WE CAN SAY IT THREE WAYS
Cheryl Cornacchia
Montreal Gazette
Jan 9 2008
Canada
While widespread bilingualism remains an unattained goal in the
rest of Canada, in Montreal the level of trilingualism has jumped,
new research indicates.
In 2006, the rate of people in Greater Montreal who were able to
converse in both of Canada’s official languages, plus another language,
increased to 18 per cent from 16.5 per cent in 2001.
More than 650,000 Montrealers know three languages, says Jack
Jedwab, the Montreal researcher who conducted the study that looks
at trilingualism in 10 selected Canadian cities.
Photo: Haroutioum Berberian teaches Roubina Kasparian and other
high school students in their Armenian language course at the Ecole
Armenienne Sourp Hagop. Armenian-Montrealers are among the most
multilingual residents, a new study indicates.
MARCOS TOWNSEND THE GAZETTE
"It’s good news all around," said Jedwab, executive director of the
Association for Canadian Studies in Montreal.
When it comes to language proficiency, Jedwab said, Montrealers far
surpass residents of the nine other cities analyzed.
Montreal is not only one of North America’s most cosmopolitan cities,
but one of the most linguistically gifted, he said.
"The message for the rest of the country," he added, is "where there
is a will, there is a way."
At 10.5 per cent and 10.1 per cent of their population, respectively,
Toronto and Ottawa came the closest to Montreal when counting
trilingual speakers. At 1.2 per cent, Halifax had the fewest number
of people comfortable in three languages.
Jedwab analyzed 2006 Canadian census data to arrive at the linguistic
portrait.
The study also found that in Montreal, Armenians (77 per cent),
Italians (72.3 per cent) and Dutch (71.9 per cent) are most likely
to be able to speak English and French in addition to their heritage
language.
Of the city’s allophone groups, those whose members were least able
to speak either of Canada’s official languages were Cantonese (21
per cent), Cambodians (15.5 per cent) and Punjabis (15.3 per cent).
Hagop Boulgarian, principal of the Ecole Armenienne Sourp Hagop,
a 675-student private school in Montreal, said the findings about
Armenians did not surprise him.
With genocide and a diaspora in his people’s history, Boulgarian said,
learning new languages – and fast – has been an important survival
tool for Armenians in general, not only for the 25,000 living in
Greater Montreal.
Aloisio Mulas, acting director of the Picai Institute of Mont-
real, which is devoted to promoting Italian culture and language,
said Italians in Montreal have shared that passion for speaking French
and English.
However, attendance in Italian language classes at the institute has
been falling over the past decade, he said. After a generation or
two in the city, some families become less concerned about ensuring
their children keep up their Italian skills.
Denise De Haan Veilleux, a cultural attache at the consulate-general
of the Netherlands in Montreal, said she is pleased but not surprised
to see so many Dutch living in Montreal are multilingual.
In Holland, she said, children must study English and French or German
when they reach high school. "It’s just something you do," De Haan
Veilleux said. "The attitude toward other languages is very different."
The 47-year-old francophone grew up in Quebec City and learned English
and Dutch only after she moved abroad with her husband.
With the family back in Canada, she said, her 20-year-old son, who
studies at McGill University, and a 13-year-old daughter are lucky
to be able to speak French, English, Dutch, German and Arabic.
"It’s like a present you give them as children. They don’t have to
learn as adults."
Beyond bilingualism
Knowledge of at least three languages in Canada and selected cities,
2006
Total population Total number,
City (metropolitan region) trilingual or more %
Canada 31,241,030 2,026,000 6.5%
Montreal 3,588,520 659,850 18.4%
Toronto 5,072,075 534,190 10.5%
Ottawa 1,117,120 112,771 10.1%
Vancouver 2,097,960 193,320 9.2%
Calgary 1,070,295 60,135 5.6%
Edmonton 1,024,825 45,750 4.5%
Winnipeg 686,035 29,560 4.3%
Regina 192,435 3,655 1.9%
Moncton 124,055 2,230 1.8%
Halifax 683,450 8,305 1.2%