https://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-the-most-common-language-in-every-state-map-2019-6

This is a map of the US states, with the most common language (outside of English and Spanish) spoken in that state.

I guarantee that you will be astounded by some of these states (like Nebraska....I NEVER woulda thought that THIS language is the most commonly spoken language, outside of English and Spanish, in NEBRASKA!--and if you actually did guess this language, you DO belong on "Jeopardy"....tell the producers I recommended that you go through the audition process).

For everyone: Super great fun all around.

I have seen this map before. Surprised to see Nepali and Haitian Creole (a highly divergent form of French) on here.

Jordan Wrote:
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> I have seen this map before. Surprised to see
> Nepali and Haitian Creole (a highly divergent form
> of French) on here.

The Nepali was astounding to me--especially since I can't figure out what attraction there is between those speakers and that particular state.

Probably all the mountains!

elderolddog Wrote:
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> Probably all the mountains!

:D

Tevai Wrote:
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> Jordan Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > I have seen this map before. Surprised to see
> > Nepali and Haitian Creole (a highly divergent
> form
> > of French) on here.
>
> The Nepali was astounding to me--especially since
> I can't figure out what attraction there is
> between those speakers and that particular state.

I know a few Nepali speakers (one waa an ex-work colleague), but I would have expected to see Hindi, Urdu or Bengali although Gujarati is on there.

Good to see a couple of indigenous languages still on there though.

Languages I'm surprised are NOT on here somewhere - Ukrainian & Russian, Italian, Japanese (in Hawaii)... It wkuld have been interesting to see this compares to fifty or a hundred years ago, as I'm sure Swedish, Yiddish, and Hungarian might have been on there too.

How will they turn white and delightsome if they keep speaking Navajo?

Often people from developing countries follow one another so that they have a network of compatriots in their new land who can help if problems arise. There are cities in Europe where almost all the Chinese immigrants are from specific Chinese provinces or even counties.

The same dynamic explains why Somalis cluster in certain parts of the US and how the Hmong ended up concentrated in Wisconsin and some other Midwestern states. I suspect that explains how the Nepalese ended up in Nebraska.

If the cartographers added second and third languages, it would show pockets of Somalis and Ethiopians and Afghans around Washington, DC; and Iranians in southern California. People want to be with those who share their language and cultural values.

Long Beach has a big Cambodian community and the Armenians in Hollywood and Glendale are trying to grow in each other's direction so they can connect!

Many are Bhutanese refugees. The gov. picks where they wind up at first. Then family follows.

RTB, Nepali is a minority language in Bhutan, is it not? Is there a program of repression driving the Nepalese out of Bhutan or some other reason that emigrants would disproportionately speak a minor tongue?

Yes, the Bhutanese coming to America are a Nepalese related minority (language and culture) in Bhutan. Starting in around 1990 the Bhutan Government started persecuting them and driving them out.

Thank you. It's nice to learn.



ETA: I incidentally wonder if the United States should build a wall in the Himalayas.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/28/2019 03:40PM by Lot's Wife.

Richard the Bad Wrote:
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> Many are Bhutanese refugees. The gov. picks where
> they wind up at first. Then family follows.

Good observation.

You are undoubtedly correct.

I wouldn't have guessed French as being the third most prominent language in Maryland or North Carolina.

The fact that they had to exclude Spanish as well as English is also a clear indicator that Spanish is for all practical purposes the second language of the United States. It probably goes something like this:

English > Spanish >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> then, more or less, the others in relatively much smaller percentages. I wonder which, if any, of those states has another language that is statistically close to Spanish.

I was surprised and amused by that map.

Back in junior high, in the '60s, I had the choice of taking French or Spanish. If future me had been able to advise 13-year-old me, he would've said, "Take Spanish. You're going to live in California and spend most of your time in the Southwest. And you're going to love Mexico. Oh, and it's way easier than French."

But French was considered the classy language, Spanish the lowbrow one.

No one ever suggested I take Tagalog.

olderelder Wrote:
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> No one ever suggested I take Tagalog.

This was a surprise to me too.

I'd like to see a California only map like this, because if you asked me what the third language might be, I would have chosen from: Chinese (both Mandarin and Cantonese), Japanese, Korean, Thai, Ethiopian, Farsi....

In other words, I NEVER would have thought of Tagalog!

I desperately wanted to study French, as I had made up my 13-year-old mind that I was going to beat feet to Tahiti one day.

My father, who hardly ever put his foot down about anything, insisted that I study Spanish. Why? Well, we lived in San Diego, for one thing.

Learning Spanish literally changed the direction of my life. And I never quite made it to Tahiti. (Though I did learn to speak French decently enough to make my way around France as a tourist.)

