Language Use in the United States: 2011

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Issued August 2013ACS-22

American Community Survey Reports

Language Use in the United States: 2011

By Camille Ryan

U.S. Department o CommerceEconomics and Statistics AdministrationU.S. CENSUS BUREAU

census.gov

INTRODUCTION

English is the language spoken by most people in the

United States. The ocial language o many states is

English1 and it is the language used in nearly all gov-

ernmental unctions. Despite this predominance, manypeople in the United States speak languages other

than English, and there has long been an interest in

these groups and in how well they are able to partici-

pate in civic lie and interact with the English-speaking

majority. Beginning in 1890, the U.S. Census Bureau

started inquiring about the languages that people

spoke and, with some interruptions in the middle o

the twentieth century, similar questions continue to

this day.

The primary purpose o the current questions

on language use is to measure the portion o the

U.S. population that may need help in understand-

ing English. These data are used in a wide variety o

legislative, policy, and research applications as well as

or legal, nancial, and marketing decisions. People

who speak a particular language other than English

and cannot speak English very well can be helped

with translation services, education, or assistance in

accessing government services. The ederal govern-

ment uses data on language use and English-speaking

ability to determine which local areas must provide

language-assistance services under the Voting Rights

Act. These data are also used to allocate educational

unds to states to help their schools teach students

with lower levels o English prociency. In 2000,

1 Schildkraut, Deborah, 2001, Ocial-English and the States:Inuences on Declaring English the Ocial Language in the UnitedStates, Political Research Quarterly, Vol. 54, No. 2: pp. 445457.

President Clinton signed an executive order requir-

ing ederal agencies to identiy the need or services

to those with limited English prociency (LEP) and to

implement a system to provide meaningul access to

language-assistance services. Agencies rely on these

data to determine how and where to provide language-

assistance services.2 Many other institutions, organiza-

tions, local governments, and private enterprises make

use o these data in similar ways.

2 See .

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2011 American Community Survey.

Figure 1.

Reproduction of the Questions onLanguage From the 2011 AmericanCommunity Survey

Yes

No SKIP to question 15a

b. What is this language?

c. How well does this person speak English?

Very wellWell

Not well

Not at all

For example: Korean, Italian, Spanish, Vietnamese

a. Does this person speak a language other thanEnglish at home?

14


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2 U.S. Census Bureau

The Census Bureau collected

language data in the 1980, 1990,

and 2000 decennial censuses using

a series o three questions asked

o the population 5 years old and

over. The rst question asked i

the person spoke a language other

than English at home. Those who

responded yes to this question

were then asked to report the lan-

guage that they spoke. The Census

Bureau coded these responses into

381 detailed language categories.

The third question asked how well

that person spoke English, with

answer categories o very well,

well, not well, and not at all.

Beginning in 2010, the questions

were no longer asked on the decen-

nial census. These same three ques-

tions (Figure 1) are now asked eachyear on the American Community

Survey (ACS), which is the primary

source o language data.

This report relies primarily on data

rom the 2011 ACS. Language and

English-speaking ability questions

that were historically collected once

every 10 years in the decennial

census are now captured annu-

ally in the ACS. The ACS collects

inormation rom a large annual

sample o approximately 3 mil-

lion housing unit addresses and

thereore provides more reliable

statistics. The ACS is administered

to a sample o the entire resident

population, including those living in

group quarters, which makes most

estimates rom the ACS comparable

with those rom earlier censuses.3

Taking advantage o this act, the

report also provides a histori-

cal look at languages other than

English spoken in the United Statessince 1980. The report also looks

at characteristics o the population

speaking a language other than

3 A paper comparing ACS data to censusdata was prepared by the Census Bureau in2008. See .

English. The ACS also provides

reliable estimates or small levels

o geography, including counties,

cities, and tracts, allowing explora-

tion o the distribution o language

use across states and metropolitan

areas o the United States.

LANGUAGES SPOKEN

Table 1 provides some basic inor-

mation rom the 2011 ACS about

speakers o non-English languages

and their English-speaking ability.

O 291.5 million people aged 5 and

over, 60.6 million people (21 per-

cent o this population) spoke a lan-

guage other than English at home.

While the Census Bureau codes 381

detailed languages, data tabulationsare not generally available or all o

these detailed groups. Instead, the

Census Bureau collapses languages

into smaller sets o language

groups. The most detail used in

standard data products separates

out 39 languages and language

groups (Table 1). The simplest uses

our major groups: Spanish, Other

Indo-European languages, Asian

and Pacic Island languages, and

All Other languages. These our

groups are explained urther in the

text box.

One question that sometimes arises

is, How many languages are spo-

ken in the United States? To answer

this question, we have to decide

what constitutes a unique language.

To develop its list o languages, the

Census Bureau consulted reer-

ence works such as Ethnologue:

Languages of the World,4 which

lists 6,909 languages. From these

sources, the Census Bureau created

a list o 381 languages, with lessdetail provided or languages rarely

spoken in this country. Accepting

this list, a second issue is that the

count o languages is limited to

those that people report speaking

4 See .

Four Major Language Groups

Spanish includes Spanish, Spanish Creole, and Ladino.

Other Indo-European languages include most languages

o Europe and the Indic languages o India. These include the

Germanic languages, such as German, Yiddish, and Dutch; the

Scandinavian languages, such as Swedish and Norwegian; theRomance languages, such as French, Italian, and Portuguese; the

Slavic languages, such as Russian, Polish, and Serbo-Croatian;

the Indic languages, such as Hindi, Gujarati, Punjabi, and Urdu;

Celtic languages; Greek; Baltic languages; and Iranian languages.

Asian and Pacifc Island languages include Chinese; Korean;

Japanese; Vietnamese; Hmong; Khmer; Lao; Thai; Tagalog or

Pilipino; the Dravidian languages o India, such as Telugu, Tamil,

and Malayalam; and other languages o Asia and the Pacic,

including the Philippine, Polynesian, and Micronesian languages.

