Non-official languages on the rise in 450 areas

FRENCH SLIPPING AS MOTHER TONGUE Laval at the epicentre of linguistic change

If you want to understand how Quebec’s linguistic makeup is changing, look no further than Laval.

“Perhaps the most interesting phenomenon we observe is in Laval,” Statistics Canada analyst Jean-Pierre Corbeil said. “What we see in Laval is the strong growth of languages other than English or French.”

Meanwhile, the number of people whose mother tongue is French has been slipping.

According to figures released Wednesday, the most common non-official mother tongues spoken in Laval are Arabic, Italian, Greek, Spanish and Creole.

Corbeil said part of the change can be explained by a change in emphasis by census-takers trying to make a distinction between old definitions of mother tongue and the meaning of public and private language.

But he suggests it is also a reflection of the immigrants who have been coming to Quebec — French-speakers from north Africa and immigrants from Latin America who are already comfortable in French, happy to use it at work and in the marketplace, but still hang tight to their own language.

Meanwhile, he said, an influx of newcomers from Asia who have more traditionally adopted English helps explain a spike in the percentage of Laval residents who say they most often speak English at home, despite the fact only seven per cent of Laval residents say English is their mother tongue.

“It shows how language at home is important, not only language used most, but also those used regularly,” Corbeil said.

Further afield, the census found the proportion of people speaking French at home dropped slightly in the off-island suburbs around Montreal and Laval.

The biggest change was in Vaudreuil-Soulanges, the sprawling off-island region stretching to the Ontario border, where the proportion of people reporting French as their language spoken at home dropped 4.8 percentage points between 2006 and 2011.

Vaudreuil-Soulanges was also where the biggest increases were in the proportion of people who speak English or non-official languages at home. English was up two percentage points, and nonofficial languages up 1.4 percentage points.

Hudson was the only municipality in Vaudreuil-Soulanges with a majority English population, although St-Lazare, Pincourt, Île-Perrot and Vaudreuil-Dorion had significant numbers of people speaking English and nonofficial languages at home.

In the South Shore census district of Rousillon, which includes Delson, Châteauguay and Candiac, the proportion of people speaking French at home dropped by 2.8 percentage points from 2006.

There was a slight increase in the proportion of people who said they spoke nonofficial languages at home in Roussillon. In St-Rémi and La Prairie, the number of people speaking non-official languages at home was slightly greater than those speaking English.

In the Longueuil census district, which encompasses St-Lambert, Boucher ville, Longueuil, St-Bruno and Brossard, the proportion of people speaking French at home also dropped, by 1.8 percentage points from 2006.

Like Rousillon, there was a small increase in the proportion of people speaking nonofficial languages at home in Longueuil. While all the municipalities there are majority French-speaking, in Brossard, 39,825 people speak French at home, while a total of 32,825 speak either English or a non-official language.

In the fast-growing areas of Blainville, Ste-Thérèse, Terrebonne and Mascouche, the proportion of people speaking French at home dropped from 2006 while there was a small increase in the proportion of people speaking nonofficial languages.