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Chinese as a mother tongue
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Chinese has been growing rapidly as a mother tongue in Canada since the 1980s, due to increased immigration, particularly from Hong Kong, the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan.
Of all the languages spoken in Canada, Chinese is the most spoken language after English and French. In the 2001 Census, 853,700 people reported Chinese as their mother tongue—the first language learned and still understood. Among those whose mother tongue is Chinese, the most common dialects are Cantonese (322,300) and Mandarin (101,800).
Most immigrants settle in our biggest cities. Vancouver is a magnet for Chinese immigrants. In 2001, one in six residents of Vancouver spoke Chinese as their mother tongue. Among the city’s allophone workers (people whose mother tongue is neither French nor English), 37% had Chinese as their mother tongue. Of this group, 53% use Chinese at work.
In Toronto, 18% of allophone workers have Chinese as their mother tongue and 40% of them use Chinese at work. In Montréal, 6% of allophone workers report Chinese as a mother tongue and 39% of them use Chinese at work.
In 2001, 85% of the Chinese in Canada—both Canadian- and foreign-born—had conversational knowledge of English or French. About 790,500 reported speaking a Chinese language at home regularly, 81,900 fewer than those who reported a Chinese mother tongue. This suggests some language transfer has occurred, mainly among those born in Canada who learned Chinese as a child but may not speak it regularly or do not use it as their main language at home.
