{"id":4609,"date":"2017-12-13T11:19:12","date_gmt":"2017-12-13T11:19:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/?p=4609"},"modified":"2017-12-13T11:34:42","modified_gmt":"2017-12-13T11:34:42","slug":"theres-more-that-meets-the-eye-languages-of-the-united-states","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/theres-more-that-meets-the-eye-languages-of-the-united-states\/","title":{"rendered":"There’s More that Meets the Eye: Languages of the United States"},"content":{"rendered":"

So America is the land of the monolingual, the place where only English is spoken and no other language exists\u2014aside from for the more than forty million<\/i> people who speak Spanish as a first language, and the estimated eleven million<\/i> speaking it as a second, of course, but who\u2019s counting those<\/i>? And other than English and those few<\/i> Spanish speakers, there\u2019s not a single other language spoken at all in the United States, not a tongue that is significant nor a voice that\u2019s prevalent that isn\u2019t English. Right?<\/p>\n

Well, not necessarily. The Modern Language Association of America, who you may also know as MLA, established in 1883, might disagree with us on that statement. Here\u2019s a look at some of the other<\/i> languages of North America, and where you might be most likely to hear them.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Photo via Pixabay<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

Arabic<\/b><\/p>\n

Arabic is spoken by around 765,000 people across the US. You are more likely to hear Arabic in California than anywhere else, with almost 17% of the state able to speak Arabic. Michigan comes up next at almost 13%, followed by New York (10%) and New Jersey (7%), and even in Arizona, where Arabic might be heard from only 1.8% of the state, that\u2019s still getting on for 14,000 people, mostly concentrated in the counties Maricopa and Pima.<\/p>\n

Chinese<\/b><\/p>\n

California is also the place to head to hear Chinese, with 544,000 of the 1.6 million US speakers concentrated here. New York again comes next as a multilingual centre, with around 283,000 speakers, Texas following with 93,000, and New Jersey with 75,000. There are also large Chinese speaking communities in Florida, particularly in Palm Beach, Broward and Dade, and in the state of Washington, in the counties of Snohomish, King, and Pierce.<\/p>\n

French<\/b><\/p>\n

There are an estimated 1.3 million French speakers across North America, principally in New York, California, and Louisiana, where the percentage of the population speaking French is between 9 and 11%. And if you\u2019re looking for other places to practice your French, you could head to Aroostook in Maine, or Lane in Oregon, both with large French speaking communities.<\/p>\n

German<\/b><\/p>\n

North America has 1.1 million German speakers, mostly to be found in California with 10% of the state able to speak German, or Texas with almost 7%. You will also find German speakers in Louisiana, Florida, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut to name but a few states.<\/p>\n

Learning a new language? Check out our <\/b>free placement test<\/b><\/a> to see how your level measures up!<\/b><\/p>\n

Italian<\/b><\/p>\n

In comparison with the previously mentioned European languages there are only a small number of Italian speakers in the US, at around 764,000. New York and the other surrounding easterly states have the most Italian speakers, with Florida to the south, and California and Nevada to the west close behind. As an outlier, in Boise, Idaho, there is a large Italian speaking community, where 3% of the population of 223,000 speak Italian. And another outlier is to be found in Hall, Texas, where about 1% of the population of 3,500 residents can speak the language as well.<\/p>\n

Korean<\/b><\/p>\n

North America has 1.1 million Korean speakers, predominantly stretching all the way up the west coast from Arizona to Washington. There is a large Korean speaking population in Brewster, Texas, where around 2-3% of the 9100 people residing there can speak Korean.<\/p>\n

Photo 3<\/i><\/p>\n

Photo via Giphy \/ <\/i>Giphy<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n

Native North American languages<\/b><\/p>\n

Navajo is predominantly spoken in the states of Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico. Arizona and New Mexico are also listed by the Modern Language Association as the areas for highest numbers of \u2018other\u2019 Native American languages, along with South Dakota and Montana. There are only thought to be 170,000 Navajo speakers in the US, with the other Native languages having even fewer; many of these languages are at risk of extinction or already considered extinct, with less than ten speakers of Achomawi, native to California, and five speakers of Yuchi, from the region of East Central Oklahoma, representing just two of the wide numbers of Native American languages spoken.<\/p>\n

