Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- List of tables
- Notes on contributors
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Part I Aboriginal and Islander Languages
- Part II Pidgins and creoles
- Part III Transplanted languages other than English
- 14 Overview of ‘immigrant’ or community languages
- 15 Dutch in Australia: perceptions of and attitudes towards transference and other language contact phenomena
- 16 German and Dutch in Australia: structures and use
- 17 Modern Greek in Australia
- 18 Language variety among Italians: anglicisation, attrition and attitudes
- 19 First generation Serbo-Croatian speakers in Queensland: language maintenance and language shift
- Part IV Varieties of Australian English
- Part V Public policy and social issues
- References
- Index
14 - Overview of ‘immigrant’ or community languages
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 July 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- List of tables
- Notes on contributors
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Part I Aboriginal and Islander Languages
- Part II Pidgins and creoles
- Part III Transplanted languages other than English
- 14 Overview of ‘immigrant’ or community languages
- 15 Dutch in Australia: perceptions of and attitudes towards transference and other language contact phenomena
- 16 German and Dutch in Australia: structures and use
- 17 Modern Greek in Australia
- 18 Language variety among Italians: anglicisation, attrition and attitudes
- 19 First generation Serbo-Croatian speakers in Queensland: language maintenance and language shift
- Part IV Varieties of Australian English
- Part V Public policy and social issues
- References
- Index
Summary
Demographic situation
There are some 75 to 100 ‘immigrant’ or ‘community languages’ in use in Australia, the exact number depending on one's criteria for the term ‘language’. The term ‘community language’ is employed to denote the socalled ‘immigrant’ languages used within the Australian community to emphasise the legitimacy of their continuing existence. These languages have been part of the Australian scene since early in the history of white settlement. However, there has been discontinuity between the earlier and contemporary use of community languages.
The 1986 Census data provides the most detailed large-scale corpus of information on home language use. Of the Australian population 13.6 per cent reported employing a language other than English at home. (However, there are many who now use a community language not in their own but in their parents' homes). This rose to 18.5 per cent in Victoria, and was lowest in Queensland (5.9 per cent) and Tasmania (3.6 per cent), the states least affected by postwar migration. The community languages most widely used in the home were Italian (415,700 speakers), Greek (277,500), Serbo-Croatian (140,500), Chinese (139,100), Arabic (199,200), and German (111,300). Other languages with over 50,000 regular users were Dutch, French, Polish, and Spanish. With the large number of South-east Asian refugees since 1976, Vietnamese has also now joined this group of languages.
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- Language in Australia , pp. 215 - 227Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1991
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