All Other languages include Uralic languages, such as

Hungarian; the Semitic languages, such as Arabic and Hebrew;languages o Arica; native North American languages,

including the American Indian and Alaska native languages;

and indigenous languages o Central and South America.


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U.S. Census Bureau 3

Table 1.

Detailed Languages Spoken at Home by English-Speaking Ability for the Population

5 Years and Over: 2011(For inormation on condentiality protection, sampling error, nonsampling error, and denitions, seewww.census.gov/acs/www/)

CharacteristicsPopulation

5 yearsand over(Number)

Spoke alanguage

other than

Englishat home1(Percent)

English-speaking ability2(Percent)

SpokeEnglishvery well

SpokeEnglishwell

SpokeEnglishnot well

SpokeEnglishnot at all

Population 5 years and over 291,524,091 X X X X XSpoke only English at home 230,947,071 X X X X X

Spoke a language other than English at home 60,577,020 1000 582 194 154 70

Spanish or Spanish Creole 37,579,787 620 563 178 169 90

Other Indo-European languages:French 1,301,443 21 796 139 59 06French Creole 753,990 12 568 238 152 43Italian 723,632 12 735 171 86 08Portuguese 673,566 11 618 208 135 39German 1,083,637 18 829 131 36 03Yiddish 160,968 03 684 177 102 37

Other West Germanic languages 290,461 05 776 179 37 08Scandinavian languages 135,025 02 906 77 16 01Greek 304,928 05 753 155 78 14Russian 905,843 15 523 256 168 53Polish 607,531 10 600 234 138 28Serbo-Croatian 269,624 04 617 219 136 29Other Slavic languages 336,062 06 621 228 119 33Armenian 246,915 04 538 222 165 76Persian 407,586 07 627 219 120 34Gujarati 358,422 06 638 202 122 38Hindi 648,983 11 770 163 53 14Urdu 373,851 06 700 193 92 15Other Indic languages 815,345 13 606 237 109 49Other Indo-European languages 449,600 07 651 215 99 34

Asian and Pacifc Island languages:

Chinese 2,882,497 48 443 261 199 97Japanese 436,110 07 575 274 139 12Korean 1,141,277 19 445 270 244 40Mon-Khmer, Cambodian 212,505 04 471 234 229 66Hmong 211,227 03 567 222 149 62Thai 163,251 03 434 348 189 28Laotian 140,866 02 509 221 227 43Vietnamese 1,419,539 23 398 271 258 73Other Asian languages 855,303 14 693 196 84 27Tagalog 1,594,413 26 672 256 67 05Other Pacifc Island languages 428,476 07 616 257 117 11

Other languages:Navajo 169,369 03 788 142 48 22Other Native American languages 195,407 03 854 114 29 03Hungarian 93,102 02 710 211 73 07Arabic 951,699 16 633 217 119 31Hebrew 216,343 04 847 119 29 05Arican languages 884,660 15 681 211 86 21All other languages 153,777 03 563 197 148 93

X Not applicable1 The percentage in this column is calculated as the number o speakers o the specifc language divided by the total number o those who spoke a language

other than English at home (60,577,020)2 The percentages or these columns are calculated as the number o those who spoke English very well, well, not well, or not at all or a particular lan-

guage divided by the total number o those who spoke that language

Note: Margins o error or all estimates can be ound in the Appendix Table 1 For more inor-

mation on the ACS, see Source: US Census Bureau, 2011 American Community Survey


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the language at home. Thereore,

while no denitive answer to the

question is available, a tabulation

rom the 20062008 ACS listed

over 300 languages spoken in the

United States.5

Many o the languages spoken in

the United States are native NorthAmerican languages. The ACS

provides codes or 169 distinct

native North American languages,

and 134 o these languages were

recorded in the tabulations rom

20062008. In 2011, the Census

Bureau published a brie report on

native North American languages

spoken in the United States.6

ENGLISH-SPEAKING ABILITY

Most people who spoke a non-English language at home also

reported that they spoke English

very well (Table 4). Overall, the

proportion was 58 percent who

spoke very well, with another

19 percent who spoke English

well, 15 percent who spoke not

well, and 7 percent who spoke

English not at all.

The useulness o the sel-rated

English-speaking ability question

was established in the 1980s,

when research conrmed a strong

relation between this rating and

separate tests o ability to perorm

5 See .

6 See .

tasks in English.7 In many o its

tables, the Census Bureau makes

a distinction between those who

speak English only or speak English

very well on the one hand and

those who speak English less than

very well on the other.

Even among the speakers othe top ten languages, English-

speaking ability varied greatly

(Figure 2). A high proportion

(80 percent or more) o French and

German speakers spoke English

very well. In contrast, less than

50 percent o those who spoke

Korean, Chinese, or Vietnamese

spoke English very well. The

proportion o those who spoke

English very well among Russian,

Spanish, French Creole, Arabic, andTagalog speakers ranged rom

52 percent to 67 percent.

Among the most common non-

English languages in 2011, Spanish

experienced growth in the past

several years. Interestingly, while

the percentage o the total popula-

tion 5 years and over who spoke

Spanish increased rom 2005 to

2011, the percentage o the total

population who spoke Spanish and

spoke English less than very wellactually decreased (Figure 3). The

percentage o the total population

5 years and over who spoke

Spanish grew rom 12.0 percent

7 See Department o Education, Oceo Planning Budget and Evaluation, 1987,Numbers o Limited English ProcientChildren: National, State and Language-Specic Estimates (April) mimeo, whichexamined the school-aged population andKominski, Robert, 1989, How Good is HowWell? An Examination o the Census English-Speaking Ability Question, accessed at, presentedat the Annual meetings o the AmericanStatistical Association, which examined thegeneral population.

in 2005 to 12.9 percent in 2011,

while the percentage who spoke

Spanish and spoke English less

than very well decreased rom

5.7 percent in 2005 to 5.6 percent

in 2011.

Overall, speakers o all languages

other than English who spokeEnglish less than very well had

not changed as a percentage o the

total population 5 years and over

rom 2007 to 2011 (8.7 percent).

