Since Aussies don't seem to really read the City Discussions forum, I thought I'd bring the discussion over here (it starts in the latter half of the thread):
http://skyscraperpage.com/forum/showthread.php?t=232158
Looking at Australian census stats, I was struck at the level of continued language use among ethnic groups in Australia whose mass immigration ended decades ago. It seems to be higher than in Canada.
For instance, Italians:
There are 1,000,013 Italian Australians and 271,602 speak Italian at home (27.2%).
There are 1,587,970 Italian Canadians and 252,680 speak Italian at home (15.9%).
And for Greeks:
There are 397,435 Greek Australians and 237,583 speak Greek at home (59.8%).
There are 271,405 Greek Canadians and 92,875 speak Greek at home (34.2%).
What explains this discrepancy? Is it just a matter of how questions are framed? Or is there something else at work?
Some possible reasons:
- Australian continental Europeans are more "recent." While both Australia and Canada received a lot of postwar European immigration, in Australia it was more of a "new thing." Canada got a good number of early 20th century immigration, so the postwar Europeans were expanding on something already there. In contrast, Australia was probably about 98% Anglo-Celtic in 1940, so the Europeans were basically a new thing and perhaps perceived as more "foreign." Maybe they were more isolated socially from Anglo-Celtic Australians as a result.
- There's no obvious "second language" in Australia, like French in English Canada and Spanish in the US, so maybe many Australians turn to their immigrant roots to get a second language.
- Private schooling is more common than in North America, and that may contribute to language maintenance.