Other language(s) spoken regularly at home of person

Status: This was the departmental standard from April 20, 2009 to September 23, 2021.

Definition

Other language(s) spoken regularly at home refers to the languages, if any, that the person speaks at home on a regular basis at the time of data collection, other than the language or languages he or she speaks most often at home.

Person refers to an individual and is the unit of analysis for most social statistics programs.

Conformity to relevant internationally recognized standards

This standard is compatible with the recommendations for censuses contained in the United Nations' "Principles and Recommendations for Population and Housing Censuses, Revision 2", 2008. The UN recommendations suggest three types of language data that can be collected in censuses. One of these is "usual language" which the UN defines as "the language currently spoken, or most often spoken, by the individual in his or her present home". The UN does not provide a standard classification of languages. They recommend that when compiling data on usual language each language that is numerically important in the country should be shown, not merely the dominant language. This is done in this standard through the detailed version of the Classification of languages.

The classification of languages is based on the international standard ISO 639 presented in the Ethnologue, using those categories that are applicable to the Canadian population and adding supplementary detail on Aboriginal languages spoken in Canada.

Classifications

Additional information

See:

Relation to previous version

  • Other language(s) spoken regularly at home of person September 24, 2021 to current

    The definition of the concept has been slightly modified.

  • Other language(s) spoken regularly at home of person April 20, 2009 to September 23, 2021

    This was the departmental standard from April 20, 2009 to September 23, 2021.

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