Tagalog<\/b><\/p>\n

Tagalog is spoken by around 1.5 million North Americans, principally in California where almost 50% of the population can speak the language. It can also be heard in large areas of Nevada, Arizona, Utah, and Washington, and pockets of all the other states.<\/p>\n

The list goes on and on<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Photo via Wikimedia<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

We could keep going and delve a lot deeper though. There are significant numbers of speakers of Vietnamese, Polish, Portuguese, and Russian across America, a large number of Scandinavian language speakers to be found in North Dakota and Minnesota, and many more languages besides. So the next time someone implies the only language that is spoken in America is English<\/i>, feel free to start a response with, well, actually<\/i>, and point them in the direction of the Modern Language Association language map!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So America is the land of the monolingual, the place where only English is spoken and no other language exists\u2014aside from for the more than forty million people who speak Spanish as a first language, and the estimated eleven million speaking it as a second, of course, but who\u2019s counting those? And other than English(\u2026)<\/p>\n

\n
\n\t \t\t\t\tCONTINUE READING »<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":4610,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[236,27],"tags":[318,235,439,39,40,38,287,758,30,700,761,759,37,760,403],"class_list":["post-4609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-must-know","category-humour-offbeat","tag-arabic","tag-chinese","tag-foreign-languages","tag-french","tag-german","tag-italian","tag-korean","tag-language-languages","tag-language-learning-2","tag-learn-a-language","tag-native-americans","tag-north-america","tag-spanish","tag-tagalog","tag-united-states"],"yoast_head":"\nThere's More that Meets the Eye: Languages of the United States<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Americans are often perceived to be monolingual. While, yes, there are many that are, here are some of the languages that are floating throughout the US.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/theres-more-that-meets-the-eye-languages-of-the-united-states\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"There's More that Meets the Eye: Languages of the United States\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Americans are often perceived to be monolingual. While, yes, there are many that are, here are some of the languages that are floating throughout the US.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/theres-more-that-meets-the-eye-languages-of-the-united-states\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Listen & Learn\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-12-13T11:19:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2017-12-13T11:34:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/america-2775322_640.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"640\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"418\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Kelly\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Kelly\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/theres-more-that-meets-the-eye-languages-of-the-united-states\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/theres-more-that-meets-the-eye-languages-of-the-united-states\/\",\"name\":\"There's More that Meets the Eye: Languages of the United States\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/theres-more-that-meets-the-eye-languages-of-the-united-states\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/theres-more-that-meets-the-eye-languages-of-the-united-states\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/america-2775322_640.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2017-12-13T11:19:12+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-12-13T11:34:42+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/1f4e451a01bf1f48458a026613ec8f54\"},\"description\":\"Americans are often perceived to be monolingual. While, yes, there are many that are, here are some of the languages that are floating throughout the US.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/theres-more-that-meets-the-eye-languages-of-the-united-states\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/theres-more-that-meets-the-eye-languages-of-the-united-states\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/theres-more-that-meets-the-eye-languages-of-the-united-states\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/america-2775322_640.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/america-2775322_640.jpg\",\"width\":640,\"height\":418},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/theres-more-that-meets-the-eye-languages-of-the-united-states\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"There’s More that Meets the Eye: Languages of the United States\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"Listen & Learn\",\"description\":\"Language Courses and Language Services UK\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/1f4e451a01bf1f48458a026613ec8f54\",\"name\":\"Kelly\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f702f0568496aba44d31e668b970c282?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f702f0568496aba44d31e668b970c282?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Kelly\"},\"description\":\"Hi, I'm Kelly and I am a freelance writer and a CELTA-qualified ESL teacher from the UK. As a writer, I get to cover a range of topics by working for a variety of clients in a number of industries. My focus when writing for Listen and Learn is on language and travel, but away from that, I like to write a lot about animals and the environment. Travelling while writing gives me a fresh perspective for all the things I write and allows me to consider everything from opposing points of view thanks to the people I meet along the way. Europe is an amazing place to travel. The countries vary so much, as do the languages, cuisines and ways of life. Though underneath all of that, travelling has really taught me that people are just people, and that we have more similarities than we do differences. We talk a lot at Listen and Learn about languages teaching us so much more than purely vocabulary and grammar, and it is true; there is nothing as exciting as getting to talk to someone you might not normally get to, just because you have made the effort to learn some of their language. Teaching English has given me further insight into the importance of understanding other languages and cultures. I've taught lessons on beaches about the climate crisis and the impact of oil spills on marine animals, and helped students in train stations to practise booking train tickets and make travel plans. I've worked with laboratory technicians in large conglomerates and newly qualified architects starting their own companies; people with completely different lives to mine. And it has been a privilege getting to know them all! Though the most rewarding thing about teaching is seeing students achieve their goals. There is nothing as satisfying as seeing students proud of their hard work and going on to achieve amazing things as a result!