The range of languages spoken by Australians provides a useful indicator of aspects of the ethnic and cultural diversity of Australian society. The ABS has developed the Australian Standard Classification of Languages (ASCL) in order to satisfy wide community interest in the languages spoken by the Australian population, and to meet a growing statistical and administrative need.
The ASCL is intended for use in the collection, aggregation and dissemination of data relating to the language use of the Australian population, or subsets of the population. It can be used to classify language use relating to concepts such as 'First Language Spoken', 'Languages Spoken at Home', 'Language of Greatest Competency', etc. It is envisaged that the classification will improve the usefulness of language information provided on administrative forms such as hospital admission and school enrolment forms, as well as being used to classify language data from statistical censuses and surveys. A particularly important aspect of its wide adoption will be to improve the comparability of data on languages from these diverse sources.
Data classified by language will assist in the planning and provision of multilingual services and facilitate program and service delivery for speakers of languages other than English. The classification can be used for policy and planning purposes related to the location and development of educational facilities, the provision of aged persons' care facilities and services, and the provision of other social services by both the service providers and the organisations representing particular language or ethnic groups. The classification will enhance the usefulness of data used to assist in assigning interpreters, translators and care providers to hospitals, prisons, armed services, universities, and other institutions, and for the allocation of time to particular community groups on radio and in other media. The ASCL will, more generally, be a useful tool in social research and will provide a stable underpinning for related concepts such as ethnicity, ancestry, etc.
In the classification, languages are grouped into progressively broader categories on the basis of their evolution from a common ancestral language, and on the basis of the geographic proximity of areas where particular languages originated. This results in a classification that is useful for the purposes of Australian social analysis by allowing populations of language speakers that are similar in terms of their ethnic and cultural origin to be grouped in a manner that is intuitively meaningful in the Australian context.
This classification was developed by the ABS by means of extensive research of Australian and overseas literature in the field of interest, use of principles and techniques relating to the development of statistical classifications, and analysis of existing data relating to the language profile of Australia (primarily data from the 1991 Census of Population and Housing). This work was supported by information and advice from academics and language experts, by consulting organisations that are significant users of language data or providers of language-based services, and by consultation with ethnic and community groups interested in this topic.
To make the classification as useful as possible, the number of speakers of particular languages in Australia has been a significant factor in developing the hierarchical structure so that the current language profile of Australia is appropriately reflected. As a result 'European' languages are extensively identified in the ASCL. Since Australian Indigenous languages are of particular interest in Australian social and linguistic research, they have also been extensively identified in the classification structure. However, the identification of individual languages, and the way in which they are grouped in the classification, does not imply the expression of any opinion on the part of the ABS concerning the relative merit or importance of particular languages or the people who speak them. Those languages for which available data indicate there are very few speakers are not separately identified in the classification structure but are included in appropriate residual categories (see: Reserved codes for residual categories). (The term 'separately identified' is used throughout this document to indicate entities which are included in the classification structure as separate and distinct substantive classification categories with a unique classification code.)
The ABS will use the ASCL in its own statistical work, including the 1996 Census of Population and Housing, and will actively promote its use by other government agencies, private organisations, community groups, and individuals collecting, analysing, or using information relating to languages. The ASCL has the status of an Australian statistical standard and should be used for the production and dissemination of all official statistics on languages.
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