French continues to decline as 1st language in Sask., some non-official languages on the rise: StatsCan

Fewer and fewer people in Saskatchewan seem to be growing up with French as their first language, but some other languages are on the rise in the province.

English continues to be the dominant language in Saskatchewan, according to Statistics Canada, which released more 2021 census information on Wednesday.

The report says 98.1 per cent of respondents in the province gave English as their first official language, while only 1 per cent listed French, 0.2 per cent listed both and 0.7 per cent listed neither. English and French are Canada's two official languages.

French as a first language seems to be decreasing in all provinces outside of Quebec, said Bertrand Ouellet-Léveillé, senior analyst at Statistics Canada at the language stats program.

"We do see a decrease in the proportion of people who have French as their first official language spoken or as their mother tongue," he said.

"Mother tongue, it's really the first language learned in childhood and still understood."

The number of Saskatchewan people with French as their only native tongue has been declining for the last 11 years, dropping to 12,565 people in 2021 from 16,280 who reported it in the 2011 census, according to Statistics Canada.

In total, 16,850 Saskatchewan residents listed French as their only or one of their "mother tongues."

There was also a decline in the percentage of the total Canadian population that speaks French.

Outside of Quebec, the number of Canadians who say French is their only official language declined in every province except British Columbia.

"The proportion of people who have French as their mother tongue is higher for older people than for younger people," said Ouellet-Léveillé.

"So just by the effect of time, you would have a decrease of French."

Among Saskatchewan residents aged 65 and older, 2.7 per cent said they have French as their unique "mother tongue," said Ouellet-Léveillé. For kids from 0 to 14, that number is less than half of one per cent.

Non-European languages on the rise

Meanwhile, other languages are on the rise in Saskatchewan.

Statistics Canada noted an increase in the number of people who predominantly spoke something other than Canada's official languages at home, up to 8.1 per cent from 7.4 per cent, said Ouellet-Léveillé.

Canada as a whole saw a 12 to 13 per cent increase in people with a mother tongue other than English or French, said Doug Norris, senior vice president and chief demographer at Environics Analytics, in an interview with Saskatoon Morning.

"That's two to three times as high as overall population growth. So I think we're going to see that continue with our high levels of immigration."

Statistics Canada lists Tagalog, an official language of the Philippines, as the most common non-official language spoken in Saskatchewan homes, with 29,075 Saskatchewan residents reporting Tagalog as one of their "mother tongues" and around 23,000 people listing Tagalog as their first language — 2,900 more than in 2016, according to Ouellet-Léveillé.

There were also 3,400 more people in 2021 compared with 2016 who reported predominantly speaking Tagalog at home.

"We see a number of more Filipinos coming in," said Jenelyn Santos Ong, president of the Filipino-Canadian Association of Saskatchewan (FILCAS).

"There also have been in the past a lot of recruitment efforts by the government in order to bring in Filipino experts in health care."

Santos Ong said she has noticed quite a few more people in the Filipino community and that Tagalog isn't the only language she hears from people with a Filipino background.

"We see a lot of the other dialects showing up more," said Santos Ong.

"When it comes to the newcomers that are coming in, also our families that have been here a long time, it's really a focus on Tagalog as well as English."

Other Asian languages have also become more predominant since 2016, with 3,400 more people listing Punjabi as their only first language, said Ouellet-Léveillé. The number of people saying they speak that language predominantly at home doubled since 2016, he added.

Overall 9,910 Saskatchewan residents reported Punjabi as their only or one of their native tongues in 2021.

"Your culture and your language specifically is something that's part of you," said Santos Ong.  

"It's really important to keep that culture alive no matter where you live."

Fewer German and Ukrainian native speakers in 2021

Despite still being listed among the top five non-official languages used in people's homes in Saskatchewan, German has been on the decline as a first language in Saskatchewan.

In 2021, there were 15,900 people who listed German as their only "mother tongue," while 17,545 reported German as at least one of their birth languages, said Ouellet-Léveillé.

"German is still one of the most frequently spoken [non-official] languages in Saskatchewan … but it has decreased," he said.

"Ukrainian in the western part of the country and Saskatchewan in particular … used to be one of the main non-official languages spoken. But it actually went down between 2016 and 2021 from 11,000 to 8,000 people [who had Ukrainian as their only mother tongue]." 

He said those numbers might go up again in the future, considering refugees arriving in the province due to Russia's war on Ukraine.

Indigenous languages

Cree has remained the most spoken Indigenous language in Saskatchewan, with 12,265 residents reporting Cree as one of their first languages and 5,480 people saying it was the language spoken most often at home in 2021.

Some people further specified their Cree language, for example listing Nehiyawewin (Plains Cree).

"The Cree languages are indeed the languages with the largest number of people who report them as their mother tongue," said Ouellet-Léveillé.

"It's followed by the Dene languages."

Across Canada 189,000 people reported having at least one Indigenous "mother tongue," said Statistics Canada in an article on Wednesday.

Saskatchewan is among the provinces and territories where Indigenous languages are spoken by a significant number of people (27,500) followed by Manitoba (26,500) and Albert (24,600), according to Statistics Canada.

"Among the younger generations, so those that are between zero and 14 years old, for example, we have actually about 3,000 people in Saskatchewan who have reported an Indigenous language as their only mother tongue," said Ouellet-Léveillé.

The way Indigenous languages were broken down in the data was not exactly the same in 2021 as it was in 2016, so Ouellet-Léveillé said he could not comment on changes to the number of Indigenous language speakers until later in the year.

He said further information about Indigenous languages and identity will be available once further census information is released in September.

According to Norris, some First Nations reserves in the country did not participate in the census, so there might be more native Indigenous language speakers than portrayed in the data.

"It's very hard to get a good, good picture of trends," he said.

"But one of the good news stories is when you look at the number of people who say they're able to speak an Indigenous language, it's significantly higher than the number whose mother tongue was an Indigenous language. So people are learning it in childhood or perhaps adulthood as well."