The Vitality of the Communities
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Demographic Dimension
Demographic capital is a cornerstone of vitality, since the very existence of a linguistic community is related to the number of people present. However, cannot limit ourselves to numbers alone, since density (which refers to numerical concentration in various parts of the territory in question) as well as proportionate numerical strength relative to the majority affect the relative weight of demographic capital. Other demographic factors are also at work, such as fertility, mortality, the age pyramid, migratory flows (out-migration and in-migration), endogamy and exogamy, linguistic continuity, intergenerational transmission of language and the level of individual bilingualism in one's surroundings.
"The relationship to the majority remains a significant element in the development and vitality of communities."
– Gratien Allaire, Address at the Discussion Forum on the Vitality of Official Language Minority Communities, Ottawa, September 2005
Demographic studies based on Census data have fuelled debates, analyses and formulation of policies regarding official languages populations (Joy, 2nd ed., 1972; De Vries and Vallee, 1980; Castonguay, 1979, 1987, 1998, 2003a; Lachapelle and Henripin, 1980; Lachapelle, 1989; Vaillancourt, 1989; Dallaire and Lachapelle, 1990; Harrison, 1996; Marmen and Corbeil, 1999, 2004). The demographic and demolinguistic data are also analysed and interpreted by researchers from the perspectives of various disciplines: economics (Beaudin, 1998, 2005; Grenier, 1989, 1997), politics (Aunger, 2002, 2005; O'Keefe, 1998, 2001), geography (Gilbert, 1999a; Gilbert et al., 2005; Langlois, 2000), sociology (Bernard, 1988, 1991, 1992, 1996) and education (Jedwab, 2002b, Martel, 1999, 2001); a number of ethnolinguistic studies have also made demographic trends the determining factor in linguistic vitality (Landry and Allard, 1999).
Since 1971, Statistics Canada has produced and disseminated Census data on language. Some demographic and demolinguistic studies that are directly germane to OLMCs have been added to and disseminated in partnership with Canadian Heritage (Dallaire and Lachapelle, 1990; Marmen and Corbeil, 1999; Marmen and Corbeil, 2004). The linguistic data, now available in CD-ROM format, are also worked up by community actors in various forms (FCFA, 2000, 2004b; Community Table of the National Human Resources Development Committee for the English Linguistic Minority, 2000; Warnke, 1997; Pocock, 2004).
The analysis of demolinguistic data has produced divergent findings, particularly with regard to the extent of such phenomena as assimilation, better known as language shift 4 (Castonguay 1979; Lachapelle, 1989), bilingualization (Bernard, 1990, 1991, 1992; Grenier, 1989), exogamy (Bernard, 1996; Landry, 2003), migration and urbanization (Castonguay, 2003a; Langlois, 2000). It should be noted that certain far-reaching demographic phenomena are not peculiar to OLMCs, such as declining fertility and aging, rural exodus and urbanization. The gloomiest diagnoses (Bernard, 1991; Castonguay, 2003b) are countered by more optimistic claims. "Destiny is not density," proclaims O'Keefe (2001), a statement repeated at a colloquium of the research network on the Francophone community in 2004. "Demolinguistic trends are neither irrevocable nor immutable; on the contrary" (Aunger, 2002: 7).
Over the years, the new questions added to the Census forms have made possible a better understanding of both the changes in and the complexity of linguistic situations, not only at the national and provincial levels, but also at the regional and local levels. For example, in addition to the question about the language most often spoken at home, there are questions dealing with other languages that are regularly spoken at home or the use of languages at work (Marmen and Corbeil, 2004: 127).
Some experts (Marmen and Corbeil, 2004) discuss the weakness of the concept of language used at home as a true measure of the vitality of a language, making the argument that a language's vitality also stems from the fact that it is used without necessarily being predominant, or from the fact that it is used as a second language. Discussion shifts from the purely family environment to other spheres of social interaction. Other crucial aspects must be considered, including the importance of linguistic cohabitation, the importance of the knowledge of a language and its prevalence as a language of communication (O'Keefe, 2001) as well as the frequenting of Francophone spaces (Stebbins, 2000) and access to Francophone networks (Beaudin, 1998). The degree of bilingualism in the majority community is also an important factor in the vitality of the minority community (O'Keefe, 2001; Churchill, 1998).
The post-censal survey on the vitality of official language minorities, planned by Statistics Canada and its partners for 2006, will shed a broad and powerful light on aspects of language use that are still relatively unexplored: the use of language throughout the life cycle, the use of languages during post-secondary education, etc. This will make possible an enhanced appreciation of the status of and changes in the demolinguistic capital of OLMCs.
Human resources, sometimes described as human capital, complete the demographic picture, although these resources are sometimes regarded as economic capital. Skills upgrading, through education and the various types of training and learning, is underscored by both the associations and government agencies. The recent socio-economic profiles produced by the Réseaux de développement économique et d'employabilité (RDÉE, 2005) present in concise fashion some of the conditions of human resources in the regions and update previous studies compiled for the National Committee for Canadian Francophonie Human Resources Development (Beaudin and Boudreau, 1994; Beaudin, 1999). In Quebec, the Community Table of the National Human Resources Development Committee for the English Linguistic Minority (2000) has also analysed the situation and the human capital development challenges for the Anglophone minority. A more recent study conducted for the Community Health and Social Services Network (Pocock, 2004) reveals the extent to which education is a determinant of the health of Anglophone communities in Quebec. The problems involved in the development of human resources in official language minority communities are thus, as in all peripheral communities in the age of the knowledge economy (Polèse et al., 2002), a key factor in vitality.
