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The language with the highest percentage of speakers was Arabic (21.5 %), but I found
very few shops displaying the language. On the northern side of the railway line, most
of the shops displayed only English. But on the southern side, there was a concentration
of shops displaying Chinese (14 %), Vietnamese (18 %), but predominantly, both (54 %).
This indicated a strong link between the two cultures. Together, they accounted for 86 %
of the total number of shops in the survey. At first, the absence of an Arabic
concentration was surprising, but a further look at the statistics revealed that 23.37 %
of Bankstown’s population spoke either Chinese or Vietnamese, which was greater than the
Arabic-speaking population. Furthermore, though Arabic shops were not commonly seen here,
they could be found in surrounding suburbs with a high percentage of Arabic-speakers
such as Lakemba.
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