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Multilingualism for me on Prince Edward Island was something very nearly theoretical: The 2001 census and the 2006 census both suggest that, out of a total population of nearly 134 thousand people, 117 thousand spoke only English, 17 thousand knew both English and French, and only 55 people spoke neither official language. (5% of the Island population are native Francophones, some 6 or 7 thousand people.)
This changed when I came to live in Kingston in September 2003. After I was there for a couple of weeks, I noticed that the form of Canadian English differed significantly from that of Maritimer English, that in fact the people I came across spoke the way that I heard people speak on CBC broadcasts. In Toronto, things changed dramatically. I can regularly count on hearing Portuguese spoken in my neighbourhood, Korean in the shops and Internet cafes to my southeast, Chinese on the streets all over the city and offered as an operating language at ATMs, French randomly on the streets by different people, Jamaican English commonly, and so on. English remains the common language of Torontonians--the diversity of Toronto's many distinctive immigrant population ensures that-but at the neighbourhood level things change a bit, some language groups (Portuguese Canadians), showing more resilience than others.
How do things work in your neck of the woods? Is there a common language in your community, and if so what is it, and if not how does language work in your community? Does it have a lot of language groups or few, are their distinct neighbourhoods or are they dispersed throughout the community? What sort of official recognition are the various language groups given in your city?
This changed when I came to live in Kingston in September 2003. After I was there for a couple of weeks, I noticed that the form of Canadian English differed significantly from that of Maritimer English, that in fact the people I came across spoke the way that I heard people speak on CBC broadcasts. In Toronto, things changed dramatically. I can regularly count on hearing Portuguese spoken in my neighbourhood, Korean in the shops and Internet cafes to my southeast, Chinese on the streets all over the city and offered as an operating language at ATMs, French randomly on the streets by different people, Jamaican English commonly, and so on. English remains the common language of Torontonians--the diversity of Toronto's many distinctive immigrant population ensures that-but at the neighbourhood level things change a bit, some language groups (Portuguese Canadians), showing more resilience than others.
How do things work in your neck of the woods? Is there a common language in your community, and if so what is it, and if not how does language work in your community? Does it have a lot of language groups or few, are their distinct neighbourhoods or are they dispersed throughout the community? What sort of official recognition are the various language groups given in your city?
