This dynamic chart shows the monolingual (Spanish) and bilingual (Basque-Spanish) population over 2 years in Araba, Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa, according to the linguistic profile of the inhabitants of the household: all-monolingual households, all-bilingual households, and mixed households. Bubles represent the number of speakers living in each household type. For easier reading, we have eliminated the passive bilingual population groups, and we have also considered mixed households those where bilinguals live together with passive bilinguals (i.e., those who can understand but do not speak Basque). However houses where only monolinguals and passive bilinguals live together are considered as all-monolingual households.
The left axis shows the percentage of each group relating to their linguistic profile; the bottom axis shows the the percentage relating to the whole population; the size of the buble reflects the absolute size of the group.
By clicking Play on the time bar the evolution for 15 years can be observed.
The conclusions seem clear: first, the number of bilinguals has grown up but they are increasingly scattered among non-bilinguals because their introduction in Spanish-speaking areas; on the other hand the number of monolinguals living in all-monolingual households has decreased dramatically. Good signal, but a challenge for the promotion of the usage.
The data are extracted from EUSTAT.