Top 10 Languages Spoken by Limited English Proficient U.S. Residents and LEP Share

 

Top 10 Languages Spoken by Limited English Proficient U.S. Residents and LEP Share

English is the language spoken by most people in the United States. About one in five U.S. residents, or more than 61 million people, also speak one of 380 detailed languages coded by the U.S. Census Bureau. While many of these speakers of other languages also speak English fluently, a significant share is Limited English Proficient (LEP). This tool identifies the top languages spoken nationally, by state, and in Puerto Rico, as well as the LEP share of speakers of that language. The bubble chart displays the top 10 languages (excluding English) spoken by people (ages 5 and older) across the United States and in Puerto Rico. The bigger the bubble, the larger the number of speakers of a particular language. The darker the bubble, the higher the share of speakers of this language who are LEP. The bar chart on the right ranks languages by percent of speakers who are LEP. Use the menu to select the geography of interest. After clicking on any individual bubble, click within the chart’s blank space to restore other language bubbles. 

Notes: 
1) *Data refer to the population ages 5 and older who speak a language other than English. While the Census Bureau codes more than 380 detailed languages, it collapses less frequently spoken languages into language groups. This tool presents information on 35 languages/language groups available in the data tabulations. Of the available 35 languages/language groups, the bar chart displays only those with at least 1,000 speakers. 
2) The term Limited English Proficient (LEP) refers to any person age 5 or older who reported speaking English “not at all,” “not well,” or “well” on their American Community Survey (ACS) questionnaire. Persons who speak only English or who report speaking English “very well” are considered proficient in English and are not included in this data.
3) "Spanish" includes Spanish and Spanish Creole; "Portuguese" includes Portuguese and Portuguese Creole; "French" includes Patois and Cajun; "French Creole" includes Haitian Creole; "Chinese" includes Mandarin, Cantonese, and Chinese. 
4) "Other Pacific Island (PI) languages" exclude Tagalog, which is shown separately.
5) "Other West Germanic languages" exclude German and Yiddish, which are shown separately. The remaining miscellaneous "Other West Germanic languages" group is not shown, which may affect the top 10 language ranking.
6) "Native American" languages include Navajo and other native North American languages.
7) No further detail exists for the “African languages” category in the original data.  
8) "Other Asian languages" exclude Chinese, Hmong, Japanese, Korean, Laotian, Mon-Khmer/Cambodian, Thai, and Vietnamese, which are shown separately.
9) "Other Indic languages" exclude Gujarati, Hindi, and Urdu, which are shown separately.
10) "Other Indo-Euro languages" represent languages of South Asia, Europe, and parts of Western and Central Asia. This category excludes Armenian, French, German, Greek, Italian, Persian, Portuguese, Slavic languages, and certain Indic languages, which are shown separately.
11) "Other Slavic languages" exclude Polish, Russian, and Serbo-Croatian, which are shown separately.
12) "Other and unspecified languages" are excluded from the tool.
Source: 

Migration Policy Institute tabulation of data from the U.S. Census Bureau's pooled 2009-2013 American Community Survey.