Interesting Facts about Canada and Languages

This July 1^st, Canada will celebrate its 152 Anniversary. Canada is a country where languages have played an important role in its history and they are part of its society. Today I write about some interesting points about Canada and its languages.  Here are my points.     

1.- Canada has 2 official languages: English and French. Both languages, at the federal level, enjoy equal status. Services must be available in both languages. In the parliament, English and French can be used in the debates and the legislation must be enacted in both languages. The Federal Administration and Federal courts are also bilingual. But bilingualism in Canada does not mean that the provinces must be Bilingual, in fact, the only officially Bilingual province is New Brunswick. The province of Quebec is the only province that has French as its official language. Bilingualism in Canada does not mean that individuals are all bilinguals, in Fact, according to the census 2016, out of more than 35 million people who live in Canada 6.2 Million are bilingual English - French. There are more than 3.5 million people in Canada who speak French but do not know English. Most of the French only speakers and most Bilinguals live in Quebec.

2.- There are more than 60 aboriginal languages in Canada. According to the 2016 Census, there are approx. 213.000 native speakers of Aboriginal languages. The 3 most spoken languages are Cree, with nearly 70.000 native speakers, Inuktitut with more than 36.000 and Ojibway with more than 20.000. In the page of the University of Ottawa for language management in Canada, it can be read that aboriginal languages in Canada are divided into 8 linguistic groups, being the largest families the Algonquian family, the Na-Dene Family and Eskimo-Aleut. Nine aboriginal languages enjoy official status in the Northwest Territories (N.T.). Inuktitut, an Eskimo language, has official status in N.T and in Nunavut. Most aboriginal languages have recognition in the Provinces.

3.- The official motto of Canada is in Latin, “A mari usque ad mare”, which is translated as “From Sea to Sea”. In the website of the Canadian Encyclopedia, there is a page where this motto is explained. This Phrase was taken from the Bible’s Psalm 72:8, that in that time it was mainly read in Latin. The whole phrase is “Et dominabitur a mari usque ad mare, et a flumine usque ad terminos terrae”.  But is not only Canada at Federal level that has chosen a motto in Latin. From the 8 provinces who also have a motto, 6 of them chose one in Latin. As an example, I mention my own province, Ontario, whose motto is “Ut Incepit Fidelis sic Permanet” translated as “Loyal she began, Loyal she remains”.

4.- Canada’s National anthem, O Canada! Was first played on June 24^th, 1880 and proclaimed to be the national anthem on July 1^st, 1980. It has an official lyric in English and in French. Not many people know that both lyrics do not have the same meaning. The original lyrics were written in French by Canadian lawyer Sir Adolphe-Basile Routhier. We still have the same lyrics in French today. The lyrics in English were added later and they have changed over the years. There is also an official Bilingual version that combines phrases from both official lyrics in English and French. There are no official versions in other languages that have been sung in public events.

5.- There are different theories about the origin of the name of Canada, but it is accepted that the name of the country comes from an aboriginal language. The name of Canada probably comes from the Iroquoian word “Kanata”, which means “Village”. According to the Canadian Encyclopedia, the French explorer Jacques Cartier traveled with two young aboriginals. They informed Cartier about the route to “Kanata”. They were referring to their village, but Cartier believed that this was the name of the land and he began to use the name of Canada.  

6.- Being bilingual is not a requirement to be Prime Minister of Canada. However, after the government of the Right Honourable Lester Pearson, the tendency has been that all Prime Ministers were able to communicate in both English and French.  Canada had had Prime Ministers who were either Native speakers of English or French, who were English only speakers or who were fluent in both. Wilfred Laurier was the first French Native speaker and the first Bilingual Prime Minister of the country. No French only speakers have been in this position, and this is explained because the majority of MP’s in the Canadian parliament are Anglophones and the Prime Minister needs to lead a majority. All the Prime Ministers had had a diverse cabinet with members of both communities. At the same time, being bilingual is not a requirement to be the Governor General (who represents the Canadian monarch), although since 1959 all of them have been able to communicate in both languages. From this same year, it has been a tradition to rotate between an Anglophone and a Francophone to hold this position.   

