By Sarah-Claire Jordan
As you probably could have guessed, English is the most commonly spoken language in the United States. Though not listed as the official language anywhere, English is used everywhere, generally for governmental purposes with sprinklings of Spanish and other languages depending on the area.
Speaking of languages spoken in the U.S. other than English, the U.S. Census Bureau actually began asking about what languages people spoke as far back as 1890 as part of the decennial census. This still continues today, though collection of language data is now done by the ACS, or American Community Survey.
Besides finding out exactly how many people living in the U.S. speak a language other than English in their homes (21% of the population in 2011), census data also included what those other languages are. First, each language can be places in one of four categories: Spanish (which includes Spanish Creole and Ladino), other Indo-European languages (most languages from Europe and the Indic languages from India), Asian and Pacific Island languages, and all other languages.
After categorizing each language, the real work of calculating exactly how many speakers of each language there are can begin. The Census Bureau calculated that, as of 2011, there are 381 different languages other than English spoken in the U.S. About 169 of those 381 l are native North American languages. Not surprisingly, Spanish came up as the number one most spoken language, followed by Chinese and Tagalog. The least spoken language in the U.S. as of 2011 is Hungarian.
Now, what’s the purpose of gathering all of this data, you might ask? Other than having a better idea of where a good portion of the population comes from and how they communicate, data on mother tongues other than English helps the government decide how much money to put towards language-assistance services. This is determined by how people respond to the question “How well do you speak English?” The answers they can choose from are Very Well, Well, Not Well, and Not At All. Based on the data gathered from the recorded answers to that question, services including education, translation, and government service access assistance get more or less funding.
Another reason that tracking who speaks what language in the U.S. is useful is that it shows immigration patterns over time as well as where certain immigrants are likely to settle. Metropolitan areas such as New York City and Los Angeles tend to have a larger non-English speaking population. This is due to the job opportunities available in big cities as well as the fact that many serve as “points of entry” for immigrants. Given that Spanish is the most widely spoken language other than English, it comes as no surprise that in 2011 it was found that about half the non-English speakers in New York City spoke Spanish. In Los Angeles, more than two-thirds of the non-English speaking population spoke Spanish. Of course, this is not the case for every metropolitan area, but it is certainly a trend.
Collecting data on non-English speakers in the United States is an extremely important task, as you might see. Not only does it show exactly who U.S. inhabitants are and how they communicate, it allows the government to set aside the right amount of money for services to those who don’t speak English as well as others.