Richmond has the highest proportion of people in Metro Vancouver speaking a non-official language as their mother tongue, according to the latest Census date released this week.
The city ranks the highest at 59 per cent, with Asian languages such as Cantonese and Mandarin taking precedence over Canadas official English and French languages.
Specifically in Richmond, the three most common mother tongues were Cantonese (16.5 per cent), Chinese, n.o.s. (not otherwise specified) (13.5) and Mandarin (11.1) in 2011. Tagalog and Punjabi made up the remainder.
Richmond was closely followed by Burnaby at 53 per cent, where, again, Asian dialects figured prominently.
Richmond and Burnaby were the only two Metro Vancouver cities where speakers of non-official languages outnumbered those who speak English as their mother tongue.
Across the region, one-third of Metro Vancouver residents speak a language other than English or French at home, with 17.1 per cent having Punjabi as their mother tongue, according to the Census data that was released Wednesday.
Cantonese (16 per cent), Chinese n.o.s. (12.2 per cent), Mandarin (11.8 per cent) and Tagalog (6.7 per cent) rounded out the top five leading immigrant languages, which account for 64 per cent of the overall population that speaks an immigrant language most often at home.
The share of the Metro Vancouver population reporting that it spoke only English at home continued the decline that began in 2001. The share has fallen from 65.3 per cent in 2001 to 62 per cent with 2006 and 58 per cent in 2011, respectively. At the same time, the population who reported speaking a language other than English or French in combination with English at home increased from 17.8 per cent in 2001 to 19.7 per cent in 2006 and 24 per cent in 2011.
In the City of Vancouver, half the population speaks English as their mother tongue, compared with 45 per cent who speak a non-official language. In Surrey, 52 per cent of people speak English as their mother tongue and 44 per cent speak a non-official language.
The proportion of native English speakers in Metro Vancouver is highest in outlying areas such as Hope (88 per cent), Chilliwack (86 per cent), Mission and Maple Ridge (both 85 per cent) and the Langleys (83 per cent).
The data followed a trend across Canada, where more than 200 different languages are being spoken in Canadian households with one-fifth -- or nearly 6.63 million people - speak something other than English or French. Of this total, 6,390,000 spoke an immigrant language at home, more than 213,000 people spoke an Aboriginal language, and nearly 25,000 reported using a sign language.
Almost one-third or 2,145,000 people reported that the only language they spoke at home was a language other than English or French, that is, a non-official language. The remaining two-thirds spoke a non-official language in combination with either English or French.
The home languages showing the strongest growth between 2006 and 2011 were primarily Asian. The population speaking Philippine-based language Tagalog rose by 64 per cent, the highest growth. Nearly 279,000 people reported speaking Tagalog most often in 2011, up from 170,000 five years earlier.
At the same time, the relative share of Toronto's population who reported speaking a language other than English or French in combination with English at home increased from 20.7% in 2001 to 23.0% in 2006 and 27.6% in 2011.
Seven other language groups also saw their numbers increase by more than 30 per cent. They included Mandarin (+50 per cent), Arabic (+47p percent), Hindi (+44 per cent), Creole languages (+42%), Bengali (+40 per cent), Persian (+33 per cent), and Spanish (+32 per cent).
Four languages showed a slight decline in the number of people who reported speaking them most often at home. Three of them, Italian, Polish and Greek, are spoken for the most part by early immigrant groups and their descendants.
In British Columbia, 70.3 per cent of the population reported English only as mother tongue, and 26.5 per cent reported only a non-official language, both higher than the national average of 56.9 per cent and 19.8 per cent respectively.
In 2011, 80.5 per cent of the B.C. population spoke English only most often at home, compared with just 58 per cent in Metro Vancouver, which is down from 65.3 per cent in 2001.
But the decrease in the use of 'English only' or the use of an 'other' language only was offset by a significant increase in the number of persons reporting speaking both English and an 'other' language at home, rising from 17.8 in 2001 to 24 per cent last year.
With a file from the Vancouver Sun