\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/author\/kelly-wang\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"There's More that Meets the Eye: Languages of the United States","description":"Americans are often perceived to be monolingual. While, yes, there are many that are, here are some of the languages that are floating throughout the US.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/theres-more-that-meets-the-eye-languages-of-the-united-states\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"There's More that Meets the Eye: Languages of the United States","og_description":"Americans are often perceived to be monolingual. While, yes, there are many that are, here are some of the languages that are floating throughout the US.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/theres-more-that-meets-the-eye-languages-of-the-united-states\/","og_site_name":"Listen & Learn","article_published_time":"2017-12-13T11:19:12+00:00","article_modified_time":"2017-12-13T11:34:42+00:00","og_image":[{"width":640,"height":418,"url":"https:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/america-2775322_640.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Kelly","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Kelly","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/theres-more-that-meets-the-eye-languages-of-the-united-states\/","url":"https:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/theres-more-that-meets-the-eye-languages-of-the-united-states\/","name":"There's More that Meets the Eye: Languages of the United States","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/theres-more-that-meets-the-eye-languages-of-the-united-states\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/theres-more-that-meets-the-eye-languages-of-the-united-states\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/america-2775322_640.jpg","datePublished":"2017-12-13T11:19:12+00:00","dateModified":"2017-12-13T11:34:42+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/1f4e451a01bf1f48458a026613ec8f54"},"description":"Americans are often perceived to be monolingual. While, yes, there are many that are, here are some of the languages that are floating throughout the US.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/theres-more-that-meets-the-eye-languages-of-the-united-states\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/theres-more-that-meets-the-eye-languages-of-the-united-states\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/theres-more-that-meets-the-eye-languages-of-the-united-states\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/america-2775322_640.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/america-2775322_640.jpg","width":640,"height":418},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/theres-more-that-meets-the-eye-languages-of-the-united-states\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"There’s More that Meets the Eye: Languages of the United States"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/","name":"Listen & Learn","description":"Language Courses and Language Services UK","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/1f4e451a01bf1f48458a026613ec8f54","name":"Kelly","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f702f0568496aba44d31e668b970c282?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f702f0568496aba44d31e668b970c282?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Kelly"},"description":"Hi, I'm Kelly and I am a freelance writer and a CELTA-qualified ESL teacher from the UK. As a writer, I get to cover a range of topics by working for a variety of clients in a number of industries. My focus when writing for Listen and Learn is on language and travel, but away from that, I like to write a lot about animals and the environment. Travelling while writing gives me a fresh perspective for all the things I write and allows me to consider everything from opposing points of view thanks to the people I meet along the way. Europe is an amazing place to travel. The countries vary so much, as do the languages, cuisines and ways of life. Though underneath all of that, travelling has really taught me that people are just people, and that we have more similarities than we do differences. We talk a lot at Listen and Learn about languages teaching us so much more than purely vocabulary and grammar, and it is true; there is nothing as exciting as getting to talk to someone you might not normally get to, just because you have made the effort to learn some of their language. Teaching English has given me further insight into the importance of understanding other languages and cultures. I've taught lessons on beaches about the climate crisis and the impact of oil spills on marine animals, and helped students in train stations to practise booking train tickets and make travel plans. I've worked with laboratory technicians in large conglomerates and newly qualified architects starting their own companies; people with completely different lives to mine. And it has been a privilege getting to know them all! Though the most rewarding thing about teaching is seeing students achieve their goals. There is nothing as satisfying as seeing students proud of their hard work and going on to achieve amazing things as a result!","url":"https:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/author\/kelly-wang\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4609"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4609"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4609\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4612,"href":"https:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4609\/revisions\/4612"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.listenandlearn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}