Senator Pauline Hanson raised concerns about immigration and social cohesion, saying ‘more than a million people’ in Australia ‘cannot speak English well or at all’. Let’s look at the numbers.
There’s little research into origins of the geographic patterns of language diversity. A new model exploring processes that shaped Australia’s language diversity provides a template for investigators.
About 20% of the Australian population speaks a language other than English. However there is little connection between the languages taught in schools, and the languages spoken in homes.