This Montreal Neighbourhood Speaks More Languages Than Anywhere Else In The City
Montreal is known for its linguistic diversity.
Practically everyone who was born in the city speaks French and English (at varying levels of aptitude, admittedly) and many more can boast about having a third or fourth language under their belt.
Most of the city can be said to be linguistically diverse, but one Montreal neighbourhood blows the rest of the city out of the water.
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A small sub-section of Côte-des-Neiges is home to speakers of 46 languages besides English and French, according to 2016 StatsCan data quoted by the CBC.
Some of the many languages spoken in this part of Montreal include Bamanankan, Tamil, Tagalog, Hiligaynon, and Fulah, among many others.
That's quite an impressive number of languages, especially since only 6600 people actually live in this neighbourhood.
The area isn't even a square kilometre in size, notes CBC, running from Darlington to Côte-des-Neiges Road and Jean-Talon to Van Horn. Here's a rough map for a visual.
According to some residents who spoke to CBC, diversity creates more diversity in the neighbourhood. Several immigrants said they only moved to the area because they knew of people from their home country who did the same.
Not that this particular part of CDN has always been a hotbed of linguistic diversity. It's been a long transformation, as the area used to be predominantly Jewish and Black, notes one resident.