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Most Spoken Languages in Canada

Can you name the two official languages, five most spoken indigenous languages and the twenty most prevelant immigrant languages in Canada?
As of 2016. According to Wikipedia
Population is by mother tongue
Chinese/Hindustani languages must be guessed separately!
Quiz by Jiaozira
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Featured Quiz
Last updated: September 19, 2020
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First submittedSeptember 3, 2016
Times taken42,523
Average score55.6%
Rating4.83
Quiz and answer stats >>
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Official
19.4 mil
English
7.1 mil
French
 
 
Indigenous
78.8 k
Cree
32.0 k
Inuktitut
11.1 k
Ojibwe
10.9 k
Innu
9.7 k
Chipewyan
Immigrant
592 k
Mandarin
565 k
Cantonese
501 k
Punjabi
458 k
Spanish
431 k
Tagalog
419 k
Arabic
384 k
German
375 k
Italian
221 k
Portuguese
214 k
Persian
Immigrant
210 k
Urdu
188 k
Russian
181 k
Polish
156 k
Vietnamese
153 k
Korean
140 k
Tamil
110 k
Hindi
108 k
Gujarati
106 k
Greek
102 k
Ukrainian
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63 Comments
Jiaozira
+12
Level 71
Aug 22, 2020
Updated to clean up the format, limit the amount of languages and seperate languages based on their status. Keep in mind that there are plenty more indigenous and immigrant languages, I have selected the five/twenty top most spoken languages for each, respectively.
laura80
+20
Level 85
Aug 22, 2020
Could we accept Anishinaabe or Anishinaabemowin for Ojibwe? It is, after all, the real name of the language.
Jiaozira
+8
Level 71
Aug 22, 2020
I'll consider it, although Ojibwe seems to be a much more common name for the language.
tshalla
+16
Level 76
Sep 19, 2020
That certainly used to be true, but may not any more. Anyway, the shift to Anishnaabe (tricky - a variety of spellings) is well under way. In the case of Chipewyan, I'm pretty sure it's better to use Dene (which worked as a type-in).
iamwhoiam
+10
Level 41
Sep 19, 2020
As a non-Indigenous person from Southern Ontario, I agree.

Anishinaabe is used far more than Ojibwe in schools and common conversation nowadays and Dene is used more than Chipewyan.

Jiaozira
+8
Level 71
Sep 19, 2020
Anishinaabe will work now, because there's no reason not to accept it. Ojibwe and Chipewyan are still the names that appear on Wikipedia so I will not change them (although I personally heard the name Dene first and more frequently).
Wachipunk
+2
Level 55
Apr 10, 2021
In Québec we use more Ojibwé than the other.
hwes
+6
Level 86
Oct 22, 2021
Dene is far more common than Chipewyan. Ojibwe is still common although most history textbooks and other publications are switching to Anishinaabe
bossch1ck
+1
Level 68
Jan 3, 2024
Ojibwe is referring to the group of people. The language is referred to as Anishinaabe.
Jiaozira
+2
Level 71
Jan 3, 2024
Not exactly. Ojibwe is still a valid exonym for the language. Anishinaabe is the name of the larger cultural group to which Ojibwe people belong to, and a common endonym for their language is Anishinaabemowin.
GenghisCon
+3
Level 48
Nov 15, 2022
nerd
InterAlia
+21
Level 76
Feb 9, 2023
Read the room, man
PeregrineFalcon
+6
Level 76
Aug 23, 2020
Inuit is accepted as a type-in for Innu but I don't think that's correct, they are not related. Inuit should be a type-in for Inuktitut.
Jiaozira
+1
Level 71
Aug 23, 2020
That is correct. While I've added that type in to Inuktitut for now, I may remove it seeing as, linguistically speaking, Inuit is a language family which includes Inuktitut, Greenlandic and a couple other living languages.
tshalla
+2
Level 76
Sep 19, 2020
Are you sure about this? I don't think "Inuit" ever works to describe language. I think that, instead, the languages you mention are languages Inuit people use. Anyway, really fun quiz. I missed Innu - the only one not used in Manitoba - and was surprised at the absence of all African languages (especially Somali, Lingala, Swahili, Amharic, and Yoruba). I would have thought that at least two or three of these would have reached the threshold.
Jiaozira
+1
Level 71
Sep 19, 2020
Yes I'm positive. I came across that bit of knowledge on Wikipedia under Inuit Languages (a part of the Greater Eskimo-Aleut Language Family). I didn't know that myself prior to researching the language families of both Inuktitut and Innu.
Jiaozira
+1
Level 71
Sep 19, 2020
The top African language (after the Berber language family), is Somalian with 36,000 native speakers. There is a sizeable Black Canadian community, but I'm lead to believe many are of Caribbean heritage and speak either English or Haitian Creole.
bxtterflyfx
+3
Level 73
Sep 19, 2020
yea you're right. I live in southern Ontario, and my city is 16% Caribbean. The black people here are mostly from the Caribbean and speak English.
918Winchan
+4
Level 71
Sep 19, 2020
I did not know there were so many Gujaratis and Tamils in Canada
ddddan
+4
Level 81
Sep 19, 2020
In 2009 there was a big protest where the Tamils blocked a major highway in Toronto in response to the civil war in Sri Lanka