This percentage had increased rom

8.1 percent in 2000 to 8.7 percent

in 2007.

LANGUAGES SPOKEN INTHE UNITED STATES:A HISTORICAL LOOK

Data on language spoken andability to speak English were rst

collected in the census o 1890

(Appendix A). The orm o census

questions about language has

varied over the years, as well as

the population covered. In 1890

and 1900, all people 10 years old

and over who did not speak English

were asked what language they

spoke. In 1910, 1920, 1930, and

1960, oreign-born people were

asked about their mother tongue(the language spoken in the

household when the respondent

was growing up). Finally, in the

1980 Census, and in data collec-

tions since that time, respondents

were asked the standard set o

three questions shown in Figure 1.

These questions are now asked o

everyone aged 5 and over in the

household.8

8 See Gillian Stevens, 1999, A Centuryo U.S. Censuses and the LanguageCharacteristics o Immigrants, Demography,Vol. 36, No. 3, pp. 387397.


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Table 2 provides a detailed list o

17 o the common languages other

than English spoken in the home

or the period 1980 to 2010.9 This

list provides data or only those

languages that were available in all

9 Data rom 1980, 1990, and 2000 arerom decennial censuses, while the datarom 2010 come rom the 2010 ACS. Formore inormation about language use andEnglish-speaking ability diferences betweenthe census and the ACS, read Comparison othe Estimates on Language Use and English-Speaking Ability rom the ACS, the C2SS, andCensus 2000 (Report). This report can be

accessed at .

our time periods. In 1980, 23.1

million people spoke a language

other than English at home, com-

pared with 59.5 million people in

2010 (a 158 percent increase, dur-

ing which time the population grew

38 percent).

Some languages showed remark-

able growth since 1980, while oth-

ers declined. The largest numeric

increase was or Spanish speakers

(25.9 million more in 2010 than in

1980). Vietnamese speakers hadthe largest percentage increase

(599 percent). Eight languages

more than doubled during the

period, including our that had

200,000 speakers or ewer in

1980: Russian, Persian, Armenian,

and Vietnamese.

While increased immigration led to

gains or some language groups,

other groups experienced aging

populations and dwindling migrant

ows into the United States. The

languages that declined in use

since 1980 include Italian, whichhad a net decline o about 900,000

Figure 2.

English-Speaking Ability for the Top Ten Languages: 2011

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2011 American Community Survey.

(Population 5 years and over who spoke a language other than English at home)

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Vietnamese

Chinese

Korean

Russian

Spanish

French Creole

Arabic

Tagalog

French

German

Very well Well Not well Not at all

Percent


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speakers (55 percent decline). Other

languages, such as Polish, Yiddish,

German, and Greek, have also seen

large proportionate decreases.

The Census Bureau recently exam-

ined the uture o language use

in the United States. Two ofset-

ting inuences determine the

number o people in the United

States who speak a language other

than English. The rst is immigra-

tioni an increased number o

people enter the country rom

places where English is not the

main language, the number who

speak other languages at home will

increase. A second major inuence

is population agingas peopleget older and spend time in the

United States, they are increasingly

likely to make English their main

language o communication. The

research shows that we can expect

a small increase in the percentage

who speak a language other than

English at home in coming years.10

Even looking over the span o a

little more than a decade, changes

in language use are evident.

Several languages or language

groups experienced major growth

between 2000 and 2011 (Figure4). South Asian languages in par-

ticular experienced high levels o

growth. Other Asian languages,

a group comprised mostly o the

South Asian languages, Malayalam,

Telugu, and Tamil, grew by 115

percent, and Hindi grew by 105

percent.11 Other Indic languages

(languages such as Punjabi,

Bengali, and Marathi) grew by 86

percent. The slowest growing South

Asian languages were Gujarati (52percent) and Urdu (42 percent).12

Arican languages, which includes

languages such as Amharic, Ibo,

Yoruba, and Swahili, also experi-

enced signicant growth o 111

percent.13 This indicates that the

number o speakers in this lan-

guage group more than doubled. In

comparison, the growth o Spanish

10 See .

11 The percentage change or Other Asianlanguages was not statistically diferent romthe percentage change or Hindi.

12 The percentage change or Gujarati wasnot statistically diferent rom the percentagechange or Urdu.

13 The percentage change or Aricanlanguages was not statistically diferentrom the percentage change or Other Asianlanguages or Hindi.

Figure 3.

Percentage Who Spoke Spanish and Percentage WhoSpoke Spanish and Spoke English Less Than VeryWell of the Population 5 Years and Over: 20052011

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011American Community Surveys.

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

2011201020092008200720062005

Spoke Spanish

Percent

Spoke Spanish and

spoke English less

than very well


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Table 2.

Languages Spoken at Home for the Population 5 Years and Over: 1980, 1990, 2000,

and 2010(For inormation on condentiality protection, sampling error, nonsampling error, and denitions, seewww.census.gov/acs/www/)

Characteristics1980 1990 2000 2010

Percentagechange

19802010

Population 5 years and over 210,247,455 230,445,777 262,375,152 289,215,746 376Spoke only English at home 187,187,415 198,600,798 215,423,557 229,673,150 227Spoke a language other than English at home1 23,060,040 31,844,979 46,951,595 59,542,596 1582

Spoke a language other than English at home1,2 23,060,040 31,844,979 46,951,595 59,542,596 1582Spanish or Spanish Creole 11,116,194 17,345,064 28,101,052 36,995,602 2328French (incl Patois, Cajun, Creole) 1,550,751 1,930,404 2,097,206 2,069,352 334Italian 1,618,344 1,308,648 1,008,370 725,223 552Portuguese or Portuguese Creole 351,875 430,610 564,630 688,326 956German 1,586,593 1,547,987 1,383,442 1,067,651 327Yiddish 315,953 213,064 178,945 154,763 510Greek 401,443 388,260 365,436 307,178 235Russian 173,226 241,798 706,242 854,955 3935Polish 820,647 723,483 667,414 608,333 259Serbo-Croatian 150,255 70,964 233,865 284,077 891Armenian 100,634 149,694 202,708 240,402 1389

