In 2021, 22.3% of Australians spoke a language other than English at home.

Australia is one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse countries in the world. Aside from English, Australians speak an estimated 300+ languages.

So, what are the top 10 languages spoken in Australia?

Top 10 languages spoken in Australia, excluding English

 

A pie chart showing the distribution of the top 10 languages spoken in Australia.

Looking at the top 10 languages spoken in Australia aside from English helps us understand the language needs of an increasingly diverse Australia.

The 2021 Census shows that the Chinese and Arabic-speaking communities have grown strongly to sit atop the list. Because of Australia’s rich cultural diversity, there’s a community need for high-quality translations by NAATI translators.

According to the 2021 Census, the Top 10 languages spoken in Australia are:

# Languages
1 Mandarin
2 Arabic
3 Vietnamese
4 Cantonese
5 Punjabi
6 Greek
7 Italian
8 Filipino / Tagalog
9 Hindi
10 Spanish

Now let’s compare the 2021 Census data with the 2016 Census to see how the Top 10 languages spoken in Australia have changed over 5 years.

Top 10 languages spoken in Australia, 2016 vs 2021

# Languages 2021 % change from 2016 to 2021
1 Mandarin 685,274 + 14.8%
2 Arabic 367,159 + 14.1%
3 Vietnamese 320,758 + 15.6%
4 Cantonese 295,281 + 5.1%
5 Punjabi 239,033 + 80.4%
6 Greek 229,643 – 3.4%
7 Italian 228,042 – 15.9%
8 Filipino / Tagalog 222,048 + 21.7%
9 Hindi 197,132 + 23.5%
10 Spanish 171,370 + 21.7%

Whilst the top 10 languages spoken in Australia have remained the same between 2016 and 2021, the order has changed, reflecting the ever-changing diversity of the country.

The fastest-growing language in Australia is Punjabi

Spoken by 239,033 people in Australia, 74.3% of Punjabi speakers in Australia were born in India, and 21.8% were born in Australia.

According to the 2021 Census, Punjabi is the fastest-growing language in Australia, having grown by over 100,000 speakers — or, by 80.4% — since 2016.

This is by far the largest proportional growth in a language community among the top 10 most spoken languages in Australia.

Since 2016, the number of Greek and Italian speakers has declined

Greek and Italian-speaking communities are the only two language communities among the top 10 most spoken languages in Australia to have declined from 2016 to 2021.

This is in part because Greek and Italian-speaking communities in Australia are established communities, with many members of the community arriving in Australia in the 1960s.

Additionally, 61.7% of Greek and Italian speakers are over 50 years of age, compared with 35.4% of the broader Australian population.

In short, some of the driving factors behind the decline of Greek and Italian-speaking communities include fewer new migrants and an ageing population among the established communities.

Top 10 languages spoken in Australia, 2006 to 2021

Let’s take a step back and compare the data with previous Census years.

What is clearly evident is that Australia’s language needs are rapidly changing.

Line chart presenting a steady increase in the percentage of people in Australia who speak a language other than English at home. From just above 15% in 2006 to over 20% in 2021.

According to the 2006 Census, 15.8% of people in Australia speak a language other than English at home. Over the course of the fifteen years to the 2021 Census, this proportion has grown by 5.5%.

To put that into perspective, there are over 2.5 million more people in Australia who speak a language other than English at home in 2021, compared to 2006.

This confirms that Australia is a fast-changing, culturally diverse country — it also confirms that the need for language support in Australia is only continuing to grow.

Next, let’s take a look at the top 10 languages spoken in Australia and how they’ve changed since 2006.

Line chart presenting the way the top 10 languages spoken in Australia have changed since 2006.

Mandarin-speaking communities have been growing rapidly since 2006

From the chart above, we can see that there is a light blue line that has increased sharply from 2011 to 2016.

That’s the number of Mandarin speakers living in Australia.

It is probably unsurprising to see that Mandarin is the most spoken language other than English by far in 2021. However, it may surprise you to note that prior to 2011, Mandarin was the fourth-most spoken language other than English in Australia.

Instead, the top 3 languages in 2006 were: (1) Italian, (2) Greek and (3) Cantonese — as of the 2021 Census, these are now the seventh, sixth and fourth-most spoken languages other than English in Australia.

The growth of Cantonese-speaking populations is slowing

We’ve covered the rapid growth of Punjabi, the decline in Greek and Italian-speaking communities, and the remarkable expansion of the Mandarin-speaking population in Australia.

But what about Cantonese?

Cantonese is one of the most widely-spoken dialects of Chinese alongside Mandarin. It is spoken in regions of China, Special Administrative Regions (SAR) of China such as Hong Kong and Macau, Malaysia and other countries.

