Non English spoken at home


One fifth of households in the U.S. speak a language other than or besides English at home. This rate has doubled since 1980. (these and other figures from 2018 Census surveys).

The rate in Los Angeles is 59%; East Los Angeles 88;Passaic, N.J. 78%; Providence, R.I. 50%; Germantown, Md. 46%; West Valley City, Utah 39%; Springdale, AR. 35%; and Troy, MI 34%

Languages with more than a million people who speak it at home in 2018 were Spanish (41.5 million), Chinese (3.5 million), Tagalog (1.8 million), Vietnamese (1.5 million), Arabic (1.3 million), French (1.2 million), and Korean (1.1 million). There are now more people who speak Spanish at home in the United States than in any country in Latin America with the exception of Mexico, Colombia, and Argentina.

Sources: here and here

2 thoughts on “Non English spoken at home”

  1. The data here fills in part of the context of immigration trends, especially since the 1980s: the much greater presence of foreign-born persons. I would like to know how many households which are second and third generation here speak predominantly a non-English language at home, in the same way that I liek to know (and have posted in the past the second vs first generation level of academic achievement. I think I ought to post again that I am an immigration inclusivist — I think that we should be granting 1.5 mliiom green cards a year, vs the long term trend of 1 million and the recent trend of 0.5 million

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