7.- Some Aboriginal languages in Canada use their own script system, which is not used in any other country. This system is syllabic and was invented by the English Missionary James Evans. After he was ordained as Methodist Minister, he went to preach to the Aborigines who spoke Ojibway and Cree. In the page of www.proel.org, we can read the history of this script. He tried to translate the Bible to those languages using Latin script to represent them. But those who tried to read could not  understand what he wrote because those languages have very different systems of sounds that are hardly compatible with Latin, the use of long vowels are common and some words are finally very long. Then he created a script base on syllables based on Geometry, very easy to learn. The same symbol can be rotated resulting in the same consonant with a different vowel. As an example, ˂ = “pa”, ˃ = “pu”, ˄ = “pi” and ˅ = “pe”.  Symbols oriented to the right are accompanied by an “a” sound. If it is oriented Down then It has an “i” sound, and so. The characters are written and read horizontally, from left to right. This same system was later adapted to languages such as Inuktitut and Chipewyan.

In a page about transliteration, there is a very easy to use a keyboard to write in Inuktitut. The words used here were searched in an Inuktitut glossary. In the page about the Cree language,  you can find meanings of words in Cree and a keyboard in Cree with different options.

Some Examples:

English                     Cree                                      Inuktitut

-Welcome                 ᑕᐋᐧᐤ Tawaw           ᑐᖓᓱᒋᑦ Tunngasugit

-Thank You              ᐊᕀ ᐊᕀ Hiy Hiy                  ᓇᑯᕐᒦᒃ Nakurmiik

-Caribou                    ᐊᑎᕁ Atihk              ᑐᑦᑐ Tuttu

-House                      ᐋᐧᐢᑲᔨᑲᐣ Wāskayikan    ᐃᓪᓗ Iglu

-Sea                           ᑭᐦᒋᑲᒥ Kichikamiy     ᑕᕆᐅᖅ Tariuq

-Polar Bear               ᐋᐸᐢᐠ Wapask         ᓇᓄᖅ Nanuq

8.- Canada has one of the largest terminology and linguistic data banks of the world: Termium Plus. It has millions of English and French terms that can be easily consulted online free of charge. This tool is ideal for professionals who work with translations between English and French and need to write or research in both languages. Terms in Spanish and Portuguese are also available. This database was originally developed by the Université de Montréal. It is now managed by the Translation Bureau under the Federal Government of Canada. 

9.- According to the page  from Statistics Canada, there are more than 200 languages spoken in Canada and the source of this information is the Census 2016. There are more than 7.7 million native speakers of “Immigrant Languages”.  The most popular are Mandarin, Cantonese, Punjabi, Tagalog, and Spanish. Arabic is the most popular immigrant language in Quebec and in the Maritimes and it is the 3^rd most spoken language in 4 provinces after English and French. Mandarin is the most popular immigrant language in Ontario and PEI (Prince Edward Island) and it is the second immigrant language in the Maritimes and 3^rd in BC (British Columbia). Tagalog is the most popular immigrant language in Alberta and Saskatchewan, and it is the most popular immigrant language in the territories of northern Canada. Spanish, German and Italian are among the most popular languages in more than one province. 

10.- Celtic Languages have a very special relationship with Canada. Scottish Gaelic was the third most popular language in Canada at the time of Canadian Confederation in 1867. Scottish Gaelic was the mother tongue of Canada’s first Prime minister, Sir John Macdonald. In 1890, a bill was introduced proposing to make official this language, but it was not approved. Today, Canada has the largest population of native speakers outside Scotland. Canada has the only active Gaeltacht outside Ireland (A Gaeltacht is an area where Irish is or was the main language spoken) and it is located in Erinsville, Ontario. Canada has one of the most important populations of Welsh speakers outside Wales. You can read more in my article about Celtic Languages in Canada

in 2016, I published a similar article, Canada 150. Although it has similar points with this present article, some numbers were updated based on the results of the Canada census 2016.