Punjabi is giving Chinese languages a run for their money in
Canada, as per census data released recently by Statistics
Canada. One in five Canadians speaks a language other than
English and French (Canada's official languages) at home. As per
the data, people with one of the various Asian languages as
their mother tongue comprise 56%, while more than 40% of the
immigrant-language population in Canada have a mother tongue of
European origin. Of the Asian-origin languages, Chinese, Punjabi
and Tagalog, a Philippine-based language, are widely spoken.
More than 200 languages were reported in the 2011 census, with
Chinese languages continuing to dominate. More than 10 lakh
people say that they speak Mandarin, Cantonese or Chinese (a
non-specified category that includes Mandarin or Cantonese).
Punjabi is listed as the next most common foreign language
spoken in Canadian households, with 4.6 lakh reporting it as
their mother tongue. It also has the highest retention rate. In
Quebec, the English-French bilingualism