The line graph provides data on the number of people residing in Australia, who used four different languages – Chinese, Arabic, Italian and Greek – as their first language over a 15-year period, spanning form 1986 to 2011.
Overall, it is evident that the number of individuals in Australia, who used Chinese and Arabic as their mother tongues significantly increased over the given period, whereas the opposite trend was observed for those who spoke Italian and Greek as their first language.
In 1986, the most common foreign language spoken as a first language in Australia was Greek, with around 230,000 users. Italian was ranked second, with roughly 150,000 native speakers, which was followed by Chinese, which had slightly more than 100,000 users. Arabic language was the least commonly used language at that time, with only 50,000 speakers.
By 1991, figures had already started to change noticeably, with the number of Greek and Italian speakers declining, while the number for Chinese and Arabic speakers rose. Chine became the second most common foreign language in Australia by this time.
The number of Greek and Italian users continued to decline, in an identical pace, until the end of the period (2011); however, the number of people who spoke Italian as their first language remained static in the last 5 years from 2006 to 2011, with only around 100,000 people, while this figure in Greek users was higher, around 185,000 people.
The popularity of Chinese language skyrocketed by the year 2011, reaching roughly 350,000 native users in Australia. Arabic, on the other hand, despite following the same trend, the number increased more moderately, rising by only 100,000 over the entire period.