Section 2 Evolution of the population by mother tongue and first official language spoken

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• 2.1 Evolution of the population by mother tongue
• 2.2 Evolution of the population by first official language spoken
• 2.3 Geographic distribution of the population with French as first official language spoken

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2.1 Evolution of the population by mother tongue

From 1951 to 1991, the total population of Newfoundland and Labrador increased by 56%. Whereas the province had a population of 361,415 in 1951, the figure in 1991 was 563,925 (see Table 2.1). Since then, the province's total population has declined from one census to the next, totalling 500,610 in 2006. However, an analysis of these statistics by mother tongue reveals that the province's different language groups have not evolved in the same way. On the one hand, the French-mother-tongue population grew from 1951 to 1971, (going from 2,320 to 3,610) fluctuated after that and then stood at 2,055 in 2006, a decline of 11% in 55 years. On the other hand, the English-mother-tongue population grew by 56% from 1951 to 1991, going from 357,325 to 555,925, then declined to 488,780 in 2006. For its part, the "other"-mother-tongue population is the only one to have grown steadily since 1951, going from 1,770 to 9,775 in 2006, a total increase of 452%.

Table 2.1 Population by mother tongue, Newfoundland and Labrador, 1951 to 2006

Table 2.2 shows the average annual rate of population growth for each mother tongue group since 1951. The average annual growth rate of the French-mother-tongue group was negative for the 1971 to 1981 period and since 1991, it reached -2.49 for the 2001 to 2006 period. For the English-mother-tongue population, the growth rate, while positive, declined steadily from 1951 to 1981, going from 2.64 to 0.83. Since then, it has been negative but very close to zero, except for the 1996 to 2001 period when it was -1.45. For the "other"-mother-tongue group, the average growth rate varied substantially from one period to the next. Whereas it was 7.96 from 1951 to 1961, it was 14.57 from 2001 to 2006 and fluctuated between 0.02 and 2.86 between these two periods.

Table 2.2 Average annual population growth rate by mother tongue, Newfoundland and Labrador, 1951 to 2006

The French-mother-tongue population outside Quebec resides mainly in two of its bordering provinces. New Brunswick and Ontario together accounted for 76% of all Francophones living outside Quebec in 2006. That same year, Francophones in Newfoundland and Labrador accounted for 0.2% of the French-mother-tongue population outside Quebec, compared with 0.3% in 1951 and 0.4% in 1961 (see Table 2.3). In Newfoundland and Labrador, Francophones accounted for 0.4% of the province's overall population in 2006. For the English- and "other"-mother-tongue populations, these proportions are 97.6% and 2.0% respectively (see Table 2.1).

Table 2.3 Number and proportion of Francophones in Newfoundland and Labrador within the Francophone population outside Quebec, 1951 to 2006

2.2 Evolution of the population by first official language spoken

As described in Section 1, the criterion of the first official language spoken (FOLS) offers a more inclusive definition of the Francophone population: it allows persons with mother tongues other than English or French to be included in the Anglophone or Francophone population. Most persons with "other" mother tongues are generally counted as part of the majority FOLS group. As with the English-speaking group, the population with French as first official language spoken is usually larger than the French-mother-tongue population in a province such as Ontario, for example, where a large proportion of persons have mother tongues other than French or English. In other cases, such as New Brunswick, the use of the FOLS criterion yields practically the same result as the mother tongue criterion, since persons with "other" mother tongues in that province comprise only a small proportion of the population. In Newfoundland and Labrador, use of the FOLS criterion results in a slightly smaller Francophone population, despite the presence of allophones. In fact, within the overall population of Newfoundland and Labrador, the Francophone minority population (according to first official language spoken) numbers 1,935 (0.4%) (see Table 2.4), while the French-mother-tongue population numbers 2,055 (0.4%) (after equal allocation of multiple responses). As to the Anglophone population, its relative share is 97.6% according to the mother tongue criterion and 99.4% according to the FOLS criterion, which shows that historically, allophones are oriented toward English.

Table 2.4 Population by first official language spoken, Newfoundland and Labrador, 1971 to 2006

The results presented in Chart 2.1 show that since 1981, the French-mother-tongue population has exceeded the population of the Francophone minority according to first official language spoken (FOLS). Generally, when the French-mother-tongue population is equal to the French FOLS population, this means that persons with mother tongues other than English or French are not integrating linguistically to the advantage of the minority language. When the French-mother-tongue population is larger than the French FOLS population, this means that, in addition to "other"-mother-tongue persons not being integrated, some persons with French as their mother tongue no longer know French (but do know English) well enough to conduct a conversation. For this reason, they are included in the English FOLS group.

From 1971 to 2006, the size difference between the French-mother-tongue population and the French FOLS population varied slightly. However, as Chart 2.1 shows, the gaps between these two groups have consistently been small.

Chart 2.1 Number of persons with French as mother tongue and as first official language spoken, Newfoundland and Labrador, 1951 to 2006

2.3 Geographic distribution of the population with French as first official language spoken

The Francophone minority constitutes 0.4% of Newfoundland and Labrador's overall population. More than 80% of Francophones live primarily in three census divisions (CDs): No. 1 (35% or 685 persons), No. 4 (27% or 510) and No. 10 (19% or 360). The CDNo. 1 includes the census subdivision of St. John's (see Appendix A), while CDNo. 10 includes the census subdivision of Labrador City. These two census subdivisions account for the largest proportions of Francophones in the province, 23% and 10% respectively. Finally, a slightly smaller proportion of Francophones (nearly 9%) reside in the census subdivision of Cape St. George, in CDNo. 4.