Current Demographics
- Population: 7,651,000 (2006 est.)
- Official language: French
- Majority group: Francophone (82.0% native language, 84.5% speak French as a dominant language)
- Percentage of population that is fluent in French (95.0%)
- Minority groups: Anglophone (7.9%), allophone (9%), Aboriginals (1%), bilingual
Among the ten provinces of Canada, Quebec is the only one whose majority is francophone. Quebec's population accounts for 23.9% of the Canadian population, and Quebec's francophones account for at least 90% of all of Canada's French-speaking population.
English-speaking Quebecers reside mostly in the Greater Montreal Area, where they have built a well-established network of educational, social, economic, and cultural institutions. There are also historical English-speaking communities in the Eastern Townships, the Ottawa Valley, and the Gaspé Peninsula. By contrast, the province's second-largest city Quebec City is almost exclusively francophone. The absolute number and the share of native English speakers has dropped significantly during the past forty years (from 13.8% in 1951 to just 8% in 2001) due to a net emigration to other Canadian provinces. This decline will likely continue in the near future.
Similarly, the usage of French has declined sharply outside Quebec and New Brunswick during the same period. This decline is unlikely to stop due to the older age of the Francophone population, high rate of intermarriage with anglophones as well as the failure to pass the French language to the younger generations.
The remaining 10% of the population, known as allophones, comprises more than 30 different linguistic/ethnic groupings. With the exception of Aboriginal peoples in Quebec (the Inuit, Huron, etc.), the majority are products of 20th-century immigration and eventually adopt either English or French as home languages.
Of the population of 7,546,131 counted by the 2006 census, 7,435,905 people completed the section about language. Of these, 7,339,495 gave singular responses to the question regarding their first language. The languages most commonly reported were the following:
| Language | Number of native speakers |
Percentage of singular responses |
|---|---|---|
| French | 5,877,660 | 80.1% |
| English | 575,555 | 7.8% |
| Italian | 124,820 | 1.7% |
| Spanish | 108,790 | 1.5% |
| Arabic | 108,105 | 1.5% |
| Chinese | 63,415 | 0.9% |
| Berber | 41,845 | 0.6% |
| Portuguese | 34,710 | 0.5% |
| Romanian | 27,180 | 0.4% |
| Vietnamese | 25,370 | 0.3% |
| Russian | 19,275 | 0.3% |
| German | 17,855 | 0.2% |
| Polish | 17,305 | 0.2% |
| Armenian | 15,520 | 0.2% |
| Persian | 14,655 | 0.2% |
| Creole | 14,060 | 0.2% |
| Cree | 13,340 | 0.2% |
| Punjabi | 11,905 | 0.2% |
| Tagalog (Filipino) | 11,785 | 0.2% |
| Tamil | 11,570 | 0.1% |
| Hindi | 9,685 | 0.1% |
| Bengali | 9,660 | 0.1% |
| Inuktitut | 9,615 | 0.1% |
| Montagnais-Naskapi | 9,335 | 0.1% |
| Khmer (Cambodian) | 8,250 | 0.1% |
| Yiddish | 8,225 | 0.1% |
| Hungarian (Magyar) | 7,750 | 0.1% |
| Marathi | 6,050 | 0.1% |
| Turkish | 5,865 | 0.1% |
| Ukrainian | 5,395 | 0.1% |
| Atikamekw | 5,245 | 0.1% |
| Bulgarian | 5,215 | 0.1% |
| Lao | 4,785 | 0.1% |
| Hebrew | 4,110 | 0.1% |
| Korean | 3,970 | 0.1% |
| Dutch | 3,620 | 0.05% |
Numerous other languages were also counted, but only languages with more than 3,000 native speakers are shown.
(Figures shown are for the number of single language responses and the percentage of total single-language responses)
Read more about this topic: Language Demographics Of Quebec
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