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I would suggest 0.5% of the population being Black African is a wild exaggeration. Fact being Africans are still fairly thin on the ground. Caribbean's which the UK has many, do not feature in Australia.
Its no where near a wild exaggeration. 0.5% of 25 million is only 125,000 people.
By country of birth there are 25,000 Sudanese. 10,000 Nigerians, 18,000 kenyans, 12,000 Ethiopians, 8,000 samoli, 5,500 Ghanaians, 5,000 Zambians, 4000 from each of Eritrea, Tanzania and Congo 3,000 from each of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Uganda. You would have 100,000 black africans from thoes countries alone. Plus you can add whatever portion of our Zimbabweans and South Africans are black, the rest of Sub Sarah Africa, and however many African brits/Americans Carribean etc we have and any Australian born child to a black african immigrant family as well.
Of anything 0.5% is a bit of a conservative estimate.
Last edited by danielsa1775; 03-12-2020 at 08:42 AM..
*I ended up putting Canada and the US at a tie for first, rather than Canada the winner, because I didn't feel that it's official bilingualism (two solid blocks of English and French) really outweighed the diversity of the variety of languages spoken in the US, which includes the unique pervasiveness of Spanish.
If you take French in Canada vs. Spanish in the U.S., French in Canada punches higher.
In order for it to be even comparable you'd have to have something like the entire Midwest functioning in Spanish with much of it having no "anglos" living there at all. You'd have immigrants from totally non-Hispanic countries taking up Spanish (often with little to no knowledge of English) for their new lives in the U.S., from A to Z, in places like Chicago, Madison and Minneapolis.
Both the Dem and GOP presidential candidates would have to have reasonable fluency in Spanish, to the point of being able to partake in a debate in that language. If you didn't have it, you'd probably not even make it to the primaries - where there would also be debates in Spanish.
Most senior government officials would also have to know Spanish in addition to English. Not just a "nice to have", but a pretty firm requirement.
The Surgeon-General of the United States for example would have to field media questions in Spanish, regardless of his or her origins or background. Just like the Chief Medical Officer for all of Canada is doing this week, even though she is 50-something native of Hong Kong who grew up in the UK and went to university in Britain and Western Canada. So nothing in her life path predisposes her to know any French at all. But there she is this week, explaining our country's COVID-19 response in both English and French. Because it's Canada.
*I ended up putting Canada and the US at a tie for first, rather than Canada the winner, because I didn't feel that it's official bilingualism (two solid blocks of English and French) really outweighed the diversity of the variety of languages spoken in the US, which includes the unique pervasiveness of Spanish.
Now, if you take French (Canada) and Spanish (U.S.) out of the equation, a case can also be made that Canada is more linguistically diverse than the U.S. on that level too.
For example, the U.S. has over 300 million people, and after English, Spanish is by far the most commonly-spoken language with over 40 million speakers.
After Spanish there is a huge drop. The next most common is the Chinese combo of Mandarin and Cantonese (mostly) at only 3.5 million.
After that the next highest are all under 2 million: Tagalog, Vietnamese, French, Russian, German, Korean.
Remember - this is out of a population of over 300 million.
Canada has a population of 37 million. French is way out front after English (number one) with about 7 million speakers.
But after that, you have Chinese at 1.5 million, and over 500,000 each of Tagalog, Spanish, Arabic and Punjabi.
Now, if you take French (Canada) and Spanish (U.S.) out of the equation, a case can also be made that Canada is more linguistically diverse than the U.S. on that level too.
For example, the U.S. has over 300 million people, and after English, Spanish is by far the most commonly-spoken language with over 40 million speakers.
After Spanish there is a huge drop. The next most common is the Chinese combo of Mandarin and Cantonese (mostly) at only 3.5 million.
After that the next highest are all under 2 million: Tagalog, Vietnamese, French, Russian, German, Korean.
Remember - this is out of a population of over 300 million.
Canada has a population of 37 million. French is way out front after English (number one) with about 7 million speakers.
