Top Non-English Languages Spoken in the United States

Language

Number of Speakers (2000 Census)

Percent

Population¹	262,375,152	100
Speak only English	215,423,557	82.1
Speak a language other than English	46,951,595	17.9
Speak a language other than English	46,951,595	17.9
Spanish or Spanish Creole	28,101,052	10.7
Chinese	2,022,143	0.8
French (incl. Patois, Cajun)	1,643,838	0.6
German	1,383,442	0.5
Tagalog (Philippines)	1,224,241	0.5
Vietnamese	1,009,627	0.4
Italian	1,008,370	0.4
Korean	894,063	0.3
Russian	706,242	0.3
Polish	667,414	0.3
Arabic	614,582	0.2
Portuguese or Portuguese Creole	564,630	0.2
Japanese	477,997	0.2
French Creole	453,368	0.2
African languages	418,505	0.2
Greek	365,436	0.1
Hindi	317,057	0.1
Persian	312,085	0.1
Urdu	262,900	0.1
Gujarati (India)	235,988	0.1
Serbo-Croatian	233,865	0.1
Armenian	202,708	0.1
Hebrew	195,374	0.1
Mon-Khmer, Cambodian (Southeast Asia)	181,889	0.1
Yiddish	178,945	0.1
Navajo	178,014	0.1
Miao, Hmong (Southeast Asia)	168,063	0.1
Scandinavian languages	162,252	0.1
Laotian	149,303	0.1
Thai	120,464	0
Hungarian	117,973	0
All other	2,379,765	0.7
1. Data are for persons five years old and over.

Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census.

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