The majority (96.7%) of Basin Boundary residents speak English most often at home. The proportion of Basin Boundary residents speaking French most often at home (0.5%) is similar to British Columbia (0.4%), but is much lower than Canada (20.6%). Our region has a much lower percentage of people who speak other languages most often at home—only 2.9% compared to BC (19.1%) and Canada (14.6%). This is an indication that our region is less culturally diverse than BC or Canada. This is likely related to the fact that there are no large cities in our region that tend to support a higher diversity of language and culture.

Census data indicates that there are at least 60 different languages spoken most often at home in our region. These include languages such as Afrikaans, Cantonese, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Panjabi, Polish, Russian, Spanish, Tagalog, and Ukrainian. Higher numbers of people who speak other languages are generally found in the larger communities, such as Castlegar, Nelson, Cranbrook, Revelstoke, Golden, and Trail. The communities of Rossland, Revelstoke, and Nelson are also home to most of our region’s French speakers. There are also Aboriginal languages spoken across our region that are not explicitly captured in the census form.

<a href="http://www.cbrdi.ca/wp-content/uploads/Language-Spoken-Most-Often-at-Hom...">Language Spoken Most Often at Home Trends Analysis Brief</a>