The Mysteries of Bilingualism. Francois Grosjean

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      There are many other countries that do not have questions on languages in their censuses, and even less on bilingualism. Thus, Christopher (2011) states that in the Commonwealth, only 37 of the 71 census authorities included language questions in recent censuses, leaving many without such questions.

Other national censuses do have language questions but for very specific reasons which do not really have to do with bilingualism. The examples we will mention here are those of England and the United States. In England, before 2011, no question about language had been asked in its censuses, unlike in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland where one question had been asked. The Office of National Statistics finally decided to ask two questions in 2011 for a number of reasons, according to Sebba (2017). Among these we find: enabling the government bodies to meet their duties under legislation governing race relations and disability discrimination; allowing local and central government to allocate resources for teaching English as a second language, and for translation services within public services; and supporting regional or minority languages like Cornish and British Sign Language.

      Question 18 of the 2011 Census was, “What is your main language?” and Question 19 (asked only of those who had indicated a language other than English to the previous question), “How well can you speak English?” The four possible answers for the latter were: “Very well,” “Well,” “Not well” and “Not at all.” The results obtained only allow us to get an idea of the degree of bilingualism, based on language knowledge and not language use, for a very small proportion of the population for whom English is not their main language, a mere 7.7%. As Sebba (2017) writes, bilingualism is statistically visible only for those who have a “main language” other than English. We know nothing about the bilingualism status of 92.3% of the population! Once again, only European surveys can help us get at the state of bilingualism in England and, more generally, in the United Kingdom, as we will see below.

      Another country that has language questions, but with very specific reasons, is the United States. The three questions that were developed in 1980, and that have been used since 2000 in the yearly American Community Survey (ACS), came about in an effort to respond to the necessity to know more about those with limited English language proficiency (Siegel, Martin, and Bruno 2001). So as to implement the Civil Rights Act, The Bilingual Education Act, and the Voting Rights Act, there was a need to accommodate people who had difficulties communicating in English. The questions are: “Does this person speak a language other than English at home?,” “What is this language?,” “How well does this person speak English? Very well, Well, Not well, and Not at all.” There are definite limits to how far this assessment goes. Thus, children under five are not covered, people who use a second or third language in their everyday lives, but only English at home, are not counted, English proficiency is self assessed and may be influenced by a person’s original culture, and so on. However, as we will see in the next part, the results to these questions do allow us to get a far better picture of the status of bilingualism in the United States than in England.

      Finally, there are those countries that have the appropriate language questions in their censuses to work out the proportion of bilinguals but that put the emphasis on specific classes of bilinguals. Here we will consider Canada and Switzerland. The questions and answers of the census that Canada conducts every five years are a dream for anyone interested in languages and bi-/multilingualism in a country. The 2016 version contains five language questions, the last two in the long form of the questionnaire only:

       7. Can this person speak English or French well enough to conduct a conversation?

       8a. What language does this person speak most often at home, and 8b. Does this person speak any other languages on a regular basis at home?

       9. What is the language that this person first learned at home in childhood and still understands?

       16. What language(s), other than English or French, can this person speak well enough to conduct a conversation?

       45a. In this job, what language did this person use most often? and 45b. Did this person use any other languages on a regular basis in this job?

A quick glance at these questions, and at past censuses, shows that the census agency is primarily interested in the country’s two official languages, English and French. Statistics Canada states this clearly in its documentation as well as on its many web pages dedicated to the results. Thus there is a page, “Statistics on official languages in Canada,”⁷ where the two languages are lauded with statements such as, “French and English are the languages of inclusion,” and “Official languages and bilingualism are at the heart of Canadian identity.” This said, non-official languages (immigrant languages and aboriginal languages) are increasingly being analyzed and reported.

      With the tables made available by Statistics Canada, and with a bit of help from agency statisticians, one can get a good overview of bilingualism in Canada based on language knowledge (see Questions 7 and 16 above) and on language use (Questions 8a and 8b, as well as Questions 45a and 45b). The one result that is not easily available is the proportion of the population that uses two or more languages in daily life whatever the activity (work, home, social activities, etc.) and without counting a person twice.

Switzerland also has a national census that asks the right sort of questions, although fewer than Canada, and that allows one to get at the proportion of bilinguals in the country if done correctly. But here problems occur with how Swiss Statistics define bilingualism. I will concentrate on the first language question as it is the data obtained with this question that was used by the agency in 2012 to estimate the number of bi- or multilinguals in the country.⁸ Here is a translation of the question: “What is your main language, i.e. the language in which you think and that you know the best? If you think in several languages and know them very well, then name these languages.” This was followed by a number of language categories which often grouped together a national language and a dialect such as “German or Swiss German.”

      As I stated in an article at the time (Grosjean 2012), the people who thought of the question clearly had a very restrictive view of bilingualism. It was assumed that people have one main language and that if they have another main language, then they must know it very well. In addition, it was stipulated that one must think in each of one’s languages to be able to list them. The fact that thinking can take place independently of language and can be visual-spatial, or involve non-linguistic concepts, was not taken into account. Also, speakers of both Swiss German and German, among others, were given just one language category to check and hence could not list their two languages. And yet, the majority of Swiss Germans (close to two-thirds of Swiss people) use both Swiss German and German in their everyday lives and are de facto bilingual.

      The outcome was that Swiss Statistics stated that a mere 15.8% of the Swiss population was bi- or multilingual. This was less than the percentages found in largely monolingual countries such as the United States and France (around 20% of bilinguals at the time). And yet, any visitor to Switzerland will have noticed how extensive bi- and multilingualism is in the country with people often using two or more languages in their everyday lives, and knowing at least one other learned in school. In the next part, we will see how the other questions in the Swiss Census allowed us to estimate a truer percentage of bilinguals.

      In sum, finding out how many bilinguals there are in a country is particularly difficult. Some countries do not have language questions, others do but they are few in number and the results have little to say about bilingualism, and others still have enough questions but the data is not analyzed adequately so as to get at the extent of bilingualism in the country.

      The Proportion of Bilinguals in a Number of Countries

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