British Columbia Language and Languages
Canada 
British Columbia Language and Languages
Background
Most British Columbia government records will be in English. Private and organizational records may be in a variety of languages.
According to the 2011 census, English, Chinese (Cantonese and Mandarin), Punjabi, German, Tagalog, French, Korean, Spanish, and Farsi were then the top 10 languages spoken in BC. 1
Over 30 Indigenous languages are spoken in British Columbia. 2
Historically since European contact, along with indigenous languages, during the fur trading period French, Scots, Chinook 3 (a trade language) and Michif 4 (the Métis language), Hawaiian were spoken.
In some cases, early missionaries learned and used Chinook and indignous languages, as well as French and or English and Latin. .
From the 1850s gold rush period and later, new immigrants brought the Chinese, Japanese and Scandinavian and South Asian languages.
Language Tools
The FamilySearch wiki includes a number of genealogical word lists in English and other languages. These include commonly used genealogical words, for instance, on theLatin Genealogical Word List. Search for
[Country or Language Word List] in the wiki..
First People's Language Map of British Columbia
Dictionary of the Chinook Jargon, or Indian Trade Language of the North Pacific Coast(T. N. Hibben Co., Publishers, Victoria, 1889), online at Project Gutenburg.
Chinook first reading book: including Chinook hymns, syllabary and vocabulary / by Jean Marie Raphaël Le Jeune (Kamloops, 1893), online at the Internet Archive.
Notes
1 B.C. Quick Facts, Government of Province of British Columbia
2 Indigenous Foundations, University of British Columbia.
3 "A Skookum Language" [Chinook] by Frances Backhouse (British Columbia Magazine, Summer 2008).
4 Learn Mechif, Metis Youth British Columbia (MYBC) and the Métis Nation BC (MNBC).