"Beat feet..."

You gorgeous hippie, you!

The united States of America is only second to Mexico in the amount of Spanish speakers. Yes, there are more Spanish speakers in the US than in Spain.

Pretending that the US should only be English speaking is ridiculous, ignorant and short-sighted.

I was in Aztek, New Mexico 2 months ago. An old Native American Man who has lived in the reservation his entire life and I talked for a while while walking the ruins. His English was not great and jokingly said "I'm sorry that my English is not great, I should have to learn English, I am an AMERICAN!"

He is 100% right. English is the common language in the US but inserting nativist arguments does not change the fact that we are a multicultural and multilingual country...now if we could just have the people be the same.

The U.S. has never not been a multicultural and multilingual country.

Are you suggesting we don't have an official national language? Or just that it shouldn't be English?

I'm asking in reference to your statement: "Pretending that the US should only be English speaking is ridiculous, ignorant and short-sighted."

If what you mean by that is that no one should be pressured to only speak English, especially in their own homes, I couldn't agree more. If what you mean by that is that we shouldn't all strive to communicate in a common tongue (in addition to our native languages), I would have to disagree.

<<The U.S. has never not been a multicultural and multilingual country.>>

Actually, it always has been multicultural and multilingual. Even more so before we killed all the Indians.

<<Are you suggesting we don't have an official national language?>>

No need to suggest it, it's a fact.

<<The U.S. has never not been a multicultural and multilingual country.>>

<<<Actually, it always has been multicultural and multilingual.>>>

Those 2 statements are the same. You were agreeing with me.


<<<No need to suggest it, it's a fact.>>>

Thanks! I learned something :)

I was confused by the double negative as well. Perhaps it would have been better to write it as a positive assertion as BOJ suggests.

In any case the multi-culturalism and multi-lingualism has served the country well. To adduce one instance, WWII would have lasted a year or two more if the US had not had Germans and Jewish refugee scientists at hand. Then there was the enrichment of American culture as composers, artists, and writers flocked across the seas to the New World. Imagine the outcome, military and cultural, if Germany had not driven those people to our shores.

Yep, duly noted. It sounded better in my head. Thanks for the feedback!

I don't know a thing about you, honklermaga, but I think I like you. You have strong opinions, some of which I don't share, but when challenged you think before you reply and sometimes you change your mind.

I suspect you are a confident, intelligent man. Such people are rare.

Thanks, Lot's Wife :) I'm surprised by how much that means to me.

I'm doing my best to become an anti-fragile person. Good critiques of my thoughts don't stay good critiques because they become my new opinions.

Your good critiques of my thoughts have become my new opinions. Maybe one day I'll give you a good one and change your mind on something. I get the feeling I have a long way to go before that happens!

Actually, you have already changed my mind on some things. Generally I react harshly, for instance, to "maga" since I associate it with policies that I think are bad for the country. But you have reminded me that not everyone with that self-affixed label is obdurately hostile.

There are other areas, too, but that was the first. Don't underestimate the power of an open-mind to influence others as well as oneself.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/28/2019 06:39PM by Lot's Wife.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
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> In any case the multi-culturalism and
> multi-lingualism has served the country well.

Its leaders have not seen it that way. Where are the hundreds of indigenous languages of the USA? Dead or dying. Only a handful like Navajo seem to have beaten back the tide.

Where are the numerous speakers of Dutch (real Dutch not German), Gaelic, Welsh etc? Or the speakers of Mexican Spanish in Texas whose families predate the "revolution"? Largely assimilated.

Even Yiddish, Polish and Italian are a shadow of their former numbers.

Language teaching is not up to much in American schools. Many Americans do become fluent learners but many do not. The only places I've known with worse language teaching are the UK and Japan. You'd think with an easy language like Spanish with a widespread presence in the USA that the USA would be full of fluent learners, but it's not.

Yawn.