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests_against_the_Sri_Lankan_Civil_War_in_Canada

MindWax
+1
Level 84
Jun 24, 2024
I'm sure the war in Sri Lanka stopped immediately, after the participants heard that a highway was closed in Canada.
Prot
+14
Level 56
Sep 19, 2020
Not enough Kannada speakers in Canada?
Jiaozira
+3
Level 71
Sep 19, 2020
I have met some Kannada speakers in Canada, but I cannot find any signs of them having a notable population here. Can't find any population data on Wikipedia, but subtracting from the combined Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada population of 189,000 I reckon they have around 5,000 speakers in Canada.
tshalla
+12
Level 76
Sep 19, 2020
I think old Prot was punning. Thanks for your thoughtful responses to my and other questions.
Jiaozira
+4
Level 71
Sep 19, 2020
Ahh, I can't believe I missed that! I even wrote a spoof detailed article a while back about how Kannada is actually a Canadian language. And it's no problem, I try to respond to as many questions as I can.
thread
+3
Level 65
Jun 8, 2022
Let me guess, one similarity is ending words with "eh" lol
Chaddius
+2
Level 59
Sep 19, 2020
Hello, fellow JetPunk users! I've been working on a quiz for quite some time. It's easily been the most effort I've put into a quiz. I'm pretty unknown, so I'm commenting here to try and get noticed. Try my pretty hard quiz at https://www.jetpunk.com/user-quizzes/322930/word-scramble-all-countries
Fianchetto
+2
Level 75
Dec 20, 2023
"I'm pretty unknown"

*has a featured quiz now*

Jiaozira
+1
Level 71
Dec 20, 2023
Good on him, getting your first feature is an amazing feeling.
ander217
+2
Level 74
Sep 19, 2020
Nice quiz, Jiaozira.
Jiaozira
+1
Level 71
Sep 19, 2020
Thank you Ander!
coeurdechoeur
+2
Level 79
Sep 19, 2020
The description misspells the word "tongue."
Jiaozira
+1
Level 71
Sep 19, 2020
Fixed.
AbiA
+2
Level 85
Jan 24, 2023
And prevalent. Interesting quiz thanks.
JackintheBox
+1
Level 79
Dec 20, 2023
Yeah prevalent is misspelt in the description
theRomanianGuy
+1
Level 60
Sep 19, 2020
In the 2016 census, 100, 615 people reported Romanian as their mother tongue (first language learned). This represents 0.3 per cent of the total Canadian population.
Jiaozira
+3
Level 71
Sep 19, 2020
Nice! But not enough to make it on this quiz.
TheOrca
+2
Level 50
Sep 26, 2022
One of my friends had Romanian as their mother tongue but had forgot it by the time I met them.
Blasphemian
+5
Level 47
Sep 21, 2020
Wouldn't it be funny if Kannada was on here?
Archer1212
+1
Level 63
Sep 22, 2020
the average score is 16, but we only get one point for that? what gives?
Jiaozira
+2
Level 71
Sep 22, 2020
16 is the 44th percentile, and translates to 59% correct. Based on JetPunk's points system, you must score in the 50th percentile, or have 65% of the answers correct, in order to get two points. For one reason or another, there is always a large number of people who score 100% and they tend to drive average percentiles up quite a bit.
AlexThirkell
+4
Level 75
Sep 23, 2020
"one reason or another" - we know the reason! Nice quiz J :)
Jiaozira
+2
Level 71
Sep 23, 2020
It's sheer brilliance 100% of the time, right? And thanks mate :)
Tantheman
+8
Level 65
Jan 18, 2021
Interesting quiz, love how you added an indigenous section.
Jiaozira
+4
Level 71
Jan 18, 2021
Thanks! Thought it would be helpful to distinguish them from the otherwise long list of more recent immigrant languages (same with the official languages).
redsplat
+2
Level 73
Feb 24, 2021
Agreed! I appreciate the effort that went into making an Indigenous languages section! Enjoyed the quiz very much.

