According to a new survey conducted by Leger for the Association for Canadian Studies, more Canadians, especially francophones and Indigenous Peoples reported having a strong attachment to their primary language, including the country they call home.
Reports of strong attachment to primary language exceeded all other markers of identity, including geography, ethnic group, racialized identity, and religious affiliation with 88 percent of respondents in the survey reporting a strong sense of attachment to their primary language, whereas 85 percent reported the same for Canada.
Association for Canadian Studies president Jack Jedwab reported saying the survey’s findings highlight the important role language plays in people’s identities.
With language’s dual function of facilitating communication and being an expression of culture, Jedwab said people should be mindful of not downplaying the importance of language considering its significance to a community.
The online survey was participated by 1,764 Canadians between July 8 and 10 and cannot be assigned a margin of error because online polls are not considered truly random samples.
For Canadians whose primary language is French, 91 percent reported a strong sense of attachment to their language, in comparison to 67 percent who reported the same sentiment for Canada.
The findings come ahead of Statistics Canada’s latest census release on languages in the country, which is set to be published on Wednesday.
Jedwab said the census release will be especially important to Quebec, because of close monitoring of the state of the French language in comparison to other languages.
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