Language transfers, mixed unions and transmission of mother tongue to children

Portrait of Official-Language Minorities in Canada

Catalogue number: Catalogue number: 11-629-x

Issue number: 2015010

Release date: April 17, 2014
Language transfers, mixed unions and transmission of mother tongue to children - Transcript

Description of visuals

The minority Francophone population is aging. Anglophones outside Quebec have similar characteristics regarding births and migration, but they are not as affected by population aging as Francophones.

Of course, Anglophones benefit more from international immigration, but other factors are at work.

(Two groups of figures appear on the screen, representing francophones and anglophones.)

Outside Quebec, the Anglophone group is the main beneficiary of language transfers. A language transfer occurs when people adopt, as their main home language, a language other than their mother tongue.

(Two groups of figures appear on the screen, representing francophones and anglophones. Houses are shown above the people. The houses disappear, leaving the 5 men and 5 women on the screen. Two of the men and two of the women change to purple, representing the 4 out of 10 Francophones who speak mainly a language other than French at home.)

Outside Quebec, 4 out of 10 Francophones speak mainly a language other than French at home- in almost all cases, English.

(A bar chart appears on the screen, representing language transfers. All the provinces are listed at the left, and percentages from 0 to 100 are listed across the bottom. Orange bars extending to the right represent the following: Newfoundland and Labrador 71.8%; Prince Edward Island 54.8%; Nova Scotia 50.7%; New Brunswick 11.7% ; Ontario 43.4%; Manitoba 57.9% ; Saskatchewan 76.9% ; Alberta 66.0% ; British Columbia 72.7%; Yukon 45%; Northwest Territories 54.6% ; Nunavut 50.6%. The provinces of New Brunswick, Saskatchewan and British Columbia are highlighted.)

The rate of language transfers for minority Francophones is much lower in New Brunswick than in the other provinces and territories. In Saskatchewan and British Columbia, more than seven out of 10 Francophones adopt English as their main home language.

(Two figures appear on the screen, representing exogamous families.)

Language transfers play an important role in the choice of language that will be passed on to children.

(A bar chart appears on the screen, representing the proportion of children living in an English-French exogamous family by type of couple.)

Outside Quebec, among children with at least one French-mother-tongue parent, nearly half have only English as their mother tongue.

Increasingly, children with at least one French-mother-tongue parent are living in exogamous families-in which the parents have different mother tongues. An example would be a family in which the mother has French as her mother tongue and the father has English.

Outside Quebec, the share of these children living in French-English exogamous families went from 35% in 1971 to 57% in 2011.

French-English exogamous couples are increasingly transmitting French as a mother tongue to their children, but the transmission of English still predominates.

(An age pyramid appears on the screen, representing language transfers. All the provinces are listed on the left and percentages from 0 to 10 are across the bottom.)

Thus, language transfers, exogamy and the transmission of English as a mother tongue to children by Francophones are all factors that are accelerating the aging of the Francophone population. These factors are also moderating the aging of the Anglophone population.

(The image fades into the Canada wordmark against a black background.)


Sections

Date modified: