04 March 2004

Chinese now no. 3 language in Canada

China's People's Daily recently reported that Chinese is now the no. 3 language in Canada:
In Canada if you don't speak English or French it is most likely that you speak Chinese. This is indicated by the latest census conducted by the Canadian government. According to the statistics Chinese has become a No. 3 language used in Canada and the number of people who speak Chinese keeps on increasing.

According to Nouvelles d'Europe from 1996 to 2001, the population whose mother tongue is Chinese grew 18 percent and reached 870,000 - about 2.9 percent out of 31.4 million of the population in Canada, a rise 0.3 percent over the original Chinese proportion of 2.6 percent. Most of the Chinese-speaking population live in BC and Ontario, Vancouver and Toronto being the two most populous cities.
Is this really news to anyone? I wonder what the no. 3 language in Japan is: Chinese or Korean?

No comments: