February 1, 2025 — Some 738,000 people in Canada in 2021 could speak Tagalog, according to a recently released report by Statistics Canada about linguistic diversity in the country.
Also a dialect – defined as a form of speech peculiar to a particular region of the Philippines – in Luzon - Tagalog is the base or foundation of “Filipino,” the national language of the Philippines, as provided in the Asian country’s 1987 Constitution.
The number of people who can speak Tagalog in Canada roughly mirrors the size of the Canadian Filipino community. Based on the 2021 Census, there are 925,490 people of Filipino heritage in Canada.
The Statistics Canada report, “Linguistic diversity in Canada: Shedding light on 2021 Census data on non-official languages,” released on January 22, 2025, showed that more than nine in 10 Tagalog speakers in Canada were born outside Canada.
Cultural diversity is reflected in the languages spoken in a country. Photo by Hannah Wright on Unsplash.
By the way, a lot of non-Filipinos may not know that most Filipinos also speak another Philippine dialect than Tagalog. As the World Atlas notes, Philippines is an ethnically diverse country with over 150 languages and dialects.
Statistics Canada shows that Tagalog is the sixth most spoken non-official language in Canada. Spanish is the most spoken non-official language, with nearly 1.2 million speakers; Mandarin comes second, 987,000; Punjabi, 942,000 third; Arabic, 838,000 fourth; and Hindi at fifth with 761,000 speakers.
The report also noted that Tagalog had the highest proportion of women speakers (57.9 percent).
Moreover, Statistics Canada noted that a language is “more likely to be spoken at home if all members of the household know the language, as opposed to when only some do”.
Speaking a language at home also facilitates its transmission and acquisition, according to the agency.
But when “several but not all household members knew a language, the likelihood of this language being used in the household diminished significantly”.
Although the decrease varies by language, the case about Tagalog is illustrative.
“In 2021, Tagalog was spoken in 84% of households in which several but not all members knew Tagalog. This proportion was 9 percentage points lower than that of households in which all members knew Tagalog (93%).”
Outside the home, language diversity is also on display at the workplace. “In 2021, nearly 670,000 people used a language other than English or French at work, representing around 1 in 25 workers in Canada. Among these workers, 546,000 used English or French at work in addition to a non-official language, while over 123,000 used only a non-official language.”
Which workplace are Tagalog speakers likely to be found? Statistics Canada reported: “Health care and social assistance was the sector with the largest number of workers using Tagalog” – versus retail trade, accommodation and food services, and professional, scientific and technical services sectors where non-Tagalog speakers are dominantly found.
Canadian Filipino Net is an independent, non-profit digital magazine produced by volunteer writers, editors, and webmasters. Your donation will go a long way so we can continuously publish stories about Canadian Filipinos. Click on a donate button and proceed either through PayPal, Debit, or Credit Card.