Persian 106,992 201,865 312,085 381,408 2565Chinese 630,806 1,319,462 2,022,143 2,808,692 3453Japanese 336,318 427,657 477,997 443,497 319Korean 266,280 626,478 894,063 1,137,325 3271Vietnamese 197,588 507,069 1,009,627 1,381,488 5992Tagalog 474,150 843,251 1,224,241 1,573,720 2319

1 The languages highlighted in this table are the languages where data were available or the our time periods: 1980, 1990, 2000, and 20102 The total does not match the sum o the 17 languages listed in this table because the total includes all the other languages that are not highlighted here


mation on the ACS, see Source: US Census Bureau, 1980 and 1990 Census, Census 2000, and the 2010 American Community Survey

speakers (34 percent) was much

smaller even though Spanish con-

tinued to have the largest number

o speakers in 2000 and 2011.

On the other hand, several Indo-

European languages experienced

a decline during that same time

period. The number o Italian

speakers decreased by 28 percent.

The number o French, Hungarian,

and German speakers also declined

by about 20 percent.

LANGUAGE AND ENGLISH-SPEAKING ABILITYBY SELECTED SOCIALAND DEMOGRAPHICCHARACTERISTICS

Age and English-SpeakingAbility

Table 3 shows language spoken at

home and English-speaking abil-

ity or Spanish and non-Spanish

speakers or selected demographic

and social characteristics. Spanish

speakers were less likely to speak

English very well (56 percent)

than those who spoke another

language (61 percent). However,

both groups English-speaking abil-

ity varied by demographic charac-

teristics. Those who were young

and were native born were more

likely to speak English very well.

O the population 15 to 19 years

old, 83 percent o those who spoke


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Figure 4.

Percentage Change in Language Spoken at Home:20002011(Population 5 years and over)

*For examples of specific languages within these groups, see Appendix A of the2011 subject definitions, located at .

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Census 2000 and 2011 American Community Survey.

-40 -20 0 20 40 60 80 100 120

ItalianGerman

Hungarian

French (incl Patois, Cajun)

Scandinavian languages*

Greek

Yiddish

Polish

Japanese

Laotian

Navajo

Other Native North American languages*

Other and unspecified languages*Speaks only English

Hebrew

Other Slavic languages*

Serbo-Croatian

Other West Germanic languages*

Mon-Khmer, Cambodian

Portuguese or Portuguese Creole

Armenian

Hmong

Korean

Russian

Tagalog

Persian

Spanish

Thai

Other Pacific Island languages*

Other Indo-European languages*

Vietnamese

Urdu

Chinese

Gujarati

Arabic

French Creole

Other Indic languages*

Hindi

African languages*

Other Asian languages*

Percent

Spanish and 81 percent o those

who spoke a language other than

Spanish spoke English very well.

Race and Ethnicity andEnglish-Speaking Ability

Spanish speakers who were

non-Hispanic White, Black, or

Asian were more likely to speak

English very well compared with

those who were Hispanic.14 The

diference between non-Hispanic

Whites and Hispanics who spoke

English very well was 27 per-

centage points. There was also

variation in English-speaking ability

among those who spoke a lan-

guage other than Spanish. Among

those who spoke a language other

than Spanish, Asians were least

likely to speak English very well.However, none o the diferences

between groups was as large as

the diference between Spanish-

speaking Hispanics and Spanish-

speaking non-Hispanic Whites.

Diferences are also present across

detailed race and Hispanic-origin

groups, as examined in a recent

Census Bureau report.15

14 Federal surveys now give respondentsthe option o reporting more than one race.Thereore, two basic ways o dening a racegroup are possible. A group such as Asianmay be dened as those who reported Asianand no other race (the race-alone or single-race concept) or as those who reportedAsian regardless o whether they alsoreported another race (the race-alone-or-in-combination concept). This report showsdata using the rst approach (race alone).This report will reer to the White-alonepopulation as White, the Black-alone popula-tion as Black, the Asian-alone populationas Asian, and the White-alone-non-Hispanicpopulation as non-Hispanic White. Use othe single-race population does not implythat it is the preerred method o presentingor analyzing data. The Census Bureau usesa variety o approaches. In this report, theterm non-Hispanic White reers to peoplewho are not Hispanic and who reported Whiteand no other race. The Census Bureau usesnon-Hispanic Whites as the comparison groupor other race groups and Hispanics. BecauseHispanics may be any race, data in this reportor Hispanics overlap with data or racialgroups.

15 See .


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Table 3.

Language Spoken at Home by English-Speaking Ability by Selected Demographic and

Social Characteristics for the Population 5 Years and Over: 2011(For inormation on condentiality protection, sampling error, nonsampling error, and denitions, see

www.census.gov/acs/www/)

CharacteristicsPopulation

5 yearsand over

(Number)

Spoke alangauge

otherthan

Englishat home

(Percent)

Spoke a language other than English at home

Spoke SpanishSpoke a language other

than Spanish

Population5 years

and over(Number)

SpokeEnglish

very well(Percent)

SpokeEnglish

less thanvery well(Percent)

Population5 years

and over(Number)

SpokeEnglish

very well(Percent)

SpokeEnglish

less thanvery well(Percent)

Total 291,524,091 208 37,579,787 563 437 22,997,233 614 386

Age5 to 14 years 41,131,310 218 6,451,625 762 238 2,535,007 776 22415 to 19 years 21,822,474 223 3,412,795 827 173 1,449,462 806 19420 to 39 years 83,350,155 256 13,853,503 553 447 7,450,076 689 31140 to 59 years 85,944,236 195 9,795,839 429 571 6,980,244 539 46160 years and over 59,275,916 146 4,066,025 387 613 4,582,444 453 547

SexMale 143,009,744 209 18,914,621 556 444 10,952,898 631 369Female 148,514,347 207 18,665,166 570 430 12,044,335 598 402

Race and Hispanic OriginWhite alone 217,435,501 152 24,469,328 574 426 8,688,628 694 306

