Monday, February 8, 2010

Languages in America


It's probably not breaking news to hear that Spanish is the second most common language in the US, spoken by over 12% of the population. But which languages are most commonly spoken after Spanish? The answer may surprise you.

Chinese speakers, both Cantonese and Mandarin, numbered 2 million at the last Census. The number of French speakers (1.6 million, self included) was followed closely by German speakers (1.4 million) including High Herman and German dialects such as Hutterite German, Texas German, Pennsylvania German and Plautdietsch. Up next is Tagalog, then Vietnamese, Italian, Korean and Russian.

With the upcoming Census, we'll soon see how the languages within the US have shifted and grown. Anyone want to place their bets?

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