Most Common Language Spoken By State (Other than English or Spanish)

[Fearless]

Respect diversity.

[okaawhatever]

1. You know what this means don't you? Putin is going to invade Oregon next. nt

[OKNancy]

2. First laugh of the day!!

[TBF]

21. DUZY! nt

[sakabatou]

48. Definitely

[Louisiana1976]

53. .......

[etherealtruth]

55. Hahahaha

[roguevalley]

64. only one state has a native language as the second

most common language. That is so sad to see.

[joshcryer]

3. That's awesome.

[Behind the Aegis]

4. Very interesting.

I am surprised by Oklahoma.

[LuvNewcastle]

5. Me too, Nebraska as well.

I'm surprised that one of the Indian languages isn't spoken more commonly in OK, especially.

[Behind the Aegis]

6. Actually, I figured it would be German or Czech.

There is a long history for both. While there are quite a few Native languages spoken here (fun to see commercials in Cherokee and Delaware), the population just isn't that high and the number of speakers is low.

[Ex Lurker]

7. Anywhere there are big military bases, there will be a lot of Vietnamese, Koreans, and Filipinos

Lots of military spouses, former refugees who settled where they first entered the country, and people who enlisted as a path to citizenship.

[DURHAM D]

18. After Saigon fell

and large numbers of Vietnamese families started arriving in the US in the late 70s and early 80s Oklahoma City had a lot of abandoned real estate. Oklahoma was going through what I refer to as "The Great Oklahoma Oil Depression". It was the result of irresponsible lending by the banks (more than 130 Oklahoma banks failed) for bad energy loans for more oil exploration based on bogus reserve stats.

The Vietnamese refugees were recruited/welcomed to OKC. Over night an abandoned strip mall a few block west of the Capital re-opened with restaurants, grocery stores and bakeries and the plywood removed from the windows of the houses in the surrounding neighborhoods and re-occupied. I remember seeing signs and menus in Vietnamese, French and English.

A warning... if you dine at any of the many, many Vietnamese restaurant in OKC you will never again be able to stomach what passes for Vietnamese food in most of the country.

[AnneD]

19. The Cherokee Nation...

has an immersion school that started in elementary and is now up to middle school. I am surprised that there aren't more Cherokee speakers.

I hope Dakota meant the Dakota Indian language, don't ya know.

[Art_from_Ark]

26. The Cherokees are pretty spread out

There are quite a few of them on the Arkansas side of the border as well. I used to work with some Cherokees-- the older ones could speak Cherokee, but they said their kids had little interest in speaking it. One reason, I guess, is that they are spread out and the kids tend to favor the language of their friends, which tends to be English. I see that in Japan as well-- kids who have one Japanese parent and one non-Japanese parent tend to focus on speaking Japanese when it is the language of their friends.

[AnneD]

28. There are 11 at large groups....

through out the US (these are tribal role card carrying members). The immersion school is in the Tahlequah area and has been a great success. The best part-young children can talk to their elders and knowledge is passed from the generations and not forgotten.

They now have Cherokee fonts for the computers and smart phones. Language classes are offered over the internet and there is material for every age group. I particularly love the games. As one of our Chiefs once wisely put it....we don't want the Cherokee Nation to be a foot note in history.

[hunter]

39. I love languages, even though I'm not fluent in any of them.

I just looked, and yes, somewhere along the line I've installed the Cherokee font.

No problem rendering the wikipedia entry:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherokee_language

http://chr.wikipedia.org/wiki/ᎤᎵᎮᎵᏍᏗ (Cherokee Wikipedia)

The language is preinstalled on newer Apple machines. I use Linux.

Maintaining a language is a wonderful thing to do and goes a long, long way in preserving a culture.

I love living in a place where I hear multiple languages spoken in everyday life.

[Behind the Aegis]

63. We have commercials in Native languages here in Oklahoma.

There is a move to get the younger generations speaking the various Native languages. It was similar to what I saw in New Orleans in regards to Creole.

[Art_from_Ark]

62. Very interesting

Things certainly seem to have changed. It's also interesting that the Cherokees I knew lived just up the road a bit from Tahlequah, around US 62, which in Arkansas tends to follow the Trail of Tears.

Speaking of Trail of Tears, I have been to Tsa-la-gi a couple of times. One time was when my former drama teacher was playing the part of John Ross in the Trail of Tears Pageant.

[dsc]

43. meat packing

they imported many vietnamese

[treestar]

24. Me too, and Texas

I kind of wanted to unkindly laugh at Texas' Republicans. How horrifying to them!

[merrily]

8. That is surprising. According to the museum at Ellis Island, Italians were

the largest single immigrant group. So, I expected to see Italian in more states.

Maybe, the museum map of the US was indicating only that Italians were the largest group to have passed through Ellis Island; and I am misremembering the meaning of the map.

[starroute]

33. This map is of current speakers of a language

The Italians who arrived a century ago are pretty well assimilated at this point. I was surprised that Italian showed up as the third most spoken language even in New York and Jersey.

[Lee-Lee]

9. French here in the Carolina's

That really amazes me. They must be including people who just learn in school, because I can count on one hand the number of native French speakers I have ever met here. I would have guessed Korean or Vietnamese.

[raccoon]

17. Me too. Maybe some of them work for Michelin, but where do the rest of them come from? nt

[CTyankee]

25. wouldn't a good number of Vietnamese also speak French?

That might be the reason...

[A Little Weird]

10. Cool map!

I'm surprised by a lot of states. It would be interesting to know how much these languages are used.

[reformist2]

11. OMG, the Germans are secretly taking over!

And who knew the French had such a foothold, either???

[Recursion]

12. Ah, Boston Portuguese..

Best damn soup there is, the kale/chorizo/white bean wonder they cook up on the South Shore...