Non-Hispanic White alone 186,989,334 58 2,174,426 809 191 8,588,900 694 306Black alone 36,354,608 83 881,899 681 319 2,128,247 648 352Asian alone 14,148,367 767 77,751 743 257 10,777,195 530 470

Hispanic (o any race) 46,782,479 747 34,745,940 543 457 203,075 686 314

Nativity StatusNative 251,380,737 106 19,487,953 809 191 7,185,626 848 152Foreign born:

Naturalized citizen 18,094,967 790 5,431,946 448 552 8,856,595 544 456Not a citizen 22,048,387 890 12,659,888 234 766 6,955,012 459 541

Educational Attainment1

Less than 12th grade 29,089,305 429 9,609,518 211 789 2,855,281 240 760High school graduate 58,653,211 166 6,321,485 481 519 3,423,791 443 557Some college, or associates degree 59,838,341 146 5,029,756 698 302 3,726,173 617 383Bachelors degree or more 58,890,813 180 3,279,205 735 265 7,321,209 714 286

Employment Status2

In labor orce:Employed 140,399,548 210 17,955,542 522 478 11,542,775 637 363Unemployed 16,060,624 226 2,452,052 558 442 952,685 611 389

Not in labor orce 88,717,824 196 9,994,210 491 509 7,418,060 513 487

Poverty StatusBelow the poverty level 43,341,948 296 9,377,171 493 507 3,468,021 497 503At or above poverty level 240,663,391 193 27,482,262 585 415 19,057,584 632 368

Disability Status

With a disability 39,172,917 149 3,586,682 472 528 2,253,901 456 544No disablility 252,351,174 217 33,993,105 573 427 20,743,332 631 369

Health InsuranceWith health insurance coverage 244,706,190 175 24,079,286 650 350 18,715,248 640 360No health insurance coverage 46,817,901 380 13,500,501 409 591 4,281,985 499 501

1 Educational attainment is displayed or the population 25 years and over2 Employment status is shown or the population 16 years and over and does not include those in the Armed Forces

Note: Margins o error or all estimates can be ound in the Appendix Table 3 For more inor-mation on the ACS, see

Source: US Census Bureau, 2011 American Community Survey


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Citizenship and English-Speaking Ability

English-speaking ability varied by

citizenship status among Spanish

speakers much more than it did

among those who spoke other lan-

guages. Among Spanish speakers,

45 percent o oreign-born natural-ized citizens spoke English very

well compared with 23 percent o

oreign-born noncitizens. Among

those who spoke a oreign lan-

guage other than Spanish, the gap

between oreign-born naturalized

citizens and oreign-born nonciti-

zens was smalleronly 9 percent.

Other Characteristics andEnglish-Speaking Ability

Education, employment status, pov-

erty status, disability status, and

health insurance coverage were

also correlated with English speak-

ing ability. Seventy-three percent o

Spanish-speakers with a bachelors

degree or more education spoke

English very well, compared with

71 percent o those who spoke a

language other than Spanish or

this same education level.

LANGUAGE

CONCENTRATIONSIN STATES

Languages spoken at home are

not evenly distributed throughout

the nation. Some areas have high

percentages o speakers o non-

English languages, while others

have lower levels. Table 4 shows

the proportion o people who

spoke a language other than

English at home across the 50

states and the District o Columbia,

as well as the English-speaking

ability levels in those states.

English-speaking ability varied

across states. In West Virginia, only

2 percent o people 5 years old and

over reported speaking a language

other than English at home, while

44 percent o people in Caliornia

reported the same.

Levels o English-speaking ability

were also diferent across states.

In Montana, a large percentage o

those who spoke a language other

than English at home (84 percent)

reported speaking English very

well. In Alabama, this percentage

was 55 percent.

Quite oten, concentrations o spe-

cic language groups were ound

in certain areas o the country.

An examination o some o these

patterns is provided in the 2007

version o this report (Shin and

Kominski, 2011).16 In the short

term, the actors creating these

concentrations include points o

entry into the United States and

amily connections acilitating

chain migration (Alberto Palloniet al., 2001).17 In the longer term,

internal migration streams, employ-

ment opportunities, and other

amily situations can sometimes

acilitate the difusion o language

groups within the country.

LANGUAGES SPOKEN INMETROPOLITAN ANDMICROPOLITAN AREAS

Just as languages are dispersed

unevenly across states, somelanguages are concentrated in

certain metropolitan and micro-

politan statistical areas. Large

metropolitan areas such as New

York, Los Angeles, and Chicago

generally have large proportions

o people who speak a language

other than English at home because

o the economic opportunities in

these places or because they act

as gateway points o entry into the

country. Not all o the high levels

o language clustering occur in the

largest metropolitan areas, how-

ever. Many smaller metropolitan

16 See .

17 Alberto Palloni et al., 2001, SocialCapital and International Migration: A TestUsing Inormation on Family Networks,American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 106,No. 5: 12621298.

areas also had high proportions o

people who spoke a language other

than English at home.

Figure 5shows a geographic distri-

bution o the proportion o people


English at home across metropoli-

tan and micropolitan areas. In gen-eral, metropolitan and micropolitan

areas within the west, south, and

northeast tended to have higher

levels o oreign-language speak-

ers. Metropolitan and micropolitan

areas located in the midwestern

states tended to have lower levels

o oreign-language speakers, with

the exception o Illinois.

Table 5 presents the distribution

o the languages other than English

or the 57 metropolitan areaswhere one-ourth or more o

the population 5 years and older

speak a language other than

English at home. Twenty-two

o these metropolitan areas are

located in Caliornia, and 12 are

in Texas. The remaining 23 are in

various states, such as Florida, New

Mexico, Arizona, and New Jersey.

