Toronto 
English, French, Mandarin and Punjabi are the four most commonly spoken languages spoken in Canada says Statistics Canada.
As per the 2021 Census, English and French are the most commonly spoken languages with more than 9 in 10 Canadians speaking one of the two official languages at home at least on a regular basis.
4 in 10 people could conduct a conversation in more than one language and 1 in 11 could speak three or more languages.
The 2021 census found that the proportion of Canadians with English as their first official language spoken increased, while those with French decreased.
75.5% and 21.4% of Canadians speak English and French as their first language, but only 63.8% speak English and 19.2% speak French predominantly at home. But, nearly 7 in 10 Canadians whose mother tongue is neither English nor French speak one of the two at home.
12.7% speak a language other than Canada’s official languages predominantly at home and one in four Canadians had a mother tongue other than English or French.
18.0% are bilingual English-French Canadians.
Credit: Statistics Canada
The census found that the number of Canadians who spoke predominantly French decreased in all other provinces and territories except in Quebec, British Columbia and Yukon.
More than 1 million people (13%) in Quebec speak English as their first language, and 7 in 10 English speakers lived on Montréal Island.
As per the latest census, while the number of French speakers in Quebec is increasing, the proportion of the population who speak predominantly French at home in the province has been decreasing ( 79.0% in 2016 to 77.5% in 2021).
Nearly six in ten bilingual English-French people live in Quebec. Outside of Quebec, more than half of the population whose first official language spoken is French lived in Ontario and one-quarter lived in New Brunswick.
More than half of the population in northern and southeastern New Brunswick could conduct a conversation in English and in French at the time of the 2021 Census.
Among the provinces and territories, the proportion of the population with English as their first official language spoken in 2021 is as follows: Newfoundland and Labrador (99%), Prince Edward Island (96%), Nova Scotia (97%), New Brunswick (69%), Quebec (13%), Ontario (93%), Manitoba (96%), Saskatchewan (98%), Alberta (97%), British Columbia (95%), Yukon (95%), Northwest Territories (96%), and Nunavut (93%).
Indigenous languages:
As per the 2021 census, 183,000 people speak an Indigenous language at home at least on a regular basis and 189,000 have an Indigenous mother tongue, alone or in combination with another language. 86,000 spoke predominantly an Indigenous language at home.
The 2021 census found that more people are learning Indigenous languages as 243,000 people can converse in an Indigenous language.
Inuktitut, Cree languages and Innu (Montagnais) are the Indigenous languages spoken predominantly at home.
Credit: Statistics Canada
Other Languages:
Aside from English and French, Mandarin and Punjabi were the country’s most widely spoken languages. 4.6 million Canadians (12.7%) speak a language other than English or French predominantly at home. Mandarin and Punjabi are spoken predominantly at home by more than half a million Canadians each.
More than a hundred thousand people each speak Yue (Cantonese), Spanish, Arabic, Tagalog, Persian languages, Urdu, Russian and Korean at home as per the 2021 census.
| Language | Number of people |
|---|---|
| Mandarin | 530,000 |
| Punjabi (Panjabi) | 520,000 |
| Yue (Cantonese) | 390,000 |
| Spanish | 320,000 |
| Arabic | 290,000 |
| Tagalog (Pilipino, Filipino) | 280,000 |
| Urdu | 160,000 |
| Russian | 130,000 |
| Korean | 130,000 |
| Iranian Persian | 130,000 |
| Portuguese | 120,000 |
| Vietnamese | 120,000 |
Credit: Statistics Canada
More people speak a South Asian language such as Malayalam (+129% to 35,000 people), Hindi (+66% to 92,000 people), Punjabi (+49% to 520,000 people) and Gujarati (+43% to 92,000 people) at home in 2021 due to an increase in migration, while the number of Canadians who spoke predominantly European languages at home, such as Italian (-23,000), Polish (-10,000) or Greek (-6,000) at home decreased from 2016 to 2021.
Credit: Statistics Canada
Among the large urban centres, 13.2% in Montréal, 26.3% in Toronto, 14.9% in Kitchener–Cambridge–Waterloo, 15.3% in Winnipeg, 14.3% in Edmonton, 17.4% in Calgary, 20.9% in Abbotsford–Mission and 27.6% in Vancouver speak in predominantly a language other than English or French at home.
In Toronto and Vancouver, more than one in four individuals speak predominantly a non-official language at home. Mandarin is the main non-official language spoken predominantly at home in Toronto and Vancouver, while in Montréal, it is Spanish and Arabic.
