Foreign-Language Speakers in US at All-Time High A record 61.8 million U.S. residents speak a language other than English at home, representing 21 percent, or 1 in 5 people, in the country. The Census Bureau recently released data from the 2013 American Community Survey (ACS). It includes both legal and illegal immigrants, but 44 percent of those who dont speak English at home, 27.2 million, were born in the United States. The 61.8 million figure is up by 15 million since 2000 and by nearly 30 million since 1990. By far the largest number of people in the U.S. who do not speak English at home speak Spanish, 38.4 million, comprising about 12 percent of the overall American population. Chinese is second, with 3.02 million speakers. Other languages with more than 1 million speakers last year were Tagalog, the national language of the Philippines (1.6 million), Vietnamese (1.4 million), French (1.2 million), and Korean and Arabic (1.1 million each). The languages that have shown the largest increases from 2010 to 2013 are Arabic (22 percent growth), Urdu, the national language of Pakistan (13 percent), Chinese (8 percent), and Spanish 4 percent). Amazingly, more than 43 percent of all California residents spoke a language other than English at home last year, as did 36 percent of residents in New Mexico, 34.7 percent of Texans, 30.4 percent of the population in New Jersey, 30.3 percent in Nevada, and 30 percent in New York. The ACS also disclosed that of those who speak another language at home, 41 percent said they speak English less than very well. Allowing in over 1 million new legal immigrants a year and to a lesser extent tolerating illegal immigration has important implications for preserving a common language, said Steven A. Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies, which released a report on the ACS findings. For too long, we have given little consideration to whether continuing this level of immigration, mostly legal, hinders the assimilation of immigrants and their children.
Posted on: Mon, 20 Oct 2014 03:49:32 +0000
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