December 2007

“Language Quilt” map taken from the Toronto Star.
Click here to download the full article (20 MB PDF — you’ve been warned!)

Yesterday, the Toronto Star published a map titled The Language Quilt, a map of Accordion City and surrounding areas colour-coded by prevalent mother tongue based on 2006 census data. If you’re willing to download a 20-megabyte PDF file, you can get the map plus the accompanying article here.

Here’s a list of observations taken from the article:

• English is the second language in 47 of the GTA’s (Greater Toronto Area’s) 1,076 census tracts
• English is in third place in 7 tracts in Agincourt, on Toronto’s northern edge [often referred to in jest as "Asiancourt" -- Joey]
• In 57 tracts, 70% or more of the population has a non-English mother tongue
• The preponderance of English as a mother tongue is 90% or more in 42 census tracts
• In 200 tracts, more than 30 distinct mother tongues are spoken by 15 or more people, the minimum number of speakers required for a language to count in the census
• In 13 tracts, there are more than 40 mother tongues

When the article refers to “mother tongue”, it’s referring to the first language learned in childhood and still understood. In the case of Yours Truly, that’s English — I started speaking when my family lived in the States. My parents’ mother tongue is Tagalog, the 7th most popular mother tongue in Toronto.

(Note that there wasn’t a language barrier when we came here in 1975, as English is one of the Philippines’ official languages and if you ranked countries by English-speaking population, the Philippines would rank 5th, right after the United Kingdom.)

Here’s a chart based on the data showing the popularity of English as a mother tongue alongside the top 10 non-English mother tongues:

Here’s how the most popular mother tongues break down among the 5.4 million residents in the Greater Toronto Area:

1. English: 56%
2. Italian: 3.5%
3. “Chinese” (no language specified): 3.2%
4. Cantonese: 3.1%
5. Punjabi: 2.5%
6. Portuguese: 2%
7. Spanish: 2%
8. Tagalog: 1.9%
9. Urdu: 1.8%
10. Tamil: 1.7%
11. Polish: 1.6%

Note that the third-place mother tongue, “Chinese”, is a bit vague. It could refer to any one of several spoken forms — Mandarin, Shanghainese, Cantonese or Taiwanese, to name the most popular. Part of the problem is that there’s still some disagreement over whether “Chinese” is a language with several dialects or a group of different languages (and some of this disagreement is based in politics, to boot). Further confusing the issue for census takers is that although the spoken versions are different, the written version is the same: a person who spoke only Mandarin wouldn’t be able to have an oral conversation with someone who spoke only Cantonese, but they could be fluent pen pals.

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Brent Ashley knows that I’ve had my troubles with a deadbeat housemate (whose debt of thousands of dollars I forgave recently), so he knew I’d be amused at this classified ad that appeared in the Toronto edition of the classified ad website, Kijiji:

Selling my deadbeat roommate’s Rock Band

Price: Best offer
Street address: Yonge & Finch, Toronto View map
Location: Toronto
Date listed: 28-Dec-07

First of all, yes I know this falls in the really mean category and yes I know they’re supposed to really be hard to come by, but you’d be this pissed too. I can understand paying for plane ticket to see fam during Christmas, but dropping $300 on a video game while skipping out on his share of the rent during a really expensive time?!?!?! WTF?

Well payback’s a byatch. I will consider this as the December rent. Highest bidder gets a PS3 Rock Band Special Edition. Comes with drums, a guitar, and a mic apparently. I need this done by next week, for obvious reasons.
Yes it’s been opened and he played for two hours before having to leave for the airport. But Mr. Anal actually packed it away because he didn’t want anyone else playing it while he was gone. *Are you kidding me? At least it saves me the trouble.

Oh and if you’re reading this, consider this your last payment. To everyone else, have a happy holidays.

Alas, it’s for the PlayStation 3. If it were the XBox 360 version, I’d have bought it from him for the full retail price because:

• I really want this game, and
• I know this guy’s frustration.

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