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Languages

Languages of Canada

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Languages, writing systems and language context

Canada
COUNTRY LANGUAGE PROFILE
English
English
Text direction: LTR

Canada has federal bilingualism in English and French while Indigenous languages retain major cultural importance and varying territorial recognition.

2
Core languages shown
Country-level reference set
English
First listed core language
Not a speaker-share estimate
1
Writing system represented
Across the core language set
LTR
Primary text direction
Additional directions noted below

Language Overview

EnglishFrench

Read the Characters

English · 26 characters

English · 26 characters
A
a
B
b
C
c
D
d
E
e
F
f
G
g
H
h
I
i
J
j
K
k
L
l
M
m
N
n
O
o
P
p
Q
q
R
r
S
s
T
t
U
u
V
v
W
w
X
x
Y
y
Z
z

How to Read the Language Landscape

PolicyLegal and administrative language status may differ between national and subnational government.
Everyday useA language can be socially dominant without being the only language used at home, school, work or in media.
Community diversityIndigenous, minority, migrant and sign languages can remain important even when they are not part of a short national headline list.

Frequently Asked Questions

What languages are used in Canada?

Canada has federal bilingualism in English and French while Indigenous languages retain major cultural importance and varying territorial recognition.

What writing systems are used in Canada?

The represented writing system is Latin and the primary direction shown is left to right.

More about Canada

Explore Canada across the other DigifyWorld country-data sections.

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Sources & methodology

View sources used for this page
Justice Laws Website: Official Languages Act

Federal legislation confirming English and French as Canada's official languages and their equality of status in federal institutions.

Statistics Canada: 2021 Census language profile

Official census evidence for language characteristics; demographic measures are not treated as legal-status definitions.

Unicode CLDR: Country/Region Names

Localized country display-name reference. CLDR names are customary UI/display names, not claims about a state’s full constitutional long-form name.

Unicode: Supported Scripts

Reference for the writing-system/script families represented in the character component.

Unicode: Writing Direction and Bidirectional Text

Reference for left-to-right and right-to-left script direction and bidirectional text behavior.

Unicode Character Database: NamesList

Reference for Unicode character names used as small readout labels under selected character samples; these labels are not presented as a complete transliteration standard.