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Many languages have always been used in Canada. Before Confederation, the parts that would become Canada were home to over 70 different languages across 12 language families. Nowadays, most indigenous languages are still used; regardless, most are endangered, and only approximately 0.6 percent of Canadians declare an Indigenous language as their mother language. Since the institution of the Canadian state, English and French have been the co-official languages and are, by far, the most used languages in the nation now.
According to the 2016 census, English and French are the mother tongues of 56 percent and 21.4 percent of Canadians, respectively. In totality, 86.2 percent of Canadians have a working knowledge of English, while 29.8 percent have a working knowledge of French. Under the Official Languages Act of 1969, both English and French have official status throughout Canada regarding federal government services and most courts. All federal legislation is enacted bilingually.
Below is the map of Reddit user feeeeshie, which shows where in Canada, English and French are the most spoken.
In Canada, 4.7 million people (14.2% of the population) registered to speak a language other than English or French, most often at home, and 1.9 million people (5.8% of the population) reported communicating such a language regularly as a second language (besides their primary home language, English or French). In general, 20 percent of Canada’s population reported speaking a language other than English or French at home. For roughly 6.4 million people, the other language was an immigrant language, spoken most often or regularly at home, alone or together with English or French. In contrast, for over 213 thousand people, the other language was an Indigenous language. Finally, the number of people reporting sign languages as the languages spoken at home was nearly 25 thousand (15 thousand most often and 9.8 thousand regularly).
