Most spoken language other than English/Spanish by state

[Steely Dan]

This graphic is by state, not city or metro, but it's still interesting because in most cases, foreign language speakers tend to congregate in the medium/large metro areas


Like, I never would've guessed that Arabic was #3 in freaking Iowa?

Michigan? Sure. Metro Detroit's large Arab population is well known.

But Iowa?


Anyway,


Source: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/...h-and-spanish/

[mousquet]

Where is Italian? Damn, their descents would easily give up on their mother tongue, then.
I'm pretty sure there's plenty of them in NY and Chicago.

I'm shocked by the amount of German-speaking people. But yeah, a lot of them would actually move out there, that is little known here in Europe.

I mean, people always think of English, Spanish, Irish, Polish and so on in America. But there's a lot of Germans too. The French are unaware of German migration.
There are some Scandinavians too, especially in Minnesota, or so I heard...

I didn't even know, myself.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by mousquet

Where is Italian? Damn, their descents would easily give up on their mother tongue, then. I'm pretty sure there's plenty of them in NY and Chicago.

Chicago got a solid amount of Italians (though significantly less on a proportional basis to east coast cities like NYC and Philly), but Poles definitely outnumber Italians here.

What's more, a much higher proportion of Polish ancestry people in Chicago are of more recent immigration stock than Chicago's Italians, and thus much more likely to still speak their mother tongue.

I know a great many people of both polish and Italian ancestry here in Chicago, WAY more poles can still speak Polish than Italians who can still speak Italian.

In fact, my wife is 4th generation italian-chicagoan, with a textbook giant Italian family to go along with it. Whenever we're at large events with her extended relatives (holiday parties, weddings, funerals, etc.), no one speaks Italian. They're all very overtly "Italian", and proudly wear a strong "italian-american" identity, but the people who could actually speak Italian are now all dead.

And that's how assimilation works; by the 4th generation, very few people will still be able to speak the language of the old country.

[BnaBreaker]

Very surprised Hindi didn't top a single state!

[AviationGuy]

I know that Vietnamese is spoken a lot in coastal Texas, and I hear it a lot in Austin as well, but I was thinking South Asian (India) languages would be more prevalent. But I guess this is what the data shows. There was probably a time when German would have been at the top on the graphic for Texas, but demographics have really changed in the last several decades.

[dimondpark]

not surprised by Utah at all--lots of Brazilians there these days.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by mousquet

Where is Italian? Damn, their descents would easily give up on their mother tongue, then.
I'm pretty sure there's plenty of them in NY and Chicago.

I'm shocked by the amount of German-speaking people. But yeah, a lot of them would actually move out there, that is little known here in Europe.

I mean, people always think of English, Spanish, Irish, Polish and so on in America. But there's a lot of Germans too. The French are unaware of German migration.
There are some Scandinavians too, especially in Minnesota, or so I heard...

I didn't even know, myself.

I'm guessing most of the German speakers belong to Amish-type religious communities, often speaking some variant of old German; as opposed to being actual German immigrants or their descendants. Likewise for the French speaking places, which are just part of longstanding traditional cultures there rather than a product of modern immigration.

Definitely some some surprises there though, like Portuguese in Utah - what are they doing out there?

[dimondpark]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

Definitely some some surprises there though, like Portuguese in Utah - what are they doing out there?

Indeed, at first glance it might seem puzzling, but many Brazilians who are Mormon have immigrated there in recent decades.

[xzmattzx]

The entire Northeast is pretty predictable.

German seems to be the standard for the states with mostly regular White people. It also could indicate Amish people.

Iowa isn't too surprising, in a way. The oldest mosque in the US is in Cedar Rapids, so Muslims have been in Iowa for a long time.

Utah was the biggest surprise to me. Oregon is pretty surprising, too.

