U.S. Census Bureau released a set of new tables today detailing hundreds of languages that U.S. residents speak at home. American Community Survey data on languages spoken at home were previously available for only 39 languages. These tables, based on American Community Survey data collected from 2009 to 2013, expand the languages and language groups tabulated to 350.
These tables are among the most comprehensive data ever released from the Census Bureau on languages spoken less widely in the United States, such as Pennsylvania Dutch, Ukrainian, Turkish, Romanian, Amharic and many others. Also included are 150 different Native North American languages, collectively spoken by more than 350,000 people, including Yupik, Dakota, Apache, Keres and Cherokee.
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The tables provide information on languages and language groups for counties and core-based statistical areas (metropolitan and micropolitan areas) with populations of 100,000 or more and 25,000 or more speakers of languages other than Spanish, as well as for the nation, states and Puerto Rico regardless of population size. These data show the number of speakers of each language and the number who speak English less than “very well” — a common measure of English proficiency.
In addition to making the tables available for download as a spreadsheet, the Census Bureau will release the data as part of its application programming interface, or API.
Highlights for the 15 largest metro areas:
New York metro area
At least 192 languages are spoken at home.
38 percent of the metro area population age 5 and over speak a language other than English at home.
One of the smaller language groups found there is Bengali, with 105,765 speakers.
Los Angeles metro area
At least 185 languages are spoken at home.
54 percent of the metro area population age 5 and over speak a language other than English at home.
One of the smaller language groups found there is Indonesian, with 12,750 speakers.
Chicago metro area
At least 153 languages are spoken at home.
29 percent of the metro area population age 5 and over speak a language other than English at home.
One of the smaller language groups found there is Serbian, with 17,490 speakers.
Dallas metro area
At least 156 languages are spoken at home.
30 percent of the metro area population age 5 and over speak a language other than English at home.
One of the smaller language groups found there is Telugu, with 12,630 speakers.
Philadelphia metro area
At least 146 languages are spoken at home.
15 percent of the metro area population age 5 and over speak a language other than English at home.
One of the smaller language groups found there is Malayalam, with 10,370 speakers.
Houston metro area
At least 145 languages are spoken at home.
37 percent of the metro area population age 5 and over speak a language other than English at home.
One of the smaller language groups found there is Tamil, with 4,690 speakers.
Washington metro area
At least 168 languages are spoken at home.
26 percent of the metro area population age 5 and over speak a language other than English at home.
One of the smaller language groups found there is Amharic, with 43,125 speakers.
Miami metro area
At least 128 languages are spoken at home.
51 percent of the metro area population age 5 and over speak a language other than English at home.
One of the smaller language groups found there is Romanian, with 5,295 speakers.
Atlanta metro area
At least 146 languages are spoken at home.
17 percent of the metro area population age 5 and over speak a language other than English at home.
One of the smaller language groups found there is Swahili, with 4,195 speakers.
Boston metro area
At least 138 languages are spoken at home.
23 percent of the metro area population age 5 and over speak a language other than English at home.
One of the smaller language groups found there is Albanian, with 6,800 speakers.
San Francisco metro area
At least 163 languages are spoken at home.
40 percent of the metro area population age 5 and over speak a language other than English at home.
One of the smaller language groups found there is Panjabi, with 19,985 speakers.
Detroit metro area
At least 126 languages are spoken at home.
12 percent of the metro area population age 5 and over speak a language other than English at home.
One of the smaller language groups found there is Syriac, with 23,175 speakers.
Riverside, Calif., metro area
At least 145 languages are spoken at home.
40 percent of the metro area population age 5 and over speak a language other than English at home.
One of the smaller language groups found there is Dutch, with 2,425 speakers.
Phoenix metro area
At least 163 languages are spoken at home.
26 percent of the metro area population age 5 and over speak a language other than English at home.
One of the smaller language groups found there is Pima, with 3,050 speakers.
Seattle metro area
At least 166 languages are spoken at home.
22 percent of the metro area population age 5 and over speak a language other than English at home.
One of the smaller language groups found there is Ukrainian, with 15,850 speakers.
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area.
He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit.
Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.
