Linguistic diversity in Australia

Recent information from the 1996 Census reveals that 14.6 per cent of Australians, 26.4 per cent of Sydney residents and 25.4 per cent of Melbourne residents speak a language other than English at home. This paper explores the changing patterns of language diversity in Australia, Sydney and Melbourne between 1991 and 1996. It shows that there has been a great increase in linguistic diversity, accompanied by an overall decline in the use of ‘older’ community languages in favour of ‘newer’ languages from Asia and the Middle East. Copyright. Monash University and the author/s