Despite official measures to strengthen French here, the proportion of French-speakers in Quebec's population is expected to erode slightly in the next quarter-century, to 81percentt.
The proportion of Rhaetian speakers in Graubünden fell from two-fifths in 1880 to one-fourth in 1970, with a corresponding increase in the Italian-speaking population.
And the proportion of Welsh-speakers is likely to increase further, since teenagers are much more likely to be able to speak the language than their parents.That ought to be a source of pride in a country where identity is closely tied to the ancestral tongue.
This represents a two percentage point drop - from 21% to 19% - in the proportion of Welsh speakers.
A chance conversation got Arturo Casadevall, a microbiologist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, thinking about the proportion of female speakers at conferences.
However, the data suggests Cardiff and Monmouthshire are the only local authority areas to have registered a percentage increase in the proportion of Welsh speakers.
In 2003 the Welsh government set targets to halt the decline, and to increase the proportion of Welsh speakers 5% by 2011.
In other words, they write, a female committee member "increased the proportion of female speakers by 72% compared with those convened by men alone".
There has been a slight downward trend in the proportion of English speakers from 77% in 2005.
