More and more residents in St. Catharines- Niagara are reporting English as their mother tongue, defying the trend across the country.

According to new data from Statistics Canada, 82 percent of Niagara residents say English was the first language learned at home in childhood.

Three and half percent report French as their mother tongue.

The top five non official languages spoken in our region are Italian, German, Spanish, Polish and Dutch.

Across the country, close to 58 percent of the population speaks English, nearly 22 percent speak French and 21 percent spoke other languages.

Rounding out the top five non official languages spoken in Canada: Chinese, Punjabi, Spanish, Italian and German.