[streetscaper]

yayyy Haitian Creole in Florida

[hauntedheadnc]

I'm not surprised by people speaking French here, but I don't hear a lot of it on the ground myself even though there are big French companies in this area. Usually whenever you're out in public here you'll hear at least three different languages, including English, being spoken. By my experience though it's usually English, Spanish, and German, or English, Spanish, and something Indian like Hindi or Gujarati. Only on rare occasions, and usually downtown, does French enter into it.

[Shawn]

Originally Posted by dimondpark

Indeed, at first glance it might seem puzzling, but many Brazilians who are Mormon have immigrated there in recent decades.

It's pretty cool to see two different pockets of Portuguese. The Southern New England pocket is mostly Azorean and Cape Verdean with sizeable Brazilian communities in Mass.

I had no idea there were that many Brazilian Mormons moving to Utah!

What's the Portuguese scene in New Jersey like?

[Investing In Chicago]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

Chicago got a solid amount of Italians (though significantly less on a proportional basis to east coast cities like NYC and Philly), but Poles definitely outnumber Italians here.

What's more, a much higher proportion of Polish ancestry people in Chicago are of more recent immigration stock than Chicago's Italians, and thus much more likely to still speak their mother tongue.

I know a great many people of both polish and Italian ancestry here in Chicago, WAY more poles can still speak Polish than Italians who can still speak Italian.

In fact, my wife is 4th generation italian-chicagoan, with a textbook giant Italian family to go along with it. Whenever we're at large events with her extended relatives (holiday parties, weddings, funerals, etc.), no one speaks Italian. They're all very overtly "Italian", and proudly wear a strong "italian-american" identity, but the people who could actually speak Italian are now all dead.

And that's how assimilation works; by the 4th generation, very few people will still be able to speak the language of the old country.

I'm a first generation American (my parents are born in Sicily) and came here not speaking any English. Fast forward 40 years, and they speak English better than I speak Italian (which is saying something, since my Italian is pretty strong, at least for an American who doesn't use the language everyday), but I would never say "I speak Italian" especially to a native Italian speaker, it'd be like having a conversation with a 3 year old. That's to say, I bet a significant portion of people who say they speak a language, actually don't or it's very limited.

[3rd&Brown]

Originally Posted by BnaBreaker

Very surprised Hindi didn't top a single state!

I think it's because for many South Asians, Hindi is actually their second language after their regional language (Gujurati, Tamil, Bengali, etc). So while they're fluent in Hindi, if they're at home, they're likely speaking in that regional language instead...so it breaks up the South Asian contingent.

Most South Asians in America are fluent in (at least) 3 languages I presume: regional language, Hindi, English.

[Docere]

Surprised to see Japanese ahead of Tagalog in Hawaii - I thought Filipinos surpassed Japanese as the largest ethnic group in the state.

[ChiSoxRox]

Originally Posted by Docere

Surprised to see Japanese ahead of Tagalog in Hawaii - I thought Filipinos surpassed Japanese as the largest ethnic group in the state.

Could be a similar first/second language split as Hindi: Tagalog is the lingua franca of the Philippines, but is the native language for a pretty small portion of the Philippines.

[Crawford]

I thought Yiddish would be the answer for NYS, but yeah, Chinese makes the most sense. And NYS Chinese population tends to be somewhat more recent than West Coast populations, so a higher share presumably speaking Mandarin in the home.

[SIGSEGV]

Are they distinguishing between Mandarin and Cantonese?

[Docere]

I think there's around 600,000 Chinese in the 5 boroughs. And Chinese is going to be one of the most common non-English/Spanish languages.

Yiddish would be limited to the Hasidic areas of Brooklyn, Rockland and the Catskills. Outside these Hasidic pockets virtually nobody speaks Yiddish at home.

[sopas ej]

Originally Posted by SIGSEGV

Are they distinguishing between Mandarin and Cantonese?

That's what I was wondering myself. I feel like a lot of people from Guangdong have been coming to California, so I would imagine a lot of Cantonese and even Hakka speakers; that's what I hear in the SGV, as well as Mandarin with the Beijing accent. Even by the way they look, you can tell that they're different ethnicities.