The Laredo, Texas, metropolitan

area had the highest percentage

o the population who spoke alanguage other than English. The

great majority o these non-English

language speakers spoke Spanish

(99 percent). Other metropolitan

areas with at least 90 percent

Spanish speakers among those

speaking a language other than

English included several cities

located on the border with Mexico,

including Brownsville-Harlingen,

McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, and El

Paso in Texas; Yuma, Arizona; ElCentro, Caliornia; and Las Cruces,

New Mexico. Spanish speakers

were less than 40 percent o all

non-English language speakers in

only three o the listed metropoli-

tan areas. This included Honolulu,

Hawaii, where 88 percent spoke

Asian and Pacic Island languages,


11/16


Table 4.

Language Spoken at Home and English-Speaking Ability by State: 2011(For inormation on condentiality protection, sampling error, nonsampling error, and denitions, see

www.census.gov/acs/www/)

StatePopulation

5 yearsand over

(Number)

Spoke a language otherthan English at home

English-speaking ability(Percent)

Number Percent

SpokeEnglish

very well

SpokeEnglish

well

SpokeEnglish

not well

SpokeEnglish

not at allUnited States 291,524,091 60,577,020 208 582 194 154 70

Alabama 4,504,275 235,830 52 554 190 202 53Alaska 668,687 111,319 166 692 209 86 13Arizona 6,034,541 1,629,853 270 655 157 129 59Arkansas 2,740,313 204,666 75 547 230 170 52Caliornia 35,158,257 15,390,211 438 557 194 166 84Colorado 4,775,755 798,923 167 620 181 145 54Connecticut 3,384,503 724,026 214 615 192 144 50Delaware 851,887 115,717 136 651 171 125 54District o Columbia 581,764 87,516 150 725 162 86 27

Florida 17,983,218 4,959,186 276 570 192 155 83Georgia 9,141,183 1,214,783 133 572 193 178 57Hawaii 1,286,790 323,915 252 524 275 175 27Idaho 1,466,499 152,712 104 624 156 159 61Illinois 12,042,289 2,730,437 227 573 207 159 62Indiana 6,088,598 501,711 82 601 210 147 42Iowa 2,864,107 208,066 73 591 195 156 58Kansas 2,669,198 304,111 114 593 190 162 55Kentucky 4,090,258 197,131 48 581 212 167 40Louisiana 4,261,861 371,986 87 672 164 115 49Maine 1,261,967 83,579 66 768 130 83 19

Maryland 5,465,168 914,110 167 629 199 136 36Massachusetts 6,224,979 1,370,449 220 596 203 139 62Michigan 9,292,794 847,255 91 648 191 124 37Minnesota 4,992,262 540,623 108 606 203 138 52Mississippi 2,773,115 105,186 38 557 169 190 84Missouri 5,629,071 362,210 64 620 208 129 43Montana 937,750 43,660 47 837 132 27 04Nebraska 1,711,659 176,008 103 541 194 201 64

Nevada 2,538,136 754,531 297 578 213 153 56New Hampshire 1,250,588 97,479 78 705 188 84 23

New Jersey 8,285,611 2,520,761 304 574 207 154 64New Mexico 1,937,824 707,597 365 725 139 91 46New York 18,307,740 5,506,992 301 553 209 169 69North Carolina 9,029,678 966,322 107 563 187 169 81North Dakota 637,666 32,380 51 716 184 88 12Ohio 10,836,508 721,796 67 649 208 114 29Oklahoma 3,527,312 329,017 93 588 174 171 68Oregon 3,633,190 540,456 149 578 190 156 76Pennsylvania 12,021,912 1,237,714 103 626 197 133 44Rhode Island 995,856 211,150 212 588 210 137 65

South Carolina 4,376,509 289,004 66 586 202 152 60South Dakota 765,534 50,335 66 662 165 147 27Tennessee 6,003,565 414,669 69 578 207 170 44Texas 23,721,334 8,221,202 347 581 182 148 89Utah 2,554,924 380,382 149 644 173 142 41Vermont 595,658 29,402 49 714 201 65 20Virginia 7,588,188 1,132,310 149 628 201 134 37Washington 6,390,691 1,186,543 186 571 212 156 60West Virginia 1,751,216 40,310 23 647 220 121 13Wisconsin 5,362,567 467,555 87 621 190 143 46Wyoming 529,136 33,934 64 728 140 105 27


mation on the ACS, see Source: US Census Bureau, 2011 American Community Survey


12/16


0

500Miles

0

90Miles

0

100Miles

PercentbyMetropolitan

andMicropolitan

StatisticalArea

Figure5.

PercentageOf

People5YearsandOverW

hoSpoke

aLanguage

OtherThanEn

glishAtHome:2011

No

te:

Me

tropo

lita

nan

dMicropo

litan

Statis

tica

l

Areas

de

fine

dby

the

Officeo

fManagemen

t

an

dBu

dge

tasof

Decem

ber

2009

.

Source:

U.S.

Cen

sus

Bureau,

2011American

C

ommun

ity

Survey.

47

.5ormore

23

.6to47

.4

9.7

to23

.5

Less

than

9.7


13/16


Table 5.

Distribution of Speakers of Non-English Languages for Selected Metropolitan

Areas: 2011Con.(Metro areas where 25 percent or more o the population 5 years and over spoke a language other than English. For inormation

on condentiality protection, sampling error, nonsampling error, and denitions, see www.census.gov/acs/www/)

Metropolitan areas Population5 years

and over(Number)

Spoke alanguage other

than English

at home

Language spoken o those who speak a language otherthan English at home

Spanish

Other

Indo-Europeanlanguages

Asian and Pacifc

Island languages

Other

languages

NumberPer-cent Number

Per-cent Number

Per-cent Number

Per-cent Number

Per-cent

Laredo, TX 230,506 212,319 921 209,847 988 581 03 1,832 09 59 00McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, TX 720,446 614,621 853 605,325 985 2,668 04 5,885 10 743 01El Centro, CA 163,107 118,711 728 116,345 980 366 03 1,705 14 295 02El Paso, TX 754,849 547,397 725 532,372 973 7,459 14 6,654 12 912 02Brownsville-Harlingen, TX 377,563 263,074 697 260,237 989 1,049 04 1,578 06 210 01Los Angeles-Long Beach-SantaAna, CA 12,103,230 6,571,923 543 4,413,269 672 640,467 97 1,398,593 213 119,594 18