Credit: Statistics Canada
| Metropolitan area | Language spoken most often at home by the most people |
|---|---|
| Toronto | Mandarin |
| Vancouver | Mandarin |
| Montréal | Spanish |
| Calgary | Punjabi (Panjabi) |
| Ottawa–Gatineau | Arabic |
| Edmonton | Punjabi (Panjabi) |
| Winnipeg | Tagalog (Pilipino, Filipino) |
| Hamilton | Arabic |
| Kitchener–Cambridge–Waterloo | Punjabi (Panjabi) |
| Saskatoon | Tagalog (Pilipino, Filipino) |
| Regina | Tagalog (Pilipino, Filipino) |
| Kamloops | Punjabi (Panjabi) |
| London | Arabic |
| Halifax | Mandarin |
| Abbotsford–Mission | Punjabi (Panjabi) |
| Moncton | Arabic |
| Québec | Spanish |
| Thunder Bay | Italian |
Credit: Statistics Canada
Though most European languages and Tamil do not appear in the list of languages most spoken at home, the number of people with these languages as their mother tongue is quite high. More than 450 different languages are spoken in Canada.
| Language | No. of People with multiple mother tongues | No. of People with single mother tongue | |
| 1 | English | 21,372,890 | 20,107,200 |
| 2 | French | 7,651,360 | 7,189,245 |
| 3 | Punjabi (Panjabi) | 763,785 | 666,585 |
| 4 | Mandarin | 730,125 | 679,260 |
| 5 | Arabic | 629,060 | 508,410 |
| 6 | Yue (Cantonese) | 610,425 | 553,375 |
| 7 | Spanish | 600,795 | 538,875 |
| 8 | Tagalog (Pilipino, Filipino) | 592,395 | 461,155 |
| 9 | Italian | 366,075 | 319,500 |
| 11 | German | 303,655 | 272,865 |
| 12 | Urdu | 297,575 | 235,295 |
| 13 | Portuguese | 266,560 | 240,685 |
| 14 | Hindi | 224,410 | 152,820 |
| 15 | Russian | 220,360 | 197,900 |
| 16 | Vietnamese | 193,915 | 173,000 |
| 17 | Iranian Persian | 190,785 | 179,430 |
| 18 | Tamil | 184,750 | 152,850 |
| 19 | Korean | 184,655 | 170,400 |
| 20 | Polish | 176,005 | 160,170 |
| 21 | Gujarati | 168,800 | 138,985 |
| 22 | Serbo-Croatian | 129,135 | 116,740 |
| 23 | Greek | 108,790 | 93,335 |
| 24 | Bengali | 104,325 | 87,580 |
| 25 | Romanian | 100,425 | 93,160 |
| 26 | Ukrainian | 99,945 | 84,700 |
| 27 | Dutch | 88,975 | 80,310 |
| 28 | Malayalam | 66,235 | 54,050 |
| 29 | Haitian Creole | 66,065 | 52,440 |
| 30 | Dari | 64,240 | 57,220 |
| 31 | Serbian | 63,875 | 57,425 |
| 32 | Hungarian | 57,515 | 51,500 |
| 33 | Turkish | 51,005 | 44,185 |
| 34 | Japanese | 50,740 | 43,850 |
| 35 | Cree, n.o.s. | 49,865 | 38,530 |
| 36 | Croatian | 49,750 | 43,500 |
| 37 | Somali | 47,680 | 40,725 |
| 38 | Ilocano | 44,150 | 33,525 |
| 39 | Telugu | 39,680 | 30,045 |
| 40 | Armenian | 38,690 | 33,720 |
| 41 | Inuktitut | 37,565 | 33,200 |
| 42 | Tigrigna | 35,755 | 31,070 |
| 43 | Min Nan (Chaochow, Teochow, Fukien, Taiwanese) | 35,755 | 27,805 |
| 44 | Plautdietsch | 35,480 | 33,195 |
| 45 | Albanian | 32,310 | 29,265 |
| 46 | Amharic | 30,395 | 25,690 |
| 47 | Kabyle | 30,340 | 24,755 |
| 48 | Persian (Farsi), n.o.s. | 29,505 | 25,975 |
| 49 | Nepali | 26,370 | 23,430 |
| 50 | Yoruba | 26,305 | 15,010 |
Credit: Statistics Canada
The rise in the number of people who speak Asian Languages is due to an increase in immigration from those regions. Statistics Canada says one in five who arrived in Canada from May 2016 to December 2020 was born in India and 1 in 10 permanent residents who arrived in Canada were born in China or the Philippines.