[Benzene25]

29. Not spanish

it can be chouriço or chourico. Either is acceptable. . . for every fragment of chouriço's evil sibling that i find i shall kill the cook.

South Shore!! rubbish. go to Fall River and experience soupy perfection.

[LiberalEsto]

30. Caldo verde!

I do love that soup!
Especially with fresh Portuguese rolls on the side.

[NewJeffCT]

13. Interesting

I'm surprised Vietnamese & Tagalog beat out Chinese in places like California, Nevada & Texas

[dixiegrrrrl]

16. Me too....

Considering that chinese population is so big in cal. and in washington state.
Makes me wonder about the accuracy of that map.

[hunter]

42. Tagalog is easily the third most common language in our California community.

A great many of them are war veterans who came here with their families after World War II ended, and many more came here before that as farmworkers, after Spain ceded the Islands to the U.S.A in 1898.

[Capt. Obvious]

14. They left out the language in Dakota

[lpbk2713]

27. This is probably why they didn't use *Foreign* Language in the title line.

Most of the rest of US are the foreigners.

[nomorenomore08]

15. I'm surprised there are so many German speakers still. Though I know those roots go back centuries.

I also had no idea they spoke French in West Virginia.

[greendog]

46. A lot of the Anabaptist Communities speak German.

In Montana all of the Hutterites are German speakers and there are a lot of them. I used to hear it all the time.

[Arugula Latte]

50. They call French "Freedom Language" in WV.

[nomorenomore08]

57. Oh shit!

[TBF]

20. I grew up in Wisconsin -

and my dad can remember his grandparents speaking in German (he is about 70 now) - he could understand it when he was young but can't speak it anymore other than a few words. It was very common for the parents/grandparents to still remember some German or Polish when I was growing up.

Here in Texas I'm actually not surprised by the Vietnamese because I have met many folks in hair salons/spas who originally lived in Vietnam. They are more recent immigrants and interestingly many have US-born fathers (obviously the liasons between soldiers/locals during the Vietnam conflict). It is interesting that it includes Oklahoma though - Texas also had a lot of German settlers back in the 1800s and I would have expected more German speakers - maybe it comes in second after the Vietnamese immigrants/speakers (who would be more recent so they may still be teaching Vietnamese to their children).

[NewJeffCT]

22. Surprised French over Italian in Connecticut

Lots of heavily Italian areas around Hartford and New Haven. There are no "French" areas of the state that I remember, even though many areas of CT were divided up that way in the past (Sicilians in Middletown, Italians in Rocky Hill, Jewish were in West Hartford, Polish in New Britain, etc). I can still drive in Middletown, CT and see "Farmacia" for pharmacy on store signs.

[socialist_n_TN]

23. I'm somewhat surprised about Tennessee.....

I would have expected it to be Mandarin. But that's a Nashville-centric view. Maybe it's German in the rest of the state.

[LiberalEsto]

31. I'm surprised by French in Maryland

Unless they are counting the number of kids who took French in school.

[Fearless]

36. No, not what is taught in school

First languages only.

[SteveG]

45. Lot's of Hatian's

live in Maryland and DE

[kwassa]

59. must be the Francophone countries ...

Immigrants from former French colonies in West Africa and the Caribbean. There are lots of those in MoCo.

The percentage is tiny compared to Spanish, I am sure. We had a lot of trouble trying to find French-language classes and cultural events in upper MoCo, but really had to go into DC to find much.

[2naSalit]

32. I'm moderately surprised that

Basque wasn't declared for Idaho. Largest population of Basque in the world outside of the Pyrenees.

[dawg]

34. I correctly guessed that ours would be Korean.

Atlanta even has Korean-language television stations.

[MineralMan]

35. Cool map. I heard yesterday that Hmong was the

language in Minnesota, and I can believe that. I'm slowly learning to be polite in Hmong, thanks to some children in my neighborhood who come out to pet our dogs when we walk them.

[Comrade Grumpy]

54. Hmong will probably overtake Dakota in South Dakota pretty soon. If not already.

Now South Dakotans have a whole new group to hate on. I swear, it's one of the most racist states in the county.

[hack89]

37. They teach Portuguese in the local schools (Rhode Island) nt

[Fearless]

38. In MA too

Alongside French and Spanish.

[kelliekat44]

40. Explains a lot about racial and social discrimination INMHO. nt

[Iggo]

41. That's a whole lotta German.

[eppur_se_muova]

44. No Dutch left ?? Not even in Iowa ?

I was puzzled by AL Germans ... then I remembered ... Werner von Braun and the other captured rocket men (H'ville had traffic signs in km back in the '70s) AND Mercedes-Benz.

[Elwood P Dowd]

51. Also, the ancestors on my father's side came over from Germany in the 1800s. Plenty of German names

in North Alabama back in those days according to my grandmother who was born in the 1880s.

[eppur_se_muova]

60. Thanks, I didn't know that. Was this in Cullman county ?

http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Article.jsp?id=h-2122

[Donald Ian Rankin]

47. Is Spanish second everywhere? N.T.

[Arugula Latte]

49. German? Seriously?

Das ist seltsam.

[Blue_In_AK]

52. I'm good.

I was going to guess Yupik, and that's exactly what it is.

[catbyte]

56. Wow, it looks like MI is the only state that speaks Arabic most. There is a huge

Arabic population around Detroit, though.

[Aristus]

58. Tacoma has 'Little Saigon' on 38th Street, just east of I-5.

Incredible food. And in many places in Tacoma one can hear the lovely, lyrical chirping of the Vietnamese language.

[DemocraticWing]

61. The German is largely due to Amish people.

There are a lot of Amish in Kentucky. Most speak perfect English in public, but speak German amongst themselves.