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== Use of the language ==
In 1991, Italian was the unofficial language with the most mother tounge speakers, ahead of German and Chinese.<ref name=19911991c/> 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>
!% of Italian Canadians
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| 1991<ref name=19911991c>[https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/English/census91/data/tables/Rp-eng.cfm?LANG=E&APATH=3&DETAIL=1&DIM=0&FL=A&FREE=1&GC=0&GID=0&GK=0&GRP=1&PID=97&PRID=0&PTYPE=4&S=0&SHOWALL=No&SUB=0&Temporal=1991&THEME=110&VID=0&VNAMEE=&VNAMEF= Population by Mother Tongue (27), Showing Age Groups (13)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210322035831/https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/English/census91/data/tables/Rp-eng.cfm?LANG=E&APATH=3&DETAIL=1&DIM=0&FL=A&FREE=1&GC=0&GID=0&GK=0&GRP=1&PID=97&PRID=0&PTYPE=4&S=0&SHOWALL=No&SUB=0&Temporal=1991&THEME=110&VID=0&VNAMEE=&VNAMEF= |date=2021-03-22 }}, [[Canada 1991 Census|1991 Census of Canada]]</ref>
| align="right" |449,660
| align="right" |12.7%
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