Salinas, CA 388,612 208,721 537 183,699 880 5,929 28 16,365 78 2,728 13Las Cruces, NM 197,651 104,655 529 100,672 962 2,470 24 1,068 10 445 04Yuma, AZ 185,598 96,918 522 93,220 962 1,997 21 994 10 707 07

Miami-Fort Lauderdale-MiamiBeach, FL 5,342,714 2,740,101 513 2,139,173 781 486,727 178 70,605 26 43,596 16

Visalia-Porterville, CA 407,905 206,897 507 189,574 916 4,774 23 11,603 56 946 05San Jose-Sunnyvale-SantaClara, CA 1,737,443 877,451 505 334,549 381 142,287 162 380,937 434 19,678 22

Merced, CA 237,573 119,028 501 97,433 819 12,157 102 8,660 73 778 07Fresno, CA 863,371 382,344 443 291,503 762 26,979 71 59,346 155 4,516 12Odessa, TX 127,828 55,765 436 53,895 966 984 18 661 12 225 04Madera, CA 141,380 60,691 429 55,539 915 2,278 38 2,557 42 317 05Bakersfeld, CA 778,854 327,031 420 289,041 884 15,927 49 17,834 55 4,229 13

Modesto, CA 479,014 200,726 419 151,626 755 21,636 108 10,649 53 16,815 84Hanord-Corcoran, CA 141,291 58,722 416 51,884 884 2,568 44 3,581 61 689 12Santa Barbara-Santa Maria, CA 399,458 162,367 406 136,637 842 11,151 69 12,538 77 2,041 13Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA 3,983,998 1,615,123 405 1,322,026 819 81,921 51 180,171 112 31,005 19

San Francisco-Oakland-

Fremont, CA 4,130,311 1,670,902 405 678,359 406 269,017 161 685,063 410 38,463 23Stockton, CA 641,685 253,878 396 168,367 663 30,977 122 50,263 198 4,271 17Yakima, WA 225,246 88,659 394 84,221 950 1,538 17 2,067 23 833 09New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-PA 17,838,980 6,981,683 391 3,518,126 504 2,025,713 290 1,095,595 157 342,249 49

San Antonio, TX 2,035,868 777,946 382 714,314 918 31,512 41 23,358 30 8,762 11Napa, CA 130,131 49,664 382 39,493 795 2,820 57 6,973 140 378 08San Diego-Carlsbad-SanMarcos, CA 2,933,575 1,106,849 377 729,347 659 89,904 81 235,773 213 51,825 47

Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown, TX 5,604,644 2,091,768 373 1,617,957 773 174,242 83 242,529 116 57,040 27Corpus Christi, TX 402,206 147,850 368 139,200 941 2,994 20 4,807 33 849 06Santa Fe, NM 137,904 50,245 364 45,075 897 2,367 47 1,020 20 1,783 35Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura, CA 776,660 282,683 364 222,652 788 21,593 76 32,297 114 6,141 22

Farmington, NM 117,861 42,444 360 14,150 333 741 17 372 09 27,181 640

Las Vegas-Paradise, NV 1,831,695 614,625 336 423,841 690 52,000 85 120,260 196 18,524 30Santa Cruz-Watsonville, CA 249,132 80,238 322 66,016 823 6,350 79 7,111 89 761 09Naples-Marco Island, FL 311,342 99,321 319 73,660 742 19,639 198 5,105 51 917 09Albuquerque, NM 838,920 263,567 314 214,162 813 14,614 55 8,972 34 25,819 98Yuba City, CA 154,104 48,278 313 31,649 656 10,586 219 5,830 121 213 04Midland, TX 129,109 39,627 307 36,494 921 1,107 28 1,647 42 379 10Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX 6,022,507 1,809,206 300 1,381,478 764 156,259 86 207,267 115 64,202 35Orlando-Kissimmee, FL 2,039,583 595,470 292 433,912 729 106,337 179 45,711 77 9,510 16Chicago-Naperville-Joliet, IL-IN-WI 8,876,347 2,580,089 291 1,547,235 600 627,153 243 288,927 112 116,774 45Tucson, AZ 927,411 264,996 286 218,043 823 18,044 68 16,123 61 12,786 48

See note at end o table


14/16


Table 5.

Distribution of Speakers of Non-English Languages for Selected Metropolitan

Areas: 2011Con.(Metro areas where 25 percent or more o the population 5 years and over spoke a language other than English. For inormation

on condentiality protection, sampling error, nonsampling error, and denitions, see www.census.gov/acs/www/)

Metropolitan areas Population5 years

and over(Number)

Spoke alanguage other

than English

at home

Language spoken o those who speak a language otherthan English at home

Spanish

Other

Indo-Europeanlanguages

Asian and Pacifc

Island languages

Other

languages

NumberPer-cent Number

Per-cent Number

Per-cent Number

Per-cent Number

Per-cent

Bridgeport-Stamord-Norwalk, CT 870,100 247,017 284 127,732 517 88,781 359 22,751 92 7,753 31Vallejo-Fairfeld, CA 390,169 110,111 282 63,385 576 9,557 87 35,825 325 1,344 12Austin-Round Rock, TX 1,654,442 464,933 281 366,576 788 46,107 99 45,774 98 6,476 14SacramentoArden-ArcadeRoseville, CA 2,033,096 568,262 280 262,979 463 128,150 226 167,443 295 9,690 17

Trenton-Ewing, NJ 345,584 96,326 279 44,888 466 29,193 303 19,118 198 3,127 32Atlantic City, NJ 257,871 70,762 274 42,378 599 14,272 202 11,783 167 2,329 33Kennewick-Richland-Pasco, WA 242,237 66,106 273 55,038 833 6,040 91 4,581 69 447 07Honolulu, HI 901,726 243,991 271 17,736 73 11,328 46 214,043 877 884 04Washington-Arlington-Alexandria,DC-VA-MD-WV 5,319,973 1,420,987 267 638,181 449 333,850 235 300,327 211 148,629 105

