Languages of Canada First Nations, Métis and Inuit

During the past hundred years, ten of Canada's once flourishing Aboriginal languages have become extinct, and at least a dozen are on the brink.

As of 1996, only Cree, Inuktitut and Ojibway had enough fluent speakers to be considered secure from the threat of extinction. The fifty Canadian Aboriginal languages belong to eleven major language families: ten First Nations and Inuktitut. Some of these families are large and strong, others small and vulnerable.

The three largest aboriginal language families combined represent 93% of persons with an Aboriginal mother tongue. About 147,000 people have Algonquian as mother tongue, the family that includes Cree and Ojibway. Another 28,000 have Inuktitut, and 20,000 have Athapaskan. The remaining eight language families account for 7% of persons with an Aboriginal mother tongue, an indication of these languages' relative size.

Since a large base of speakers is among the essential factors to ensure long-term viability, the more speakers a language has, the better are its chances of survival. Inuktitut, Cree and Ojibway all boast more than 20,000 people with an Aboriginal mother tongue.

In contrast, endangered languages rarely have more than a few thousand speakers, and often they have only a few hundred. For instance, the two smallest and weakest language groups, Kutenai and Tlingit, have mother tongue populations of only 120 and 145 respectively.

In 1996, only one-fifth (20%) of children under the age of five had an indigenous mother tongue. In contrast, 60% of those aged 85 and over, and 30% of those aged 40 to 44, reported an Aboriginal mother tongue.