News   Apr 26, 2024
Sustainability Month: ReHousing — A Multiplex How-To Guide Explores What’s Possible in the Yellowbelt
 975     3 
News   Apr 26, 2024
Mattamy's Soleil and Mile & Creek Condos in Milton’s Flourishing Landscape
 268     0 
News   Apr 26, 2024
Galleria on the Park Soon to Welcome First Residents of Masterplanned Community
 784     0 

Do you think Toronto's high linguistic diversity will continue for a long time?

wild goose chase said:
I guess you can have areas in cities that preserve language for a long time (not sure if say the Yiddish spoken by Hasidic Jews in Brookyln are an example where language in a city lasts over three generations among a community? I can't think of a Canadian example like that, which is urban and not rural).
Click to expand...

Hasidic Jews in Montreal's Outremont/Mile End area.
 
the lemur said:
How many people, approximately, don't speak English at all? Also, it's entirely too easy to hear someone (or most likely two people) speaking another language and assume they can't or won't speak English, that they're talking about you, etc.
Click to expand...
How can I place a number on my own experiences? My brother in law's grandmother doesn't speak any English; and she's been here for decades. My sister in law's grandmother also didn't speak English, though she lived here for years. I bet many people in communities like Thorncliffe and areas of Scarborough don't speak English; or know very little of it.
 
King of Kensington said:
The population of Wellesley Township (in Waterloo region) is 92% Canadian-born. And 4% of their population can't speak English at all, just 1 percentage point less than Toronto. 29% still speak German as their home language, even though their German and Swiss ancestors came to this continent in the 18th century! Talk about people refusing speaking to speak English in spite of having been in this country for generations.
Click to expand...
They're the master race. They can do whatever they want.
 
doady said:
Ontario should enact laws to restrict the use of foreign languages just like Quebec does. Also, only immigrants from English-speaking countries should be allowed into Ontario.
Click to expand...

Besides likely being unconstitutional (one needs to read the SCC decisions involving Quebec language laws to understand the grounds upon which parts of those laws passed constitutional muster, none of which would exist in Ontario's case), banning all but English-speaking immigrants would make Ontario, and Toronto, a poorer and less interesting place. Also, it's worth noting that if Ontario had traditionally banned all but English-speaking immigrants, a good chunk of our English-speaking "old stock" population wouldn't be living here.
 
Two sets of my great-grandparents, one Polish-speaking the other primarily Yiddish-speaking, spoke very little English (even after decades their English was halting and heavily accented). They were too busy building a new life (after escaping poverty and the pogroms in Eastern Europe), working and raising the next generation of Canadians.

So none of this is new.
 
Armour said:
How can I place a number on my own experiences? My brother in law's grandmother doesn't speak any English; and she's been here for decades. My sister in law's grandmother also didn't speak English, though she lived here for years. I bet many people in communities like Thorncliffe and areas of Scarborough don't speak English; or know very little of it.
Click to expand...

You can't place a number on your own experiences, so 'too many' is just anecdotal evidence. And your statements on Thorncliffe and 'areas of Scarborough' (could you be a bit more vague?) are just speculation too.
 
GenerationW said:
There's an excellent excuse -- they are able to function just fine without it.
Click to expand...

Even if they could get by dealing with speakers of their own language within their community, their children would still have to learn English anyway, so it is at most one generation that is like that (I don't know of any case personally where I've encountered Canadians born here and who also grew up here, speaking the official language poorly, let alone not at all but only their heritage language).
 
the lemur said:
How many people, approximately, don't speak English at all? Also, it's entirely too easy to hear someone (or most likely two people) speaking another language and assume they can't or won't speak English, that they're talking about you, etc.
Click to expand...

Very true. I think sometimes people too often hear people speak a different language and assume they can't speak English rather than that they're bilingual (or even multilingual) and they can speak English but are speaking another language at the moment to someone else.

While I don't deny that there are some people who literally cannot speak English in the sense that if you stopped them on the street, they'd be at a loss for words and unable to understand a single phrase you say, it's not like it is common enough to have significantly impeded me in my day to day life.

Even when shopping or dining in neighbourhoods full of many newcomers, I have still been able to get what I asked for. If someone in say a store or restaurant doesn't speak English, they'd at least get another staff member who does at least speak some to address me.
 
the lemur said:
Those laws are intended to prevent other languages from being used in the place of French. I don't think a similar situation exists here with regard to English.
Click to expand...

I was surprised to see this in my neighbourhood (NYCC):

https://goo.gl/maps/HHHZcLENCZm

While many establishments here obviously cater to Asians (but welcome anyone), the only visible English for this place is the "Open" sign.

I can't think of any better way to say that "others" are not welcome. Maybe that's why this building now sits abandoned (Google Maps capture is from May 2015).
 
Skeezix said:
I don't take that from it at all. It was a Korean bookstore. If one couldn't read the sign, one wasn't interested.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I don't see that as being comparable to help wanted/apartment for rent ads that are not in English, for example.
 
According to the 2011 NHS, there were 139,015 Torontonians who can't converse in English. The number of non-English speakers by language:

Chinese languages 56,065
Cantonese 23,185
Chinese nos 18,210
Mandarin 12,790
Portuguese 10,420
Italian 10,220
Spanish 6,095
Tamil 5,755
Korean 4,195
Vietnamese 4,065
Persian 3,630
Russian 3,435
Panjabi 3,050
Urdu 2,360
Greek 2,120
Arabic 2,085
Hungarian 1,980
Polish 1,625
Bengali 1,135
 
King of Kensington said:
According to the 2011 NHS, there were 139,015 Torontonians who can't converse in English. The number of non-English speakers by language:
Click to expand...

I'd imagine most of these would be very recent immigrants, and by looking at the numbers I would imagine that speakers of those languages who can't speak English are still generally considerably outnumbered by their speakers who can.
I guess that a number of over 100, 000 is kind of high for most North American cities, but I suppose near 5% of the population is not too unreasonable considering that near half the population is foreign born. Do you know if the number of non-English speakers proportionally is growing, declining or staying pretty constant, given the population of Toronto over time?

Though I do wonder, how can accuracy be ensured for respondents that don't speak English, considering that the census/survey is in English? I suppose that not all who can't converse on the spot can't read written text, or maybe someone else in the household may help respond for, example, say an elderly relative who doesn't understand the question, but I guess people doing the stats also try and correct for non-responses and there can be local/community estimates too for many groups.
 
You must log in or register to post here.

Back
Top