Demographic Terms
The complex nature of Quebec's linguistic situation, with individuals who are often bilingual or multilingual, has required the use of multiple terms in order to describe who speaks which languages.
- Francophone
- Speaking French as a first language.
- Anglophone
- Speaking English as a first language.
- Allophone
- having a mother tongue other than English or French.
- Mother tongue
- The first language learned by a person, which may or may not still be used by that individual in adulthood, is a basic measure of a population's language. However, with the high number of mixed francophone-anglophone marriages and the reality of multilingualism in Montreal, this description does not give a true linguistic portrait of Quebec. It is, however, still essential, for example in order to calculate the assimilation rate. Statistics Canada defines mother tongue as the first language learned in childhood and still spoken; it does not presuppose literacy in that or any language.
- Home language
- This is the language most often spoken at home and is currently preferred to identify francophones, anglophones, and allophones. This descriptor has the advantage of pointing out the current usage of languages. However, it fails to describe the language that is most used at work, which may be different.
- Knowledge of official languages
- This measure describes which of the two official languages of Canada a person can speak informally. This relies on the person's own evaluation of his/her linguistic competence and can prove misleading.
- First official language learned
- Measures whether English or French is first language learned; it places allophones into English or French linguistic communities.
- Official language minority
- Based on first official language learned, but placing half of the people equally proficient since childhood in both English and French into each linguistic community; it is used by the Canadian government to determine the demand for minority language services in a region
Read more about this topic: Language Demographics Of Quebec
Famous quotes containing the word terms:
“My father and I were always on the most distant terms when I was a boy—a sort of armed neutrality, so to speak. At irregular intervals this neutrality was broken, and suffering ensued; but I will be candid enough to say that the breaking and the suffering were always divided up with strict impartiality between us—which is to say, my father did the breaking, and I did the suffering.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)