I do wish you'd make the official languages a subsection of the immigrant language section; it's discomfiting and, dare I say, even problematic that it's not.

Jiaozira
+6
Level 71
Feb 24, 2021
Thank you, I am glad you appreciated my decision. I do realise that English and French are not indigenous to our country, but since those are the languages that Canada was built on (and the languages of Canadian society at large), it wouldn't reflect the situation if I put them with the immigrant languages.
JWatson24
+3
Level 71
Feb 18, 2021
How common would you say Bengali is? My family visited one of my mom's friends in Toronto once, and there seemed to be a pretty sizeable Bengali community in one neighborhood. I also have a cousin who's moving to Canada. It seems a pretty popular destination for Bangladeshis now, especially after Trump's immigration restrictions.
Jiaozira
+4
Level 71
Feb 18, 2021
Bengali missed the quiz by a couple placements (after Ukrainian it goes Dutch, Romanian and then Bengali). I was surprised that Bengali didn't make the top 20 because I have met several Bengalis/Bangladeshis in Lethbridge, AB and we are only a 2nd tier Canadian city. The South Asian community in Canada is growing very fast, maybe I will get to add Bengali after the new census data gets released this year.
JWatson24
+2
Level 71
Dec 20, 2023
I checked the new data on Wikipedia and Bengali is #21 now, or #20 depending on whether you interpret Serbo-Croatian to be one or multiple languages. It looks like Haitian Creole would also be on here now. Are you planning on updating this quiz anytime soon? It'd be awesome if you did!
Jiaozira
+1
Level 71
Dec 20, 2023
This is a good reminder to update it for the new-ish 2021 census data :)

I won't do it right away because I don't want to reset the stats, while the quiz is still on the front page.

Jiaozira
+1
Level 71
Dec 20, 2023
I was too curious to wait, and so I compiled all the data to find out how things have changed over 5 years. I believe you may have been looking at knowledge of the language (rather than mother tongue), since according to my research Bengali is still at #22 including Serbo-Croatian (although it has grown by an impressive 19% in 5 years and will almost certainly be on this quiz by the next census!) Romanian still has slightly more speakers. I find it's more reliable now to go straight to Statistics Canada's website since Wikipedia is lacking in some information.
JWatson24
+2
Level 71
Dec 20, 2023
Oh cool. I don't feel like scrolling through the Census data haha, but I'll take your word for it. Looking forward to the next update!
Jiaozira
+1
Level 71
Dec 20, 2023
Definitely not very user friendly haha, stay tuned!
MalyJacus
+2
Level 57
Oct 17, 2022
What about Ubuntu? Rust? Sql?
bhalrog24
+3
Level 63
Dec 20, 2023
Great quiz! In your pinned comment you mentioned this only includes 5 indigenous languages in the country, and I hope you don't mind me sharing my quiz here. This should be all (I think) the indigenous languages still alive today. https://www.jetpunk.com/user-quizzes/1283603/indigenous-languages-in-canada
Jiaozira
+2
Level 71
Dec 20, 2023
A great effort! I am happy to have you share your quiz here, I think it's cool to share more about Indigenous languages in Canada :)
NQChien
+1
Level 66
Dec 20, 2023
Great to learn about P... Canadian.
Tetzy
+2
Level 64
Dec 20, 2023
I think Torontonian should be on here
Jiaozira
+4
Level 71
Dec 20, 2023
That's an exonym and they are trying to phase it out. The new, more correct term is Trannan :)
Quizbyquiz
+2
Level 43
Dec 21, 2023
Greek 🔛🔝

(Also English)

bossch1ck
+1
Level 68
Jan 3, 2024
Please update Chipewyan to Dene. No one here calls it Chipewyan.
Jiaozira
+1
Level 71
Jan 3, 2024
I'm Canadian. I agree Dene is getting more popular in usage, and I will likely change the name later on, but Chipewyan is still in use here.
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