Gainesville, GA 169,018 45,018 266 40,731 905 1,841 41 2,374 53 72 02Victoria, TX 106,954 28,441 266 25,185 886 959 34 1,802 63 495 17Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, AZ 3,955,933 1,037,554 262 806,286 777 90,785 87 93,206 90 47,277 46Dalton, GA 132,462 34,332 259 32,380 943 560 16 137 04 1,255 37Wenatchee, WA 104,787 26,968 257 24,815 920 664 25 727 27 762 28

Note: Margins o error or all estimates can be ound in the Appendix Table 5

Source: US Census Bureau, 2011 American Community Survey For more inormation on the ACS, see

and San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara,

Caliornia, where Spanish speakers

were also outnumbered by those

who spoke Asian and Pacic Island

languages. The other metropolitan

area was Farmington, New Mexico.In this area, the overwhelming

majority spoke the Native American

language o Navajo.

New York and Los Angeles stand

out or the large number o speak-

ers o languages other than

English that reside theremore

than 6 million in each metropolitan

area. In the New York metropolitanarea, about 50 percent o those


English spoke Spanish. Another

29 percent o these people spoke

Other Indo-European languages. In

the Los Angeles metropolitan area,

over two-thirds o those who spoke

a language other than English

spoke Spanish.


15/16


SUMMARY

This report provides illustrative evi-

dence o the continuing and grow-

ing role o non-English languages

as part o the national abric.

Fueled by both long-term historic

immigration patterns and more

recent ones, the language diver-sity o the country has increased

over the past ew decades. As the

nation continues to be a destina-

tion or people rom other lands,

this pattern o language diversity

will also likely continue. Given the

patterns o location and reloca-

tion over time, local areas may see

specic or diverse changes in the

languages spoken in any given

locality.

SOURCE OF THE DATA

Estimates in this report are rom

the 2011 American Community

Survey (ACS). The population rep-

resented (the population universe)

in the 2011 ACS includes both the

household and the group quarters

populations (that is, the resident

population). The group quarters

population consists o the insti-

tutionalized population (such as

people in correctional institutionsor nursing homes) and the non-

institutionalized population

(most o whom are in college

dormitories).

ACCURACY OF THEESTIMATES

Statistics rom sample surveys

are subject to sampling error and

nonsampling error. All comparisons

presented in this report have taken

sampling error into account and

are signicant at the 90 percentcondence level.18 This means the

90 percent condence interval or

the diference between estimates

being compared does not include

zero. Nonsampling error in surveys

may be attributed to a variety o

sources, such as how the survey

was designed, how respondents

interpret questions, how able and

willing respondents are to provide

correct answers, and how accu-

rately answers are coded and clas-

sied. To minimize these errors,

the Census Bureau employs qual-

ity control procedures in sample

selection, the wording o questions,

interviewing, coding, data process-

ing, and data analysis.

The nal ACS population estimates

are adjusted in the weighting pro-

cedure or coverage error by con-

trolling specic survey estimates to

independent population controls by

sex, age, race, and Hispanic origin.This weighting partially corrects or

18 The tables reporting the margins oerror or all the tables in this report can beaccessed at .

bias due to over- or undercoverage,

but biases may still be present, or

example, when people who were

missed difer rom those inter-

viewed in ways other than sex, age,

race, and Hispanic origin. How this

weighting procedure afects other

variables in the survey is not pre-

cisely known. All o these consid-

erations afect comparisons across

diferent surveys or data sources.

For inormation on sampling and

estimation methods, condentiality

protection, and sampling and non-

sampling errors, please see

the 2011 ACS Accuracy o the

Data document located at

.

MORE INFORMATION

Detailed tabulations, related

inormation, and historic data

are available on the Internet at

the Language Use page on the

Census Bureaus Web site at

. For addi-

tional questions or comments,

contact the Education and Social

Stratication Branch at 301-763-2464 or e-mail Camille L. Ryan at

.


16/16


APPENDIX A.

LANGUAGE QUESTIONS USED IN DECENNIAL CENSUSES

2000: (Collected or all ages; retained or persons 5 years old and over)

Does this person speak a language other than English at home?

What is this language?

How well does this person speak English (very well, well, not well, not at all)?

1990: (Persons 5 years old and over)




1980: (Persons 3 years old and over; tabulated or 5 years old and over)




1970: (No age or question, tabulations limited)

What language, other than English, was spoken in this persons home when he was a child?

(Spanish, French, German, Other (speciy)_______, None, English only)

1960: (Foreign-born)

What language was spoken in his home beore he came to the United States?

1950: (Not asked)

1940: (For persons o all ages; asked under the category o Mother Tongue [or Native Language] o Foreign Born)

Language spoken at home in earliest childhood.

1930: (Foreign born; asked under the category o Mother Tongue [or Native Language] o Foreign Born)

Language spoken in home beore coming to the United States.

1920: (Foreign born)

Place o birth and mother tongue o person and each parent.

Whether able to speak English.

1910:Mother tongue was collected or all oreign-born persons, to be written in with place o birth; also collected or

oreign-born parents. Specic instructions on correct languages to write in and a list o appropriate European lan-

guages were provided to the enumerator. Similar instructions may have carried over to 1920.

Whether able to speak English; or, i not, give language spoken.

1900: (All persons 10 years old and over)

Can speak English was asked ater the two questions Can read and Can write.

1890: (All persons 10 years old and over)

Able to speak English. I not, the language or dialect spoken was asked ater the questions Able to Read and

Able to Write.

17901880:

No evidence o language questions or English-ability questions.

Note: The universe used for data collection may not be the same as in tabulations. In some cases, data were

tabulated for foreign-born only or White foreign-born only. Consult publications.

www.mla.org/map_main

www.ethnologue.com/
http://www.mla.org/map_mainhttp://www.ethnologue.com/http://www.ethnologue.com/http://www.mla.org/map_main

Documents

Language Use in the United States: 2011