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Line 90: == Use of the language == In 1991, Italian was the unofficial language with the most mother ~~tounge~~tongue speakers, ahead of German and Chinese.<ref name=1991c/> According to 2016 census estimates conducted by the [[Canadian government]], 25,913,955 people in Canada have an official language as their first language: 18,858,980 citizens are native speakers of [[English language\|English]] and 7,054,975 citizens are native speakers of [[French language\|French]].<ref>[https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2011/dp-pd/prof/details/page.cfm?Lang=E&Geo1=PR&Code1=01&Geo2=CD&Code2=3519&Data=Count&SearchText=canada&SearchType=Begins&SearchPR=01&B1=All&Custom=&TABID=1 Statistiche ufficiali dello Stato del Canada]</ref> Of the 6,567,680 Canadian citizens who have neither French nor English as their first language, 375,645 are native speakers of [[Italian language\|Italian]] (1.23%).<ref name=":3" /> Italian thus emerges as the most widely spoken unofficial language after [[Punjabi language\|Punjabi]], [[Chinese language\|Chinese]], [[Spanish language\|Spanish]], and [[German language\|German]]. Also according to the 2016 census, 21,457,075 Canadian citizens speak English at home, 6,827,865 Canadian citizens speak French at home, and 139,485 Canadian citizens speak Italian at home. Compared with the 2011 census, there has been an overall decline in the use of European languages at home: Italian (-10.9%), [[Polish language\|Polish]] (-5.5%), German (-3.3%) and [[Greek language\|Greek]] (-2.3%).<ref name=":3" /> Data from the 2011 Toronto Census are noteworthy. 55.4% of the population are native English speakers while the other official language, French, is used by just 1.3% of the population. Another interesting aspect of this census is the high percentage of those who use neither official language: 43.3% of the population, in fact, are native speakers of neither English nor French. 8.1% of the population are native speakers of Chinese and 3.1% are native speakers of Italian, which happens to be the third most spoken language in Canada's most populous center.<ref name="Zanni">Zanni 2012, ''Italiani all'estero, a Toronto si parla ancora italiano'' in ItaliaChiamaItalia. [https://www.italiachiamaitalia.it/italiani-all%E2%80%99estero-a-toronto-si-parla-ancora-italiano-di-roberto-zanni/]</ref><ref>By 'mother tongue' is understood the L1 that has been learnt from birth and is at all times spoken and understood at the time of the census.</ref> Data from 2011 on the use of Italian by young Italian-Montrealese in the family context report that "38% of them speak Italian, solely or in combination with other languages, in interactions with their mothers and 34% in interactions with their fathers, while if only Italian is considered, these percentages drop to 3% with their mothers and 7% with their fathers."<ref>{{Harvtxt\|Villata\|ref=Villata\|p=49}}</ref> The percentages of Italian-only use go up in interaction with grandparents: 60 percent of young people speak only Italian with their grandmother and 58 percent only Italian with their grandfather.~~<ref name=":3" />~~<ref>''Regional languages in Italy and Italian abroad - two different languages with the same problems.'' According to the author, these percentages could be due to the fact that, in order for their children to be proficient in two languages, parents have adopted the language strategy: 'one person, one language'.</ref> According to Bruno Villata, Italian:

Italian language in Canada: Difference between revisions