Of the 195 countries in the world, 178 of them recognize an official language (and of the 178, 101 of them recognize more than one). The other 17 may have a de facto language (or even more than one), but nothing on the federal books that says, “THIS is our official language.”
The United States is one of those countries that has no “official” language. To be fair, at least 32 states has declared English as the state’s official language (or one of them), but that’s not the case on a federal level. Federally, English is only a de facto national language.
Of course, over the decades, many people from Spanish-speaking places have relocated to various areas of the U.S., to the point where Spanish, either officially or unofficially, is often the second-most spoken language in several states.
But if you remove English and Spanish from the mix, then what happens to the country that’s been called “the great American melting pot?” What’s the NEXT most-often spoken language in each state? WordfinderX decided to find out.
It appears that WordfinderX is, in so many words (you see what I did there?) a page to help you do well at word games. They created a jumble solver tool for people who like to play Scrabble, Scrabble Go, Words With Friends, etc. They also have a tool for crossword puzzles.
But along with helping you finish the New York Times crossword puzzle ;-), WordfinderX’s blog covers a variety of topics regarding words. They’ve covered topics such as the global origins of town names, the most translated artist and song from every country, the most mispronounced names, etc. And recently, the delved in to discover what the most spoken language (besides English and Spanish) in every state.
Their Methodology
The didn’t go into the minute detail, but they said they analyzed the detailed household language data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau. They added that the United states is one of the world’s most linguistically diverse countries, with census data indicating at least 350 languages spoken in homes around the country.
Most spoken languages by states
Once you take English and Spanish out of the mix, there’s a wide variety of languages spoken in U.S. homes.
- German, by far, is the most-often spoken language – it’s spoken in 13 states.
- Second most is French, which is spoken in far northeast, as well as Maryland, the Carolinas and, not surprisingly, Louisiana – a total of 7 states, plus Washington D.C.
- Chinese is the most-spoken language in 6 states.
- Portuguese can be found as the language most spoken in 5 states.
- Arabic is the most-spoken language in 4 states.
- Vietnamese can be found spoken the most in 3 states.
- Korean and Navajo are both the most-spoken in 2 states each.
- Aleut, Russian, Haitian Creole, Hmong, Japanese, Polish, Russian and Tagalog are the most-spoken languages in just 1 state each.
Created with mapchart.net // Source: wordfinderx
Click here to see WordFinderX’s larger version of this map, including more detail.
Most spoken language by city
WordFinderX was also able to break their maps down into most-spoken languages (besides English and Spanish) by cities. They have maps for the Western U.S., the Southwest, the Midwest, the Southeast and the Northeast (don’t let that moniker fool you – it includes the mid-Atlantic states, too). And because New York City is probably THE biggest melting pot in the country, the separated out NYC, as well.
Or you can see all of them on this page of WordFinderX’s website.
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