LANGUAGES SFOKEN AND ILLITERACY 27
(4) Naturalization of the foreign born has progressed to differing degrees and at different
rates in the nine provinces. The percentages of all foreign born naturalized by provinces
were in 1921 as follows:-—
Province
Prince Edward Island....................
Saskatchewan..................... 2s
New Brunswick. ........ccvvueuerrerrenins . ..
MARIEODA. vv vo vein iereetiiineaeeeiinninenrenaas
ALDEIEA otitis ie iie tie eee ee ere rea
NOVA SCOLIA «oeuvre reine eerie aan
UEDEC evita eee tier riers eae eas
TOENOID cn sci gigs o sve 30a gy wou gp S090
British Columbia.........
“anada
t.c.
of Foreign
Born
Naturalized
6l-3
70-9
67-2
64-1
61-0
rr.
40-57.
When the above figures are related to the percentages of the population foreign born
in the various provinces, the following facts are revealed. In the three Prairie Provinces
the proportion of the population foreign born in 1921, was from three to five times greater
than in Ontario and the percentage of those naturalized was larger by half. The net result
was that the naturalized foreign born formed four times as large a proportion of the population
in Manitoba as in Ontario, and in Saskatchewan and Alberta the proportion was six
limes greater than in Ontario. (See Chart 10.)
(5) An indication of the speed of naturalization is given by the percentages naturalized
by date of arrival. The Scandinavians and the United States born have naturalized most
rapidly; the rates for the Slavie and Germanic peoples are about equal and considerably
lower; the rates for the Italians and Greeks are the lowest for any Europeans. Indeed the
‘ates for the Italians and Greeks up to 1910 were only a little higher than for the Japanese,
and since that time they have been considerably lower. Apparently large numbers of immigrants
from those countries do not come to Canada with the intention of becoming Canadian
citizens. Among the Slavs, the Russians have naturalized the most rapidly and the
Poles, being the most urban. have been the slowest.
LANGUAGES SPOKEN
(1) Only 3-0 pe. of those belonging ‘to the North Western European group, 10
years of age and over, were unable to speak French or English, while 17-5 p.c. of the South,
Eastern and Central Europeans were unable to do so in 1921. The percentages for the
linguistic groups were: Scandinavians, 2-1; Germanic, 3-4; Latin and Greek, 13-3; and
Slavic, 18-9. Peoples like the Danes, Swiss, Greeks, etc. learn English comparatively rapidly,
while the Icelanders, Hungarians, Roumanians and Austrians are very slow in acquiring it.
Over one quarter of the Ukrainians were unable to speak either language, yet 55 p.c. of them
were Canadian born.
(2) The extent to which the languages of Canada are acquired and the speed of learning
them is largely a matter of the stock one belongs to, and, on the whole, those people
who intermarry least, not only show the largest percentages ignorant of French and English,
but show the least disposition to acquire those languages.
ILLITERACY
(1) The correlations between illiteracy in the various groups, the proportions unable to
speak English or French and the regularity of school attendance, are very high.
(2) Of the ten most illiterate stocks, nine come from the South, East and Central parts
of Europe, the tenth being the Chinese. The foreign born of North Western European
origin showed 2-66 p.c. 10 years and over, illiterate; the immigrants from South, Eastern
and Ceniral Europe, 22-31 p.c. The foreign born of Slavic origin are by far the most illiterate
people in Canada, showing 24-45 p.c. unable to read or write any language. The