Acts 17:18

Abnaki, Eastern
Adai
Ais
Alsea
Apalachee
Atakapa
Atsina
Atsugewi language
Barbareño
Biloxi
Calusa
Cayuse
Chehalis
Chimariko
Chitimacha
Coquille
Costanoan, Northern
Costanoan, Southern
Cowlitz
Cruzeño
Pidgin Delaware
Eel River Athabaskan
Esselen
Etchemin
Eyak
Galice-Applegate
Hanis
Ineseño
Iowa-Oto
Island Chumash
Jersey Dutch
Karankawa
Karkin
Kathlamet
Kato
Kitsai
Kwalhioqua-Clatskanie
Klallam
Loup A
Loup B
Lumbee
Mahican
Mandan
Valley Maidu
Mattole-Bear River
Miluk
Bay Miwok
Coast Miwok
Mobilian
Mohawk Dutch
Mohegan
Molala
Nanticoke
Narragansett
Natchez
Nooksack
Northern Kalapuyan
Obispeño
Ofo
Pamlico
Piro
Pomo, Eastern
Pomo, Northern
Powhatan
Purisimeño
Quiripi-Naugatuck-Unquachog
Salinan
Shasta
Shinnecock
Siuslaw
Susquehannock
Takelma
Tillamook
Timucua
Tonkawa
Tsetsaut
Tunica
Tutelo
Twana
Upper Umpqua
Ventureño
Wappo
Wichita
Wiyot
Wyandot
Yana
Yaquina
Yoncalla
Yurok

These appear to be the languages of some Native American tribes (many of which I have never seen before), but how were they selected?

What is the point you are making by listing these particular Native American languages, as verses the ones you did NOT include in the list?

These languages are all dead. It isn't even a complete list, as it excludes some which have died out in my lifetime. Jersey Dutch is one of the few which has been introduced.

I wanted to counter the idea that the USA has been a haven for languages... Oftentimes it feels like it has been a devourer of them.

Jordan Wrote:
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> These languages are all dead. It isn't even a
> complete list, as it excludes some which have died
> out in my lifetime. Jersey Dutch is one of the few
> which has been introduced.
>
> I wanted to counter the idea that the USA has been
> a haven for languages... Oftentimes it feels like
> it has been a devourer of them.

This is an interesting topic, which I've never thought of before in exactly these terms.

Yes, it is true that what is now the USA has been "devouring" languages since 1492 (with genocide being the leading cause until around the beginning of the twentieth century), but there is also a counter-action which sometimes develops, where the language is gradually used by less and less native speakers (who begin speaking English or Spanish instead)....but then a counter-action develops around the third or fourth generation, and the language is "artificially" revived (either in academic studies, or in real life).

This does not always happen, and when it does happen it is not always successful, but at least in some cases, there are attempts to save the language (beyond religious uses of the language, which tend to last as long as those tribal religions last).

I agree that many Native American languages have been dying out for over five centuries (since Columbus landed his ships in the New World).

> I agree that many Native American languages have
> been dying out for over five centuries (since
> Columbus landed his ships in the New World).


I think Jordan is waiting for a personal apology from Lot's Wife for the above-noted tragedy. The man cannot be said to lack focus.

All that buffoon is getting from me is a yawn. I refuse, yet again, to follow him down his latest rabbit hole.

That babbler is under the impression that his saying something makes it important.

I'm sure it had something to do with Communism.

Some of the genocides were at the hands of rival tribes. You can’t pin it all on Whitey.

Canadians also slaughtered Native Americans.

babyloncansuckit Wrote:
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> Some of the genocides were at the hands of rival
> tribes. You can’t pin it all on Whitey.

That still doesn't account for the twentieth century extinctions.

The USA hasn't been a good place for linguistic diversity. The only languages I've noticed thriving there are Spanish, and strangely French. I suppose things are different now that we have the internet and international broadcasting... But still.

Pop quiz question - who was the first IS president to have English as a second language. A: Apparently Van Buren, a Dutch speaker.

US even!

I apologize for misreading your statement.

This is actually on topic for me. I have a kid in the MTC about to go to New England to speak Spanish?

Eww! New England Mexicans have this annoying accent...

elderolddog Wrote:
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> Eww! New England Mexicans have this annoying
> accent...

:D

What's a matter you?

I'm surprised Norwegian didn't beat German in ND. I suppose it is because the Germans came almost a generation later than the primary Norwegian immigration. I think there are more Norwegian descendants, but the longer time in the US means fewer people still speak Norwegian at home.

I suppose the only reason native languages didn't come out on top in ND is because unlike SD, ND tribes are from various nations, not all of which spoke Siouan (Lakota) languages.

Brother Of Jerry Wrote:
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> I'm surprised Norwegian didn't beat German in ND.
> I suppose it is because the Germans came almost a
> generation later than the primary Norwegian
> immigration. I think there are more Norwegian
> descendants, but the longer time in the US means
> fewer people still speak Norwegian at home.
>
> I suppose the only reason native languages didn't
> come out on top in ND is because unlike SD, ND
> tribes are from various nations, not all of which
> spoke Siouan (Lakota) languages.

Danish-Norwegian-Swedish are all arguably the same language (but don't ever say that to their speakers!)... If the language was Scandinavian then they may have won.

I'm glad to see Native American languages on here. Maybe one day, Hawaiian will appear on there as it is having a fairly successful revival program just now.