Origin, birthplace, nationality and language of the Canadian people

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1794974814

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-182133

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: Origin, birthplace, nationality and language of the Canadian people

Place of publication:: Ottawa

Publisher:: Acland

Year of publication:: 1929

Scope:: 224 S.; Diagramme

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

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Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter VIII. Origin and language - use of english and french by immigrant peoples

Collection:: Economics Books

68 THE LANGUAGE OF IMMIGRANT PEOPLES tongue, we have an index of the keenness of the respective foreign stocks in learning the English language. As an index it is crude, and the question arises as to what other factors besides pure differences of “crigin” are involved and how far they interfere with its use as a measure of speed in acquiring the language. If we compare the percentages in Column 3 with the proportions of the respective stocks living in cities 25000 and over by the method of rank correlation, a coefficient of + +04 is found, which indicates that whether a people is predominantly rural or urban has little or no effect on the readiness with which they learn English. Some relationship appears, however, between the percentage of a stock North American born (a crude index of length of residence among English speaking people) and the pro- portions of those speaking foreign languages who had learned English. The rank coeffi- cient was found to be 4 -29. More significant correlation would be expected were comparison made with the length of time the foreign born sections of the different “origin” groups had been in Canada. Unfortunately data as to length of residence of immigrants are not available by origins, but in Chapter II a table was shown, giving the average number of years the immigrants who had arrived from foreign countries since January 1, 1901, had been resident in Canada at the date of the last census. Such a table, however, has its limitations. In the first place, it sould be prepared only for those nationalities whose geographical boundaries had not been radically changed during the last two decades, and in the second place, as has already been pointed out, origin and birthplace are in many cases by no means identical. However, keep- ing in mind the necessity of caution in comparing such data, if the origins be ranked accord- ing to the percentage of those of foreign mother tongue who had learned English outside the home and the average for the upper and lower half of the table be compared with the corresponding figures for length of residence of immigrants by country of birth, there appears to be a year’s difference between the upper and lower group. Further, the coefficient of correlation by the method of rank differences was found to be + +37 and would probably be somewhat higher were the data on immigration available by origins. The implication is that the length of time the new arrivals have been in Canada is a significant factor in deter- mining the proportions who have learned to speak English. The correlation, however, is only moderate, which implies that date of arrival, though exerting an appreciable influence on the data in Column 3, is far from adequate to account ‘or the differences between the figures for the various origins. One is driven, therefore, to the conclusion that differences in origins are of major importance in the acquiring of English. The several stocks show by no means the same keenness nor aptitude. Many examples of such differences are revealed by a detailed comparison of Column 3 and Column 8. For instance, it is obvious from the data that the Danes, Swiss and Greeks learn English com- paratively rapidly, while the Austrians, Roumanians, Hungarians and Icelanders are slow in acquiring it. The above conclusion, namely, that speed in acquiring English is largely a matter of origin, is confirmed by the appearance of a marked relationship between the tendency to ntermarriage with the British stocks and the percentage learning English. Omitting the igure for the Dutch, where the percentage learning to speak English is unduly reduced by the Mennonites in the Prairie Provinces, and that for the Hebrews, where a very small proportion intermarrying is coupled with a very large percentage learning English for occupational reasons,—omitting these two exceptional cases—a coefficient of correlation by the method of rank differences of + +77 is found to exist between the two series, Were the figures on intermarriage in Column 6 representative of both sexes, the correlation would orobably be higher. It is evident, therefore, that those stocks which tend to intermarriage with the British learn English most rapidly. Turning now from the question of speed in acquiring English to the proportions of the various peoples unable to speak either English or French at the date of the last census, one finds, as in the former case, no correlation with the proportions in cities 25,000 and over. That length of residence among English and French speaking people has a bearing on the percentages of foreign stocks unable to speak either of these languages is shown by

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