Canada is home to a fair amount of linguistic diversity across its 10 provinces, with large cities like Toronto and Vancouver filled with languages from around the world. Perhaps unsurprisingly, English and French are the most commonly spoken languages in Canada, but they are only two of the over 200 languages spoken there.
Did you know that more than 70 Aboriginal languages are spoken in Canada? Or that Mandarin is the third most common first language? Or that the number of Canadians able to speak a language other than English or French (the only two official languages of Canada) is currently on the rise?
What it Means to Have Two Official Languages
Admittedly, having two official languages complicates matters from the get-go. First, while French is an official language in all three territories of Canada (Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut), New Brunswick is the only officially bilingual province. While French speakers live all around Canada, the level of mixing changes from place to place. And while there are certainly French speakers there, Quebec’s only official language has been French since the Charter of the French Language was signed in 1977.
The country’s census tracks a wide variety of linguistic demographics, including home language, mother tongue, first official language, and the language most often used at work. “First language” and “primary language” are not nuanced enough terms for such a multilingual country.
This detailed level of attention is not a coincidence. Official Languages Commissioner of Canada Graham Fraser was quoted in a 2009 print edition of The Hill Times, saying, “in the same way that race is at the core of what it means to be American and at the core of an American experience and class is at the core of British experience, I think that language is at the core of Canadian experience.”
But not everyone speaks just French or English. Here’s a breakdown of the 211 languages spoken in Canada — and the complex histories they reveal.
- English: 21,400,000 native speakers
- French: 7,650,000 native speakers
- Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese): 1,340,000 native speakers
- Other Immigrant Languages: 6,544,255 native speakers
- Indigenous Languages: 213,230 native speakers
English: 21,400,000 native speakers (55.9 percent of the total population)
If you travel to Canada with some working knowledge of English under your belt, you’ll probably do just fine. English is one of two official languages spoken in Canada, and with 86.2 percent of Canadians able to conduct a conversation in English (and 63.8 percent speaking English at home in 2021), it’s the overwhelming majority language among Canucks. There are a few Canadian words and phrases you might not be entirely familiar with, but you’ll get the hang of it.
This is true perhaps everywhere besides French-speaking Quebec, as well as Nunavut, where Inuit is the mother tongue of 83 percent of the population.
French: 7,650,000 native speakers (20 percent of the total population)
French is an important language to know in Canada, and the proportion of Canadians who could speak both English and French was at 18 percent, its highest ever, in 2021. However, the population speaking French as both a mother tongue and a language spoken at home is declining, if ever so slightly, even in the Francophone territory of Quebec.
This decline is despite decades of strict language laws aimed at preserving the primacy of the French language in Quebec, first passed in 1977. These laws require French to be the primary language displayed in settings like business signage, road signs, and government services. It is hotly contested whether these laws are sufficiently stringent, though. As recently as 2022, the laws were made even stricter, giving the government more power to investigate companies that don’t comply.
“My wish is that everywhere, commercial signage unequivocally reminds us that we are indeed in Quebec,” Minister of Culture and Communications Hélène David told reporters at the time of the laws’ first passing.
Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese): 1,340,000 native speakers (3.5 percent of the total population)
With Mandarin and Cantonese firmly in place as Canada’s third and fourth most widely spoken languages, Chinese would be a shoo-in for a third official language if they wanted to add one.
What’s more, its influence is growing. The number of people who spoke a Chinese language at home jumped up 16.8 percent between 2011 and 2016.
Chinese immigrants had already arrived in Canada before 1867, the year of Confederation. Chinese immigration swelled again in the 1990s, when the majority of immigrants coming to Canada were of Chinese descent.
That’s not to say the Canadian government always welcomed them with open arms, however. Many of the earliest immigrants came on account of the Gold Rush in British Columbia, and the government soon took steps to enact anti-immigration legislation. The 1885 Chinese Immigration Act required all Chinese immigrants (except for merchants and students ) to pay a $50 head tax.
Today, members of the Canadian government are actively trying to lower the bar of entry for Chinese immigrants. Last year, Immigration Minister John McCallum was working to make it easier for Chinese tourists, students and temporary workers to get visas.
Other Immigrant Languages: 6,544,255 native speakers (18.8 percent of the total population)
Here, within this sliver of the language pie chart, lies a great deal of linguistic diversity.
With Punjabi and Tagalog ranked below the Chinese languages, it’s fair to say that there’s a strong Asian influence up north.
As of 2016, Tagalog was the sixth most common language in Canada, but it’s also the fastest-growing one, with the number of people speaking Tagalog at home jumping by 35 percent between 2011 and 2016. Naturally, it follows that the Philippines is a major origin country for Canadian immigrants. Arabic, Persian (Farsi), Hindi, and Urdu also grew significantly in that time period.
Overall, Spanish, Arabic, Italian, German, and Urdu are the next most common languages, respectively.
Canada’s most obscure languages (such as Catalan, Fijian, Belarusian, Bilen, and Kashmiri) all exist in enclaves of a couple thousand speakers or fewer.
For some of these smaller communities, geographic concentration matters. There’s a notable contingent of Arabic, Spanish, and Yiddish speakers in Montreal, Gujarati families in Northern Alberta, Filipino immigrants in the Yukon, and Korean speakers in New Brunswick.
Indigenous Languages: 213,230 native speakers (0.6 percent of the total population)
Canada comprises vast stretches of sparsely populated land, and it is in a lot of these far-flung regions that Aboriginal tongues reign supreme among non-official languages (that is, languages other than French and English).
In this interactive map compiled by The 10 and 3, you can easily see how geographically dominant native languages are. They take up most of the map!
Aboriginal tongues are represented by purple on the map.
Though this visual eminence is somewhat deceptive when you take actual population figures into account, it speaks to the importance of indigenous communities and cultural heritage in Canada, especially when you consider that the number of people who speak Inuktitut actually grew between 2011 and 2016. Additionally, the number of people who speak one of these languages at home is higher than the number of people with an Aboriginal first language, which means more people are acquiring them as second languages.
Cree is the most populous Aboriginal language, with 96,575 native speakers (0.25 percent of the total population).
The majority of these languages are spoken by a relatively small number of people. Only Cree, Inuktitut, Ojibway, Oji-Cree, Dene, and Montagnais (Innu) are spoken by more than 10,000 people in Canada. There are more native tongues that are spoken by fewer than 100 people, and they include Tsuut’ina, Oneida, Comox, Southern Tutchone, Squamish, Cayuga, Southern East Cree and an assortment of other Algonquian, Siouan, Athabaskan, Iroquoian, and Wakashan languages.
The majority of these languages are spoken by a relatively small number of people. Only Cree, Inuktitut, Ojibway, Oji-Cree, Dene and Montagnais (Innu) are spoken by more than 10,000 people in Canada. There are more native tongues that are spoken by fewer than 100 people, and they include Tsuut’ina, Oneida, Comox, Southern Tutchone, Squamish, Cayuga, Southern East Cree and an assortment of other Algonquian, Siouan, Athabaskan, Iroquoian and Wakashan languages.