Frantsesa Kanadan: hiztun-dentsitatea eta hizkuntzaren erabilera, transmisioa eta ezagutza

Abstract

French is an official language of Canada along with English, however, people whose mother tongue is French (alone or together with another language) represent a minority of the population nationwide (20.9%) and in all provinces and territories, except Quebec (77.8%). At the local level, most French-mother-tongue Quebecers reside in neighbourhoods where they represent over half of the population (93.4%), whereas this is the case for only one quarter of French-mother-tongue people in the rest of the country (25.4%). Higher proportions of native French speakers at the neighbourhood level are associated with a greater likelihood French-mother-tongue people retain the use of French as their main home language, a lower likelihood that French-mother-tongue adults form a mixed-language couple, and higher rates of transmission of French from parents to children in both monolingual and mixed-language families. Among people whose mother tongue is not French, those residing in neighbourhoods with a high proportion of people whose mother tongue is French were more likely to adopt the use of French as their main home language or to acquire knowledge of French as a second language. While these associations are seen both in Quebec and outside Quebec, the majority status of the French language in Quebec and its minority status elsewhere in Canada is reflected in the results, regardless of local-level concentration of French speakers at the neighbourhood level.