Talk:Languages of Canada

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Contents 1 "Language in Canada"? 2 Gaelic languages in CND 3 Data on bilingualism? 4 Chinook pare-down welcome 5 Requested move 5.1 Survey 5.2 Discussion

[edit] "Language in Canada"?

Does anyone mind if I rename this article "Language in Canada"? The current title is a little too academic for an encyclopedia aimed at a wide audience. Kevintoronto 21:25, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• The artical Canadian English is not mentioned in this artical or Bilingualism in Canada. Can it be useful? Cafe Nervosa | talk 17:43, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

• • It's not really the subject of the article, although perhaps it should be mentioned; it's incidental to the Language in Canada's article content, though.

• • What isn't incidental that I think should be in the article is some discussion of the "national languages" as opposed to "official languages" - Inuktitut, the First Nations language, Michif, Chinook - languages which have historical and cultural importance which are part of the linguistic history of the country, and in some areas of the milieu. Also, anyone who's followed my rants on Talk:Canadian English knows I have pretty strong opinions on the nature of "anglophone" society in British Columbia, i.e. the diversity within English itself. The current Language in Canada article seems written from the usual two-solitudes premise, with a dose of official census-multiculturalism. The evolution of non-official languages in North America might be worth a bit; the peculiarities that have arisen in Canadian versions of languages such as Norwegian, Chinese, German and so on, that are not found in the home country (Norwegian's particularly famous for this).Skookum1 19:01, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

While it is interesting to read about these hybrid dialects and whatnot, it's a shame in this article that the big "minority" languages in Canada (Mandarin/Cantonese, Arabic, Spanish, Italian, German,etc) get only a passing mention while those more obscure ones get their own headers--even this Basque Pidgin? thanks, Dan Carkner 01:53, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Gaelic languages in CND

What about the content of these articles?

• Scottish Gaelic in Canada
• Newfoundland Irish

194.114.62.34 13:32, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Data on bilingualism?

It'd be interesting to see some data on what proportion of Canadians are competent in both French and English. Twinxor t 16:05, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

There is map of Canada showing it very well here: http://atlas.gc.ca/site/english/maps/peopleandsociety/lang/officiallanguages/englishfrenchbilingualism -- Mathieugp 17:27, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Done. Data on English/French bilingualism in Quebec and in English Canada has been added to article. Makes the text more readable (and much better than Bilingualism in Canada, which goes every which way. Exact references to Statistics Canada catalogues is nevertheless missing. --Joseph B 01:46, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Chinook pare-down welcome

In the last couple of days I've created and augmented the Hybrid Languages section, but because of my specialist interest in the Jargon I'm aware I've rambled in that section. My purpose was to try and cover the different aspects of the Jargon's relevance and multi-ethnic scope/identity and its role in the history of BC (the McBride nomination, for example, and Kamloops Wawa and the residential schools situation) but I'm naturally profuse with the wordings; edit-downs pls; anything lengthy being cut out can possibly be moved/merged to Chinook Jargon or at least please transfer and note to Talk:Chinook Jargon.Skookum1 21:03, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

• Cut and pasted the Chinook material in the article Chinook Jargon (hidden text) since it is off-topic here. And the Chinook article needs an edit! --Joseph B 00:25, 7 August 2006 (UTC)