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The Most-Spoken Language In Each US State (Besides English And Spanish), Mapped

The most commonly used language in the US — after English and Spanish — might surprise you.

7 months ago · 332.1k reads ·

English is the most commonly spoken language in the US, with 78 percent of Americans speaking just English at home, but it's far from the only language used in households across the country.

WordFinderX used US Census Bureau data to find out which languages — besides English and Spanish — are spoken the most in each US state, major city and district of New York City.

Key Findings:

Besides English and Spanish, German is the most-spoken language in 13 states — that's more than any other language in the country.
In nine cities in the western US, Austronesian Tagalog is the most commonly used language.
When it comes to major southwest cities, Chinese, Vietnamese and Arabic are the most-spoken.
Chinese and Russian are both prevalent languages across New York neighborhoods.

Click images to enlarge

Via WordFinderX.

Comments

Plucky Bellhop 7 months ago

Nebraska is wrong, 2nd behind Spanish is Vietnamese. German is like 6th on the list behind Chinese, Arabic, and French in that order. Took me 3 seconds to research that.
Nancy Janzen 7 months ago

Milwaukee when I was a kid was both German and Polish as second languages often in the same sentence.
Daton ST-Martin 7 months ago

For once that they got something right… we have something to say!!!! Haitian is more appropriate !!! Why we want to stick with a pejorative name( kreyol) 🤔
Sagrazoom 7 months ago

Interesting.. would be nice to have a picture city by city.
I’m pretty confident in Sacramento it’s Russian🛷
Rocky IsMe 7 months ago

The language is Kreyol... Not Haitian. Sigh 😞
1. B “BEF” Fleming 7 months ago
  
  Haitian Creole?
B BB 7 months ago

Nicely done. 👍
Tefera Getu 7 months ago

What about Amharic language
Rifki Maulana Febria... 7 months ago

I leave a comment here, who knows there are Indonesians here too
Sarah Pasquis 7 months ago

Please educate yourself Aytian speak CREOLE NOT AYTIAN
1. Monique UU. 7 months ago
  
  I am surprised the writer did not correct this fact before submitting this article.
Moises Agosto 7 months ago

I think Rhode Island is wrong. As a Rhode Islander, Portuguese is the next language.
1. Rifki Maulana Febria... 7 months ago
  
  is that so?
Ginny Hofheinz 7 months ago

Thank you!
Danke !
1. Nancy Janzen 7 months ago
  
  Dzien Cuya I'm from Milwaukee.
Boyo Chiré 7 months ago

Unfortunately , Bigotry is What will end up doomed the World , This is those researchers and experts who cannot even properly reads or writes.

They published any garbage in people face , expecting and hoping only dammer readers should follow them.

I speak German , I hardly heard any German speaking on the street or park or school in the United States. Not talking about NY were Boriqua , Haitian Creole and West Indians Patois Leads the Charts , the Amount of Africans and Haitians. Guadeloupeans , Martinicans , Dominican from Dominica .

Misinformation , False Report written by an Bleu eyes or Green Eyes Feeble .
1. Vanessa V. 7 months ago
  
  Hi Boyo,
  Speaking from an actual Boricua, Boricua is not a language nor a dialect. A Boricua is a person from Puerto Rico or with Puerto Rican ancestry. The island of Puerto Rico was originally named Borinquen by the indigenous people, the Taínos, that inhabited PR before it was colonized by Europeans. PR is still referred to as Borinquen and we refer to ourselves as Boricuas or Borinqueños. We also refer to ourselves as Puertorriqueños or Puerto Ricans. We are also Americans.
  
  The language, other than English, that you are hearing us speak is called Spanish.
  Of course there are many other languages spoken in PR as PR is a multi-cultural island, but Spanish & English are the main tongues.
Paul Rickards 7 months ago

Most spoken language in USA is bullshit
1. Nickolaus Hendel 7 months ago
  
  You must be more specific, this sounds something like a young child would say. Are you a young child, Paul.?
Chris Williams 7 months ago

West Virginia was left off the regional maps. While there are not large groups of people speaking any language other than English, over 100 languages are represented in Kanawha County alone. The state capital Charleston is in Kanawha County.
Not your Asian Anti-... 7 months ago

Love my Desi people in Joisey but look at Ohio, Kentucky and Iowa doing it big lmao smh
Smokey 7 months ago

It seems concerning that Chinese is one of the most spoken second languages. The CCP is bent on our destruction while our government worries about proper pronouns.
1. Devon Munn 7 months ago
  
  1. Chinese people or the Chinese diaspora are not a representative of the Chinese government
  2. This country has historically been a huge place for Chinese immigrants as well as others who are apart of the Chinese diaspora
  3. Ummmmm.......the government is definitely very concerned with many other things besides proper pronouns (I'm not fond of the government either but come on that's blatantly false)
  4. Also again are us Americans all representative of our government? Of course not so why would any person of a Chinese background be a representative of the Chinese government? I'm pretty sure you wouldn't like it if non Americans assumed that you are a mouthpiece of the US government
Erin Thurston 7 months ago

