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Language distribution in the US

So the site us-english.com is, in my not so humble opinion, idealogically flawed…they appear to not be terribly agressive about their professed goal of English as a National language, but it’s still a goal. But the actual data that they present is really fascinating. You can search the US at a ton of levels of granularity: State, County, Metro area, and get all sorts of interesting information about the languages spoken around the country.

For instance…Orange County, North Carolina, where Carrboro and Chapel Hill reside (and where Bets and I moved to TN from) has residents that speak 45 different languages. 45 different languages in one county…ranging from Spanish (5,880 speakers) to Urdu (135 speakers) to Tagalog (115 speakers).

Franklin County, TN, where we currently live? 10 languages, with such interesting ones as Swahili (10 speakers) and Pennsylvania Dutch (105 speakers).

Carter County, KY, where I grew up? 4 languages: English, Spanish, French, German.

The listing for the US as a whole [PDF] is really interesting…I had no idea that Tagalog was the 6th most spoken language in the US.

By griffey

Jason Griffey is the Director of Strategic Initiatives at NISO, where he works to identify new areas of the information ecosystem where standards expertise is useful and needed. Prior to joining NISO in 2019, Jason ran his own technology consulting company for libraries, has been both an Affiliate at metaLAB and a Fellow and Affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, and was an academic librarian in roles ranging from reference and instruction to Head of IT at the University of TN at Chattanooga.

Jason has written extensively on technology and libraries, including multiple books and a series of full-periodical issues on technology topics, most recently AI & Machine Learning in Libraries and Library Spaces and Smart Buildings: Technology, Metrics, and Iterative Design from 2018. His newest book, co-authored with Jeffery Pomerantz, will be published by MIT Press in 2024.

He has spoken internationally on topics such as artificial intelligence & machine learning, the future of technology and libraries, decentralization and the Blockchain, privacy, copyright, and intellectual property. A full list of his publications and presentations can be found on his CV.
He is one of eight winners of the Knight Foundation News Challenge for Libraries for the Measure the Future project (http://measurethefuture.net), an open hardware project designed to provide actionable use metrics for library spaces. He is also the creator and director of The LibraryBox Project (http://librarybox.us), an open source portable digital file distribution system.

Jason can be stalked obsessively online, and spends his free time with his daughter Eliza, reading, obsessing over gadgets, and preparing for the inevitable zombie uprising.

2 replies on “Language distribution in the US”

Queens Co., in NYC, the most ethnically diverse county in the country has people speaking about 120 languages (there are lots of ties at the end of the list…so I’m estimating). (My home county, San Diego has a similar number, so 120 seems to be about the limit in the USA) That’s pretty impressive.

It’s also impressive that little ole’ Orange Co. has 45!

Thanks for digging up that website….the data they have is rad (although the Ayn Rand quotes, not so much).

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