One country, two languages – French and English in Canada

In Vancouver, newcomers are greeted with “Welcome to Canada”. In Québec, people say “Bienvenue au Canada”. Whether the greeting is in English or French depends on where you arrive in Canada.

The reason for this is historical: In the early 17th century the French and English both founded colonies on 4,000 square miles of North American territory, importing their languages and customs in the process. Hence the coexistence between French and English speakers has a long tradition and is largely conflict-free in everyday life.

English and French have had equal status at the federal level since 1969. The ten provinces and three territories are free to choose their official languages. In Canadian schools there are no area-wide English or French programs so that only about one fifth of the population speaks both languages fluently.

Anglophones form a majority in the country with about sixty percent. They have English roots and grow up with English as their first language. In the western part of the country and in central provinces like Manitoba and Ontario English, spoken with an American accent, dominates.

6.5 million of just below 32 million Canadians use French as their mother tongue. The majority of them lives in the eastern province of Québec (with the city of the same name as its provincial capital). Here, where 80 percent of Francophone Canadians reside, French is the only official language. In Québec, all road signs are in French only, whereas in the Canadian capital, Ottawa, they are bilingual and in other parts of the country mostly in English. The provinces of New Brunswick and Ontario also have substantial francophone populations who speak regionally varying dialects.

In the Canadian far north, along the border with Greenland, lies the territory of Nunavut, where the Eskimo-Aleutian Inuktitut is the third official language besides English and French. 25,000 of Nunavut’s population of 31,000 belong to an Eskimo ethnic group called Inuit. Indigenous peoples such as the First Nations and the Métis (descendants of Europeans and Indians) have also preserved their linguistic heritage to this day. While the First Nations have over 50 different languages, a form of Creole has survived among the Métis.