What counts as a community language in Australia?

Any language spoken by a community here other than English, for example Arabic, Vietnamese, Mandarin, Cantonese, Greek, Italian, Punjabi or Tagalog. Indigenous Australian languages are usually named specifically rather than grouped under this term.

How are community languages chosen for translation?

From demographic data, who lives in the area and what they speak, so provision matches the community actually being served rather than a fixed list.

Language data and demographics

Community language

A community language is one spoken by a migrant, diaspora or established minority community in a country where it is not the dominant language. In Australia the term covers languages such as Arabic, Vietnamese, Mandarin, Greek and many others spoken at home and in community life. It is the everyday framing for the languages that CALD communication serves.

How it works

Community languages are the languages a country's migrant and diaspora communities use at home and in community life. Which ones matter in a given place is a question of data: census and service records show who lives where and what they speak, and that drives which languages to translate into.

The set is not fixed. Established communities shift over generations, and new arrivals bring new languages, so language provision is reviewed against current demographics rather than assumed.

How SourceTarget uses it

SourceTarget is built for Australian community languages: translating and adapting government and health content into and out of them, quickly and with human review, so services reach the people who use them.