“Haitian” is not a language, Haitian is the ethnicity of a group of people. Haitians speak (Haitian) Creole….which is the language.
1. Not your Asian Anti-... 7 months ago
  
  It's messed up that I promise you nobody cares
Hamdaan 7 months ago

True dear
Jo Meyer 7 months ago

I have to question the methodology when you don't know where Indianapolis and Ft Wayne are located.
Melanie C 7 months ago

More people in Arkansas speak Marshallese (a Austronesian Pacific Island language) than German even only counting completely fluent speakers. Maybe the dataset used by this article/infograms are old. It also is probably Amharic for MD and also Hmong for Wisconsin. I suppose it could be Portuguese for Utah if they are counting L2 speakers because so many people learn it when doing missionary work in Brazil and it’s one of their top four languages for dual language schools, otherwise it should be Tagalog or Samoan (counting L1 or HL speakers). Like everyone said, the map is not right, English only laws and anti-German sentiment during WWII had a significant consequence for speakers of German and Scandinavian languages which were commonly spoken and used in churches and schools. To say that German is the third most commonly spoken language in 13 states is to say that almost everyone speaks only English and there has been no other immigration in 100 years, or it’s vastly overestimating speakers language ability in German in this states.
1. Melanie C 7 months ago
  
  Apologies for the grammatical typos and abbreviations.
A RS 7 months ago

As many have already pointed out, this data is woefully inaccurate, though I dare say they’re being too ‘kind’. Not only are multiple Indigenous languages not mentioned at all (no Cherokee, no Mayan, no Seminole), but there’s no distinction made between multiple languages that are mentioned (French, Italian, Creole, Chinese) yet partial distinctions are provided for others (Mandarin but no Cantonese, French but no French or Haitian or other Creole, Italian but no Sicilian), nor is the supporting research data provided for any of the stated percentages in order to provide any clarification in addition to further backup for such claims.

This is a shame as what could have been both insightful and informative on multiple fronts is instead click bait and misleading. An unfortunate casualty of what may have been good intentions when applied with a lack of proper and thorough follow through.
1. A RS 7 months ago
  
  Excellent beginning though. Perhaps more is to follow???
Blake Gentry 7 months ago

The Census data is inaccurate. There are some 15,000 Ixil Maya speakers and Likely 20,000-25,000 Maya Mam speakers (and yes they are completely different languages in the DC Metro area. There are some 25,000 Mam speakers in Oakland, and in Los Angles and in New York there are tens of thousands of Mixtec speakers. The US census lumps together Indigenous languages, and does not list them, though there is evidence of around 5 million Indigenous immigrants in the US. During the COVID pandemic many died died to a lack of public health recognition of Indigenous peoples from Mexico and from Guatemala. From 2914-2919 20% of all immigrants crossing tje Arizona border were Indigenous peoples whose primary language was an In Indigenous language. This fact was published in the statistical magazine, Chance. And BTW, 13 states banned German during WW II, but the Supreme Court pointed out that banning a language is a ban on free speech. I wish the federal govt. stopped hiding Indigenous Peoples and actually researched the emerging populations like my research team did. But then again, Indigenous suppression is not new. BG (Citizen of Cherokee Nation).
1. Blake Gentry 7 months ago
  
  2014-2019, not 2914-2919
Chris Poulson 7 months ago

I'm surprised Long Beach wasn't Cambodian. It's the 2nd largest city of their diaspora. Long Beach has a higher population of Cambodian people than Filipino.
Peter Brown 7 months ago

Untrue article
Carol Ragan 7 months ago

Tagalog and Filipino (or Pilipino) are one and the same. You have them listed separately in the “Hotspots for Different Languages” table at the bottom of your article. There’s a good article explaining the designations—
https://learningtagalog.com/articles/tagalog_filipino_pilipino_difference.html
1. Loker Ku Cirebon 7 months ago
  
  Woah really, its help me haha
2. blacksheep ___ 7 months ago
  
  Wrong,Filipino and tagalog cannot be refer as one although people can speak it as one.Filipino is the official language in the Philippines based in tagalog. While tagalog is one of the one of largest dialect in the Philippines.Remember Grade/high school texbooks always titled Filipino/Pilipino Wika (wika=language) not tagalog.
Juan Gallo 7 months ago

"Haitian" is called Creole. lol
1. Thom Young 7 months ago
  
  Creole isn't a language. There are creole forms of different languages. Creole forms evolve out of earlier pidgin forms.
2. Steven L. 7 months ago
  
  Strictly speaking just Creole isn’t correct either; it should be Haitian Creole. lol