on 12/18/07 10:52 PM, Lee Elliott at blelliott01@gmail.com wrote:

>> 99 % of us Canadians don't know how to speak French and only speak English
>> (and don't live in igloos either) so it would be just as well to speak to us
>> in Spanish!
> 
> 99%!  I think that number would be under 50% - for unilingual English
> anyway.  I know you are exaggerating - but I don't want to make Michel
> Pagliaro mad in case he's lurking - I'm still hoping he'll tour the
> west someday. :)

Hi Lee,

That got me wondering what percentage it actually is that don't speak French
and here's what I found on Wikipedia. It looks like about 75 % of Canadians
speak English only but if you go outside the province of Quebec to the other
9 provinces and 3 territories, 90 % of the population speaks only or mainly
English:

A multitude of languages are spoken in Canada. According to the 2006 census,
English and French are the preferred language ("home language", or language
spoken most often in the home) of 67.1% and 21.5% of the population,
respectively. The five most widely-spoken non-official languages are Chinese
(the home language of 2.6% of Canadians), Punjabi (0.8%), Spanish (0.7%),
Italian (0.6%), and Arabic (0.5%). Aboriginal languages, many of which are
unique to Canada, are spoken only by a very small percentage of the
population, and are mostly in decline.

Only English and French are recognized by the Constitution of Canada as
official languages. All laws are enacted in both official languages, and
government services are widely available in both English and French.

According to the 2001 census, only 2% of Canadian residents are unable to
speak at least one of the countryıs two official languages, but only 17.5%
of Canadians are bilingual in French and English.

Knowledge of each of the official languages is nearly universal in the parts
of the country where it predominates, but relatively rare in the part where
it is not predominant. Outside Quebec, almost 99% of Canadians know how to
speak English, but only about 10% know how to speak French. Within Quebec,
the situation is reversed: about 95% of Quebec residents speak French, but
only about 40% can conduct a conversation in English.

Thus, even though most Quebecers are unilingual, a majority of bilingual
Canadians come from the province.

Canada's francophones numbered some 6.9 million individuals in 2001. Of
these, 85% resided in Quebec. Outside Quebec, French is most often spoken in
New Brunswick, Eastern and Northern Ontario, and in southern Manitoba.
Smaller French-speaking communities exist in the other provinces. For
example, a distinct community exists on Newfoundland's Port-au-Port
peninsula; a remnant of French occupation of the island.

In addition to francophones of French-Canadian and Acadian origin, many
francophones of Haiti, France, Belgium, Morocco, Lebanon and Switzerland
have emigrated to Quebec since the early 1960s. As a result of this wave of
immigration and the assimilation of many earlier generations of
non-francophone immigrants (Irish, English, Italian, Portuguese, etc.),
Canadian-born francophones of Quebec are of diverse ethnic origin. Five
francophone Premiers of Quebec have been of British ethnic origin, as
defined by Statistics Canada: John Jones Ross, Edmund James Flynn, Daniel
Johnson, Sr, Pierre Marc Johnson and Daniel Johnson, Jr.

The assimilation of francophones outside Quebec into the English-Canadian
society means that outside Quebec, over one million Canadians who claim
English as their mother tongue are of French ethnic origin. (1991 Census,
ethnic origin and mother tongue, by province).


Ethnic groups

   English    French
   Scottish    Irish
   German    Italian
   Chinese    Ukrainian
   First Nations    Dutch
   Polish    Other groups