Census learning centre
Languages spoken at home
Release date: March 29, 2023
Catalogue number: 982000032021018
Hello and welcome to the "Languages spoken at home" video.
This video will help you understand the question about languages spoken at home and the main concepts and variables that flow from them. You will also learn to understand the differences between the concepts of all languages spoken regularly at home, languages spoken most often at home and other languages spoken regularly at home. It will also help you understand the changes that have been made to the question of languages spoken at home since the last census.
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Concept video: Languages spoken at home - Transcription
(The Statistics Canada symbol and "Canada" wordmark appear on screen with the title: "Concept video: Languages spoken at home.")
Welcome to the video on languages spoken at home. The purpose of this video is to provide basic information about the concept of languages spoken at home.
This video will allow you to discover:
- The two parts of the question about languages spoken at home and the main concepts and variables derived from it
- Changes that have been made to the question since the previous census.
The census makes it possible to collect a wealth of information about the languages of people living in Canada.
Why are these census data on languages important?
These data are used in the enforcement and administration of various federal and provincial statutes, including:
- the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
- the Official Languages Act of Canada
- the Official Languages Act of New Brunswick
- the Quebec Charter of the French Language.
These data are used to study language practices, as well as knowledge and use of official and non-official languages in Canada. The data on language knowledge and use are taken into account by researchers, community groups, health care professionals, businesses and other organizations across the country when addressing issues related to human resources policies, education and training in communities, the social and economic integration of newcomers, health promotion, and community programs and services.
The following sections will now present the question on languages spoken at home and the three concepts that arise from it.
The information on languages spoken at home comes from question 9 of the 2021 Census questionnaire.
(Question 9 of the 2021 Census appears on screen.)
This question has two parts:
- Part A: The first part asks respondents to indicate the language or languages a person regularly speaks at home. It is possible to indicate one or more languages. If only one language is reported, the respondent goes right to question 10; if more than one language is reported, the respondent must answer the second part of the question.
- Part B: For people who speak more than one language regularly at home, the second part of the question asks them to indicate which of these languages the person speaks most often at home. It is possible to indicate more than one language, but a note specifies that this should be done only if those languages are spoken equally often.
This question is present in both the short-form and long-form census questionnaires. Therefore, the entire population gets asked this question.
Three concepts arise from the question about languages spoken at home.
(Various parts of Question 9 of the 2021 Census are shown on screen as they are discussed.)
The first concept is “All languages spoken regularly at home.” It corresponds to the answer given in the first part of the question about languages spoken at home.
The second concept is “Language spoken most often at home.” For people who speak only one language regularly at home, this corresponds to the answer given in the first part of the question on the languages spoken at home. For people who speak more than one language regularly at home, this corresponds to the answer given in the second part of the question. A person may have reported speaking more than one language equally most often.
The third concept is “Other languages spoken regularly at home.” This concept excludes the languages spoken most often. It is a variable derived from the first two concepts.
Each of the three concepts derived from the question about languages spoken at home is turned into variables with the same structure.
These present the responses based on two classifications: a broad classification and a detailed classification.
The broad classification of languages is as follows:
Single responses
- English
- French
- Non-official or other languages
- Indigenous languages
- Non-Indigenous languages
Multiple responses
- English and French
- English and other language(s)
- French and other language(s)
- English, French and other language(s)
- Multiple other languages
In addition to the broad classification’s large categories, the detailed classification includes the number of single responses for each Indigenous language and other non-official language reported.
For more information about the various approaches to analyzing and interpreting multiple responses to the questions about languages, please refer to the "Interpreting and Presenting Census Language Data" document.
This last section will present what's new for the 2021 Census.
The question about languages spoken at home in the 2021 Census is slightly different from the one asked in previous censuses from 2001 to 2016.
(Question 8 of the 2016 Census appears next to Question 9 of the 2021 Census as a comparison.)
The order of the two parts of the question is reversed. From 2001 to 2016, we first asked people to indicate the language spoken most often at home. Then, we asked them to indicate the other languages spoken regularly at home.
Changing the question makes it possible to:
- Reduce the response burden for people who speak only one language regularly at home
- Clarify the question and improve the quality of the data.
This change impacts the comparability of the 2021 data with those of previous cycles. This matter is addressed in the census technical documents.
(The words "Thank you for watching the 'Languages spoken at home' video" appear on screen.)
This concludes the video on languages spoken at home. Thank you for watching this video!
(The census logo appears with a link, which is also available to view here: Census of Population. The International Standard Book Number (ISBN) 978-0-660-44662-2 appears underneath the link.)
For more detailed information about the concepts, variables, methodology, historical comparability and other aspects, please refer to Statistics Canada's census pages.
(The "Canada" wordmark appears.)
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