Despite the large community of Cantonese speakers in Australia, however, the number of Cantonese speakers has only grown by 50,000 from 2006 to 2021.

In contrast, Punjabi and Mandarin grew by ~200,000 and ~400,000 speakers respectively during the same span of time.

Today, Cantonese is the fourth-most spoken language in Australia after Mandarin, Arabic and Vietnamese.

In the coming years, Cantonese will likely continue to fall lower on the list of the top 10 languages spoken in Australia, overtaken by faster-growing languages such as Punjabi.

Top 10 languages spoken in Australia, by English Language Proficiency (ELP)

A donut chart presents the distribution of people in Australia who speak English only, and who speak another language and English very well, well, not well and not at all. People who speak English only make up 76.2% of people in Australia. Those who speak a language other than English at home and speak English 'very well' make up 14.1% of people in Australia. Those who speak English 'well' make up 6.1% of people in Australia. Those who speak English 'Not well' make up 2.7%; while those who speak English 'not at all' make up 0.9%. The data above does not include ~1,380,000 people who either did not state their language and proficiency in spoken English, or stated their language but not their proficiency in spoken in English.

At Ethnolink, we are constantly advocating the importance of taking into consideration English language proficiency when we are designing multicultural communications campaigns for culturally and linguistically diverse communities in Australia.

This is because English language proficiency helps us identify people who need language support in Australia.

Consider our initial list of the Top 10 languages spoken in Australia, according to the 2021 Census:

# Top 10 most spoken languages
1 Mandarin
2 Arabic
3 Vietnamese
4 Cantonese
5 Punjabi
6 Greek
7 Italian
8 Filipino / Tagalog
9 Hindi
10 Spanish

How might this change if we filtered this data for people with low to no English language proficiency?

# Top 10 most spoken languages Top 10 most spoken languages by ELP
1 Mandarin Mandarin
2 Arabic Vietnamese
3 Vietnamese Cantonese
4 Cantonese Arabic
5 Punjabi Greek
6 Greek Korean
7 Italian Italian
8 Filipino / Tagalog Punjabi
9 Hindi Spanish
10 Spanish Thai

 

Hindi and English language proficiency

With nearly 200,000 speakers, Hindi is the ninth-most spoken language other than English in Australia.

However, when we take into account English language proficiency, it is the 19th most spoken language in Australia by people with low to no English language proficiency.

When we delve deeper into the data, we find that 95.9% of Hindi speakers report having high English language proficiency.

This suggests that the vast majority of Hindi speakers are fluent in English, and therefore, the reach of in-language resources is more limited, relative to other language communities where a greater proportion of speakers have low to no English language proficiency.

Filipino / Tagalog and English language proficiency

It is also a similar case with Filipino / Tagalog, which is the eighth-most spoken language other than English in Australia.

But did you know that the Philippines, where Filipino / Tagalog is primarily spoken, has two official languages?

One of them is Filipino / Tagalog — and the other is English.

As such, it should come as no surprise that 97.1% of people in Australia who speak Filipino / Tagalog report having high English language proficiency.

Korean, Thai and English language proficiency

According to the data above, Korean and Thai are among the Top 10 languages most spoken in Australia after filtering for English language proficiency.

26.8% of Korean speakers in Australia, or just over 31,000 people have low to no English language proficiency.

Meanwhile, 19.9% of Thai speakers in Australia — over 13,000 people — report having low to no English proficiency.

Based on this, we can identify that information translated into Korean and Thai would have a higher potential reach and impact.

In comparison, information translated for language communities where most people report having high English language proficiency, such as Filipino / Tagalog would likely have a more limited impact.

Need versus reach

When looking at language data, it is important to consider your goals. Are you looking to have the largest possible reach for your translated assets?

Or do you want your translated assets to have the greatest possible impact?

Need versus reach is something that our Translation Strategists often consider when advising our clients on multicultural communications strategies.

Selecting languages for a translated campaign that strikes the perfect balance between need languages and reach languages can be difficult to do without expert-led insight into culturally and linguistically diverse communities in Australia.

If you’re interested in learning more about this, we recently shared a full 60-minute lesson on Ethnolink Education about how to select languages for multicultural communications campaigns.

Language diversity

An image summarising two key statistics from the article: 1 in 5 people in Australia speak a language other than English; and 2,500,000 more people in Australia speak a language other than English in 2021, compared to 2006.

All in all, we can see from the data above that Australia is very diverse when it comes to its languages.

Though English is often considered the de facto national language of Australia, the reality is that more than 1 in 5 people in Australia speak a language other than English at home.

As this number continues to grow with each year, the need for strong language support and translation services only continues to grow.

To learn more about how Ethnolink helps facilitate multicultural communications across Australia, chat with one of our Translation Strategists today.