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Languages in The United States

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English is far and away the most spoken language in the United States, and is used in nearly all government institutions and functions.  However, contrary to what many might believe, English is not the official language of the country, nor is any other language for that matter.  While many individual states have given the English language official status, it is not granted that distinction at the federal level, largely because the American forefathers feared that by doing so they might infringe on other people’s liberties. 

There can be no debate that the United States is one of, if not the most diverse nation on the planet; a nation formed of immigrants from every corner of the earth.  As a result, America is now home to over 300 different languages, including English, ranging from Afrikaans to the native language known as Zoogocho Zapotec.  To illustrate this incredible diversity, in the following article we will take a closer look at the languages of the United States, including a breakdown of some of the languages frequently spoken at home by Americans, some information regarding U.S. language policy and a description of four of the most commonly used languages in the country, including English.

United States Languages:  Languages of Today

English news paper from 1776 According to the United States Census Bureau, English is the most predominant language spoken in the United States.  Of the roughly 292 million people in the United States ages 5 and older, a whopping 231 million of them, or 79 percent, speak English only at home.   Twenty-one percent of the population, or roughly 61 million people, speak a language other than English (as their first language).

Spanish tops the list as the most oft spoken non-English language in the United States, accounting for 62 percent of all foreign language speakers, or a total of 38 million people.

Other languages spoken in the United States, listed in order of prevalence, include Chinese (4.8 percent of the population), Tagalog (2.6%), Vietnamese (2.3%), French (2.1%), Korean (1.9%), German (1.8%), Arabic (1.6%), Russian (1.5%), African Languages (1.5%), Other Asian languages (1.4%), Italian (1.2%), French Creole (1.2%), Portuguese (1.1%) and Hindi (1.1%).

Because of the large number of languages spoken in the United States, the Census Bureau has created four distinct linguistic groups, which together cover the entirety of speakers in America.  These four groups include:

Spanish

The “Spanish” language group includes Spanish, Spanish Creole and Ladino.

Other Indo-European Languages

This category includes all other Indo-European languages spoken in the United States, including most languages of Europe and the Indic languages of India.  In this group you’ll find the Germanic languages, such as German, Dutch and Yiddish; the Scandinavian languages, such as Swedish, Norwegian and Finnish; the Romance languages, such as French, Italian, and Portuguese; the Slavic languages, such as Polish, Russian, and Serbo-Croatian; the Indic languages, such as Hindi, Gujarati, Punjabi and Urdu; the Celtic languages; Greek; the Baltic Languages and the Iranian languages.

Asian and Pacific Islander Languages

The Asian and Pacific Islander language group includes the following languages:  Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Japanese, Hmong, Khmer, Lao, Thai, and Tagalog or Pilipino.  It also includes the Dravidian languages of India, such as Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam; and other languages of Asia and the Pacific including the Philippine, Polynesian, and Micronesian languages.

All Other Languages

This final category includes all languages not covered in the first three.  This includes the Uralic languages, such as Hungarian; the Semitic languages, such as Arabic and Hebrew; the languages of Africa; native North American languages, including the American Indian and Alaska native languages; and the indigenous languages of Central and South America.

United States Language Policy

Throughout the course of United States history there have been many efforts geared towards making English the official language of the country.  Some of these plans have even suggested “recognizing” one or two other languages based on their prevalence, or the number of speakers.  These efforts, at least at the federal level, have never quite been successful.  While it’s true that the country does conduct all of its official business in English, the sheer linguistic diversity of America makes it difficult to do anything more in terms of policy.

Simply put, creating a coherent language policy for the United States is not, nor has it ever been an easy proposition.  In total, there are over 300 languages spoken in the United States, and while today Spanish is by far the most prevalent non-English language, this has not always been the case.  Over the course of American history, many languages have risen to the rank of “most important foreign language to know.”  100 years ago, for example, this title was bestowed on German, and in subsequent years, the spotlight moved to French, then Japanese.  Tomorrow it could be Arabic or Chinese that becomes the “language to know.” 

Regardless, of prevalence, the truth is that America has never been a land of just two or three languages, not even at the regional level.  Non-English speakers—speakers of 321 languages at present—are not evenly distributed within the United States, leaving each state, county and metropolitan region with its own linguistic composition.  The scope of these differences illustrates the “slippery slope” of merely concentrating on a second or third language when creating language policy.  Linguistic differences in the United States encompass far more than even the most ambitious efforts could satisfy.

