level, and Tagalog.

By contrast, the number of individuals reporting a mother tongue traditionally associated with Canada’s immigration history such as Italian, Ukrainian, German, Polish and Dutch all declined.

But nine out of 10 people speak English or French most often at home, the census said, adding that most other languages are not spoken at home nearly as frequently as they are reported as mother tongue.

Francophones represented 22.9 per cent, down from 23.5 per cent and their population share is also in decline due to a decrease in the number of children aged four and under.

Quebec’s francophone population (81.4 per cent) is almost unchanged since 1996.

The rate of English-French bilingualism has been steadily increasing nationally with over 5.2 million Canadians speaking these two languages, (17.7 per cent of the population).

But 43.4 per cent of francophones reported they were bilingual, compared with only 9.0 per cent of anglophones.

“Citizens are becoming more and more bilingual or multilingual, and it is conceivable that one day a person speaking only one language will be the exception rather than the rule,” said Commissioner of Official Languages Dyane Adams.—AFP