The given line graph illustrates data of people using Chinese, Arabic, Italian, and Greeks as their first language in Australia over a 25-year period.
What’s the most striking when looking at the chart is that the numbers of people who speak Chinese and Arabic as their mother tongue increased over the years, while the opposite was true for Italian and Greek. It is also notable that the figure for Chinese first-language speakers had the most pronounced growth, with the largest population towards the end of the period despite the third-ranked start.
Looking first at Chinese and Arabic, these demographics both saw an upward trend, despite varying degrees. Both of them began at the lowest point, with the respective figures of 100,000 and 50,000 speakers in 1986. Afterwards, the former showed a consistent yet rapid growth to 350,000 speakers in 2011, higher than the figure of the latter by 200,000 speakers.
Moving to groups who witnessed a downward trend, Greek and Italian. It can be seen that the number of people who used Greek as their first language significantly decreased, from an initial of about 225,000 to just above 175,000 speakers at the end of the given timeframe. A roughly similar decline is witnessed in the number of the Italian demographic, but with smaller population, from a beginning of 150,000 to 100,000 speakers in 2006 and then stagnating for the rest of the period.