Number of People in the U.S. Speaking a Language Other than English at Home, 2000 and 2011

Updated September 9, 2022 | Infoplease Staff


In the United States, there is a surprising number of people speaking a language other than English at home—more than 60 million as of 2011. Spanish/Spanish Creole is the most spoken, with more than 37 million speakers, but French, Chinese, German, and Tagalog are common as well.

Language Persons 5 years
and over who
speak language,
2000 Census		 Persons 5 years
and over who
speak language,
2011
Population, 5 years and over 262,375,152 291,524,091
Speak only English 215,423,557 230,887,080
Speak other language 46,951,595 60,637,010
Spanish or Spanish Creole 28,101,052 37,579,787
Other Indo-European languages 10,017,989 10,847,412
French (incl. Patois, Cajun) 1,643,838 1,301,443
French Creole 453,368 753,990
Italian 1,008,370 723,632
Portuguese or Portuguese Creole 564,630 673,566
German 1,383,442 1,083,637
Yiddish 178,945 160,968
Other West Germanic languages 251,135 290,461
Scandinavian languages 162,252 135,025
Greek 365,436 304,928
Russian 706,242 905,843
Polish 667,414 607,531
Serbo-Croatian 233,865 269,624
Other Slavic languages 301,079 336,062
Armenian 202,708 246,915
Persian 312,085 407,586
Gujarathi 235,988 358,422
Hindi 317,057 648,983
Urdu 262,900 373,851
Other Indic languages 439,289 815,345
Other Indo-European languages 327,946 449,600
Asian and Pacific Island languages 6,960,065 9,485,464
Chinese 2,022,143 2,882,497
Japanese 477,997 436,110
Korean 894,063 1,141,277
Mon-Khmer, Cambodian 181,889 212,505
Miao, Hmong 168,063 211,227
Thai 120,464 163,251
Laotian 149,303 140,866
Vietnamese 1,009,627 1,419,539
Other Asian languages 398,434 855,303
Tagalog 1,224,241 1,594,413
Other Pacific Island languages 313,841 428,476
Other languages 1,872,489 2,664,357
Navajo 178,014 169,369
Other Native North American languages 203,466 195,407
Hungarian 117,973 93,102
Arabic 614,582 951,699
Hebrew 195,374 216,343
African languages 418,505 884,660
Other and unspecified 144,575 153,777

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Census 2000, Summary File 3, Table PCT 10, released Feb. 25, 2003; American Community Survey, 2011: Language Spoken at Home by Ability to Speak English for the Population 5 Years and Over.
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