US

Record 64.7 Million U.S. Residents Speak A Foreign Language At Home

REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

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A record 64.7 million U.S. residents ages five and older spoke a language other than English at home last year, according to an analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data released Tuesday by the Center for Immigration Studies.

In other words nearly one-in-five U.S. residents spoke a foreign language at home in 2015 and CIS estimates that, for public school students, the ratio is now nearly one in four.

The level of U.S. residents speaking a foreign language in the home rose by 1.5 million from 2014 to 2015 and 5.2 million since 2010. According to CIS, the languages that saw the greatest percentage of growth were speakers of Arabic (up 34 percent), Hindi (up 33 percent), Urdu (up 24 percent), Chinese (up 19 percent), French Creole (up 16 percent), Gujarati (up 14 percent), and Persian (up 13 percent).

Based on raw numbers, speakers of Spanish (up 3.1 million), Chinese (up 525,000), Arabic (up 292,000), Hindi (up 203,000), Tagalog (up 163,000), French Creole (up 117,000), and Urdu (up 92,000) experienced the greatest total growth, CIS said.

Steven Camarota, co-author of the analysis and CIS’ director of research attributed the high growth in foreign language usage to the current level of immigration to the U.S.

“A common language is the means by which immigrant groups communicate with each other and with the larger society,” Camarota said in a statement. “Due mainly to the extremely high level of legal immigration, we may be losing one of the foundations that helps hold together a diverse society.”

“Unfortunately, too many of our policymakers give little consideration to the impact immigration levels have on assimilation,” he added.

As the report details, the record level of foreign-language speakers occupies a share of the population nearly twice the level it did in 1980 — currently 21.5 percent of U.S. residents speak a foreign language in the home, in 1980, that level was 11 percent.

CIS highlighted, however, that many speakers of foreign languages in the home are not immigrants at all.

“Many of those who speak a foreign language at home are not immigrants. In fact, half of the growth in foreign-language speakers since 2010 is among those born in the United States. Overall, 44 percent (28.5 million) of those who speak a language other than English at home are U.S.-born,” the report reads.

Other key findings in the report include:

-Of those who speak a foreign language at home, 26 million (40 percent) told the Census Bureau that they speak English less than very well. This figure is entirely based on the opinions of the respondents; the Census Bureaus does not directly measure language skills.

-States with the largest share of their populations speaking a foreign language at home in 2015 were: California (45 percent), Texas (35 percent), New Mexico (34 percent), New York (31 percent), New Jersey (31 percent), Nevada (30 percent), Florida (29 percent), Arizona (27 percent), Hawaii (26 percent), Illinois (23 percent), and Massachusetts (23 percent).

-States with the largest percentage increases in the number of foreign-language speakers from 2010 to 2015 were: North Dakota (up 30 percent); Wyoming (up 24 percent); Maryland (up 17 percent); West Virginia (up 16 percent); Oklahoma and Delaware (both up 15 percent); Florida, Nevada, and Utah (each up 14 percent); and Georgia, Minnesota, and Kentucky (each up 13 percent).

-States with the largest percentage increases in foreign-language speakers from 1980 to 2015 were: Nevada (up 1,005 percent), Georgia (up 916 percent), North Carolina (up 729 percent), Virginia (up 460 percent), Tennessee (up 414 percent), Arkansas (up 408 percent), Washington (up 386 percent), Florida (up 356 percent), South Carolina (up 339 percent), Oregon (up 336 percent), and Maryland (up 335 percent).

Read the full report.

Caroline May