By Jean-Benoît Nadeau
Today is International Mother Language Day, and it is a good opportunity to point out that not all Americans speak English at home.
The latest statistics date back to the 2008 survey by the U.S. Census Bureau.
Out of 280 million Americans (in 2008), 55 million spoke a language other than English at home. It is no surprise that Spanish is at the very top of the list.
Here are the top 15:
1. Spanish: 34 million
2. Chinese: 1.6 million
3. Tagalog: 1.4 million
4. French: 1.4 million
5. Vietnamese: 1.2 million
6. German: 1.1 million
7. Korean: 1 million
8. Russian: 850 000
9. Italian: 810 000
10. Arabic: 760 000
11. Portuguese: 680 000
12. Polish: 630 000
13. French Creole: 620 000
14. Hindi: 530 000
15. Japanese: 460 000
These account for 47 million Americans. In the survey, another 8 million Americans speak 300 more different languages.
More about Spanish in the United States can be found in our new book, The Story of Spanish, to be released May 2013 (St. Martin’s Press).
