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Path: utzoo!utcs!lsuc!msb
From: msb@lsuc.UUCP (Mark Brader)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: Old World languages in the New World
Message-ID: <954@lsuc.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 3-Dec-85 16:59:50 EST
Article-I.D.: lsuc.954
Posted: Tue Dec  3 16:59:50 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 3-Dec-85 18:52:12 EST
References: <52200001@hpcnof.UUCP> <721@stc-b.stc.UUCP>
Reply-To: msb@lsuc.UUCP (Mark Brader)
Organization: Law Society of Upper Canada, Toronto
Lines: 52
Summary: Languages of Canada

Andrew Macpherson (andrew@stc.UUCP) writes from England:

> This prompted a memory of a conversation which I had had with a Canadian on
> a ferry, and I would be grateful if someone could confirm/deny his assertion:
> 	``The French-Canadians are the Fifth language group in Canada, after
> 	English, Ukranian [sic], German and Norwegian.''
> 	- My ordering here is probably wrong.
> I ask this out of a desire to know, I have NO interest in Canadian Politics...


I'm sure nobody from around here needs to be told how wrong this is, but
since the original was posted netwide, I'll do likewise with this reply.

My figures are from the 1981 census.  The population of Canada was
then 24,343,181, of whom 35.43% lived in Ontario and 26.45% in Quebec.
All the classifications are by *native* language.  (I don't know what they
did about people who grew up speaking more than one language, but I'm afraid
Canada doesn't have a great number of such people anyway.)

First, for the country as a whole, the distribution is:

	English 61.28%,  French 25.67%,  Italian 2.17%,  German 2.15%,
	Ukrainian 1.20%,  Chinese 0.92%,  Portuguese 0.68%,
	"Indian" and Inuit 0.68%,  others 5.24%.

Now, 84.92% of the French speakers are in Quebec; in Quebec, French is
first with 82.43% of the population and English a distant second at 10.97%.
But even in the rest of Canada excluding Quebec, French is still second:

	English 79.38%,  French 5.26%,  German 2.79%,  Italian 2.21%,
	Ukrainian 1.57%,  Chinese 1.17%,   Portuguese 0.78%,
	"Indian" and Inuit 0.77%,  others 6.08%.

However, there is one province where the statistics do look like what
the man on the ferry said.  That's Saskatchewan, which has just 3.97% of
the national population.  The figures for Saskatchewan alone are:

	English 79.60%,  German 6.16%,  Ukrainian 4.61%,  French 2.64%,
	"Indian" and Inuit 2.51%,  Chinese 0.52%,  Italian 0.13%,
	Portuguese 0.03%,  others 3.82%.

Since "others" is substantially larger than French and since Saskatchewan's
distribution is substantially different from the national average, it is
possible that French is indeed 5th there.  I wouldn't have guessed that
Norwegian would be the top "other", but maybe I just don't know.

Anyway, the conclusion is that what the man said, or what you thought he
said, was certainly wrong, but may be right if "Saskatchewan" is substituted
for "Canada".  By the way, the correct pronunciation of "Saskatchewan" is
with just one accent, on the second syllable.

Mark Brader, Toronto, Ontario, Canada