This North American state has pursued a policy of multiculturalism since the 60s of the last century, thanks to which the country's population is replenished with emigrants from all over the world. But the official languages of Canada are still only English and French, and it is on them that federal laws are passed in the Maple Leaf Country and the services of state bodies and services are available. All signs, announcements, names of stops in public transport, etc. are usually duplicated in English and French. Immigrants applying for citizenship, according to the law of the country, must speak any of the state languages.
Some statistics
In Canadian statistics, there is the concept of "home language", which replaces the term "mother tongue". This means the dialect in which this or that population group speaks at home. For Canadians, the statistics look like this:
- English is considered at home by more than 67% of the population of the Maple Leaf Country.
- French speech is heard in the homes of just over 21% of Canada's residents.
- The five most common languages besides the official ones are Chinese (2.6%), Punjabi (0.8%), Spanish (0.7%), Italian (0.6%) and … Ukrainian (0.5%). All of them are popular, but not the official languages of Canada.
In addition, in the second largest country in the world, they speak Arabic and German, Vietnamese and Portuguese, Polish and Korean, Greek and, of course, Russian.
Geography and linguistics
A tourist will be able to feel for a while in Paris in the Canadian province of Quebec. Its capital Montreal and the rest of the country are home to over 6 million French-speaking residents of the Maple Leaf Country. There are admirers of the Voltaire and Zola languages both in Ontario and southern Manitoba.
English predominates everywhere except Quebec and, to generalize a little, we can say that Canada is still an English-speaking country.
Knowledge of the second state language of Canada is found, basically, all in the same Quebec, whose inhabitants speak both their native and English. But the rest of the hockey and maple syrup lovers get by with just English.
Indian heritage
The indigenous inhabitants of the Canadian territories have preserved more than 20 languages and dialects, which today can be used by about 250 thousand people. The language of their ancestors is used daily in everyday life by the Indians living along the coast of Alaska and in British Columbia.
Russian trace
On Canadian territory, there is a compact community of Dukhobors - Russian religious dissidents who left their homeland at the end of the 19th century. Their dialect is distinguished by South Russian features and is carefully preserved by modern representatives of the community, despite the obvious influence of the English and Ukrainian languages.