State by State Language Policy

Spanish teacher protest There are many individual states within America that have passed legislation naming English as the official language.  This does not mean, however, that they can simply ignore those people who speak something other than English.  All schools, for example, regardless of the state, must have programs in place to cater to non-English speaking students, and California, one of the most diverse states in the union—one that has, ironically, named English as the official language—prints most of its government documents and brochures in over 30 different languages.

The states in which English is now the official language slightly outnumber those that have yet to take this step.  These states include Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, and Wyoming.  Some of these states, as well as a few that have not made English official, give special status to other languages as well.  In Hawaii, for example, the Hawaiian language is recognized, while in parts of Louisiana, French has had special status since 1968.  Spanish has special status in New Mexico (as granted in 1912), as well as in the United States territory of Puerto Rico, where Spanish is the most commonly spoken language.

About the Languages in the United States

Below we will take a closer look at the four most prevalent languages in the United States, beginning with English:

English

English is spoken as the first (and often only) language by 79 percent of the population.  English also serves as the de facto official language of the United States—the language in which the business of government is carried out.

Although English was inherited in America by British colonization, over time, American English has become very different than that of the UK.  This includes differences in grammar, pronunciation, spelling and slang usage.  These variances do not typically represent a barrier to effective communication between an American English speaker and British speaker, but they are overt enough to cause occasional misunderstandings, particularly with regard to slang and regional dialect differences.

Spanish

The most prominent non-English language in the United States, Spanish is spoken as a first language by approximately 38 million American residents.  Like English, it was inherited from the Spanish colonization and is given special status in some US states and territories, including New Mexico and Puerto Rico. 

In many schools throughout the nation, Spanish is taught as a second language, usually beginning in secondary school, but sometimes even earlier in areas with substantial Hispanic populations.  Children and adults alike are learning Spanish at record rates in the United States, seeing it as an opportunity to better communicate with the large and ever-growing Spanish-speaking population.

Large Spanish speaking populations can be found in the American Southwest—places such as New Mexico, Arizona and Texas that are near the Mexican border.  Spanish speakers are also very prevalent in the states of California, Florida, New York, New Jersey and the District of Colombia.  Throughout these regions (and many others), it is not uncommon to see signs, pamphlets and other forms of media written in both Spanish and English.  Churches in these regions often offer both an English and Spanish-speaking service, especially the Catholic Church, to which many Spanish speakers belong.  Children in school have the opportunity to learn English as a second language, through ESL programs that are designed to help them assimilate.  The Spanish-speaking communities of the United States are so vast in number, that the country is now the fifth-largest Spanish speaking country in the world, trailing only Mexico, Spain, Colombia and Argentina.

Chinese

International District in Seattle WA Chinese, largely the Cantonese variety of the language, is the third-most spoken language in the United States.  The language is spoken almost wholly within the Chinese American and Taiwanese American populations, and by immigrants or the descendants of immigrants, particularly in the western state of California. 

Because of the recent rise of Chinese speakers and China’s rapidly growing economy, the Chinese language, specifically the Mandarin variety—the official spoken language of the People’s Republic of China—is being studied by American students, young and old.  Today there are nearly 3 million Americans who speak some variety of Chinese, with the Mandarin variety becoming more and more common since the opening up of China.

Tagalog

Tagalog, a language of the Philippines, is the fourth-most spoken language in the United States.  This language, along with its standardized form Filipino, is spoken by almost 2 million Filipino Americans, and is heavily promoted by Filipino American civic organizations and Philippine consulates.  As Filipinos became the fastest growing Asian population in the United States (after China), the Tagalog language rapidly became the second-most spoken Asian language in the country.  Today, there are many students majoring in Tagalog in America’s universities, including the University of Hawaii and University of California, where Tagalog-speaking populations are significant.

Following the American annexation of the Philippines, the number of Tagalog speakers gradually increased, as students and laborers migrated to the United States to find better opportunities. Upon Philippine independence, however, their numbers decreased somewhat, as many of them were repatriated.

Records show that Tagalog speakers arrived in the United States as early as the late sixteenth century.  Many worked as sailors for the Spanish colonial government, and by the eighteenth century they had established settlements in places like Louisiana (Saint Malo).