But after that, you have Chinese at 1.5 million, and over 500,000 each of Tagalog, Spanish, Arabic and Punjabi.
Out of a population of only 37 million.
Over 500, 000 Spanish speakers in Canada? I am very surprised by that. The only place I would hear Spanish being spoken in public was at the Jean Talon Market in MTL. I hear Tagalog, Punjabi and Arabic pretty much every where. Not Spanish though.
I hear more Somali spoken in public than Spanish.
Over 500, 000 Spanish speakers in Canada? I am very surprised by that. The only place I would hear Spanish being spoken in public was at the Jean Talon Market in MTL. I hear Tagalog, Punjabi and Arabic pretty much every where. Not Spanish though.
I hear more Somali spoken in public than Spanish.
Apparently so. I will check, though.
But I do hear Spanish several times a week here in Gatineau. There are also a half-dozen Latin American kids in my childrens' wider entourage of friends.
You can be last out of these four countries and still have a fairly diverse diet/menu.
It's just a relative thing.
It doesn't necessarily mean you all eat only those Four N Twenty Pies and leamingtons every single day.
Well in my months travelling in the US I found the food quite homogeneous. Lots of chain restaurants and much of the ethnic food Americanised. We have found in the US one of the least enjoyable aspects of our time there. And don't start me on the coffee!
The panic shopping here at the moment is seeing the most sought food for storing is pasta.
But I have had a much more diverse range of food in the UK than in either the US or Canada. The food in London is brilliant and we have had really good Thai food in places like northern Scotland, much better than the Thai food we had in Utah a couple of years ago.
I cannot deny buying lamingtons. You can get 18 small fingers for $2.50 at Coles and they are excellent bribery for our grandkids.
Well in my months travelling in the US I found the food quite homogeneous. Lots of chain restaurants and much of the ethnic food Americanised. We have found in the US one of the least enjoyable aspects of our time there. And don't start me on the coffee!
The panic shopping here at the moment is seeing the most sought food for storing is pasta.
But I have had a much more diverse range of food in the UK than in either the US or Canada. The food in London is brilliant and we have had really good Thai food in places like northern Scotland, much better than the Thai food we had in Utah a couple of years ago.
I cannot deny buying lamingtons. You can get 18 small fingers for $2.50 at Coles and they are excellent bribery for our grandkids.
The US does have a ton of chain restaurants, though there's some variation among chain restaurants. The large national chains are generally quite bad, point blank. However, you can usually find other options aside from chain restaurants if you stay clear of the suburbs. Unfortunately, the US is a lot of suburbs.
I cannot deny buying lamingtons. You can get 18 small fingers for $2.50 at Coles and they are excellent bribery for our grandkids.
Haven't had them in ages. Though I wonder if somewhere in my area sells them? Maybe across the river in Ottawa? (I am sure if I could get invited to an event at the Australian High Commission, that they'd have them.)
The US doeshave a ton of chain restaurants, though there's some variation among chainrestaurants. The large national chains are generally quite bad, point blank.However, you can usually find other options aside from chain restaurants if youstay clear of the suburbs. Unfortunately, the US is a lot of suburbs.
The chain dining scene (both fast food and sit-down) is ubiquitous sometimes to the point of feeling oppressive in the U.S.
But if you get past that, the U.S. is clearly far ahead of all three other countries in this poll in terms of the sheer variety and quality of regional cuisines. Nobody else has anything close to the same number of equivalents to Tex-Mex, soul food, Cajun, Southern BBQ, Hawaiian, etc. Those were just off the top of my head in a split second. There are too many to mention.
I do think another poster made a good point about the UK (especially London) doing an excellent job at ethnic cuisines from all over the world. In that respect specifically it would probably be the winner.
It would be interesting to ponder why that might be the case. Could it be that the fact that English/British cuisine doesn't get much love or respect (even from people in the UK themselves) that it left lots more "open space" to be taken up by the cuisines of newcomers as they arrived?
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