Languages of the United States

80%
Spanish 12.4%
other Indo-European languages 3.7%
Asian and indo-pacific 3%

A trash can in Seattle marked in four languages: English, Chinese, Vietnamese and Spanish.

The United States does not have an official language, but English is predominant in public spaces and is the mother tongue of the majority of the population. However, no federal regulation declares English as an official language. However, the Constitution and the laws are drafted in English and it is the language in which the functions of the government are carried out. Some federal laws implicitly require knowledge of English. Hundreds of other languages and dialects are spoken, however, Spanish being the most common among them, a language that is also recognized in some Southwestern jurisdictions.

Traditionally, in large cities there have been neighborhoods in which the first generation of immigrants from a given country gather and then successive generations leave the place. A notable exception are the Chinatowns, chinatowns, the most important of which is found in the city of San Francisco (California). After decades of repression, Native American languages, or indigenous Amerindian languages, are being preserved and taught on reservations. A singular case within the United States is the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, whose first official language is Spanish (English is the secondary official language).

Official language and statistics

Official language status

In the absence of an official language at the federal level in the United States, many individual states and territories have adopted English as their official state language:

Official language of states and territories.

English is the official language.

No official language; multiple languages de facto.

No official language; English de facto.

Two or more official languages.

Some states and territories are officially or de facto bi- or trilingual:

New York State had state government documents (for example, population records) co-written in the Dutch language until the 1920s, in order to preserve the New Netherland heritage, even though England annexed the colony in 1664.

Indian languages are official or co-official on many American Indian reservations and towns. In Oklahoma before becoming a state in 1907, the territory's leaders debated whether to have Cherokee, Choctaw, and Muscogee as co-official, but the idea never took shape.

In New Mexico, although the state constitution does not specify an official language, laws are published in English and Spanish, and government material and services are legally (by law) required to be accessible to speakers of both languages.

It has been claimed that the New Mexico situation is part of the stipulations of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo of 1848; however, no mention of "language rights" appears in the Treaty or in the Protocol of Querétaro, beyond the fact that the "Mexican inhabitants" do not have (1) any reduction of rights below those of United States citizens and (2) exactly the same rights as those listed in Article III of the Louisiana Purchase Treaty and in the Louisiana Purchase Treaty Florida. This would imply that the legal status of the Spanish language in New Mexico and in areas not included, in the Venta de la Mesilla of Arizona, is the same as that of French in Louisiana, and surely no less than that of German in Pennsylvania.

The issue of bilingualism also applies to the states of Arizona and Texas. The Texas constitution has no official language policy. Arizona passed a proposition in the November 7, 2006 general election declaring English the official language. But historic bilingual representation persists in the Southwestern states. ^{[citation required]}

On May 19, 2006, the United States Senate voted to make English the national language of the United States. Under the bill, authored by Senator James M. Inhofe (R-Oklahoma), the federal government would no longer provide multilingual communications and services, except those already guaranteed by law. Shortly after the passage of the Inhofe amendment, the Senate voted for another bill by Sen. Ken Salazar (D-Col.), making English "the common unification language of the United States," but specifying that nothing in that " must diminish or amplify any existing rights" in terms of multilingual services. None of the projects ended up becoming Law.

Statistics and censuses

According to 2015 United States Census data, the top languages by number of speakers over the age of 5 are: ^{[citation needed]}

In the year 2000, the US Census Bureau printed its standard census questionnaires in six languages: English, Spanish, Chinese (in traditional characters), Tagalog, Vietnamese, and Korean.

North American Indian Languages

Indian reserves in the United States, where more than a hundred indigenous languages are spoken.

Before Europeans settled in North America, a large number of languages were spoken in the territories that would later form part of the United States. These languages continued to be widely spoken for at least two more centuries, most languages have lost speakers and many have become extinct (only a few have more speakers today than at the beginning of the century XIX). In some parts of the United States, mainly on certain Indian reservations, they continue to be spoken and have a sufficient number of fluent speakers. Most of the indigenous languages that are still spoken are severely threatened, since in many cases they have few speakers, most of them elderly or middle-aged, while the new generations of indigenous people mainly use English and have a command of deficient in their ancestral language.

As of 2008, the number of native language speakers in the United States was 373,949, belonging to 135 native languages still spoken in the territory.

Main indigenous languages

According to the 2000 census and other language surveys, the most widely spoken indigenous language in the United States today is Navajo (Navaho). The other languages in order of numerical importance are Cherokee and Choctaw.

Indigenous languages spoken by states

Except Alaska, which officially has several indigenous languages, in the rest of the states the majority indigenous language of the state was made the official language at the level of the entire state and the rest without official status in an attempt for at least one indigenous language to survive by state.

• List of States

Linguistic diversity

In addition to the languages mentioned, many other indigenous languages are still spoken within the United States. In addition, its internal diversity is enormous since the languages that are still spoken belong to 28 different linguistic families:

Languages of European origin

American English

According to the 1990 census, 97% of the US population speak English fluently, and more than 99% know the language to some degree. All federal business is in English, and it is necessary to know English to be a legal immigrant. It is the majority language in all states. It is important to note that US English is quite different from other countries where it is spoken. The best known difference is the spelling, which is simpler. In addition, there is what many academics have come to call Black Vernacular English (IVN), which includes the aspects of this diglossy within Afro-American communities, among whose characteristics are the rejection of verbal conjugation, ex: (I is, you is, he is...) and the phonetic absence of the "r" word final ("mo'" instead of "more")

Spanish

Distribution of Spanish Speakers in the USA. in the 2010 Census.

Spanish is the primary language of Puerto Rico and one of the de facto official languages of the state of New Mexico. Nationwide, roughly 12% of the population speaks it, mostly in the southwestern states. It is also the most popular language to learn as a second language. Many official matters of the federated states are also exposed in Spanish. The Spanish that is widely spoken and usually taught in the US is more similar to Mexican than that of other countries, except Puerto Rico. Most of the public messages that have subtitles have them in Spanish.

In California, section 1632 of the Civil Code recognizes the Spanish language, hence the Dymally-Alatorre law on bilingual services, institutes English-Spanish bilingualism, without necessarily excluding other languages.

In Texas, the government through section 2054.116 of the Government Code, mandates that state agencies provide information on their web pages in Spanish.

The Case of New Mexico

People often believe that Spanish is one of the official languages of New Mexico along with English, due to the former's extensive use throughout the state, even with its own dialectal variant, New Mexican Spanish. However it is not so. The state constitution provided for the existence of a temporarily bilingual government. The US Commission on Civil Rights acknowledges that in 1912 "New Mexicans succeeded in protecting their heritage, inserting provisions into their Constitution making Spanish an official language equal to English". The state government publishes ballot papers and a driver's manual in both languages, and beginning in 1995, New Mexico adopted a "Bilingual State Song" called New Mexico - My Cute New Mexico.

Pennsylvania German

The Pennsylvania German (Pennsilfaanisch-Deitsch, Pennsilfaani-Deitsch) is a linguistic variety belonging to the Alto-Germanic languages (Westmitteldeutsch, in German) and is spoken by between 150,000 and 250,000 people in North America.

Today most of the speakers belong to the Amish and Mennonite sects of the old order; established in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana, in the United States and in Ontario, Canada.

This language is spoken primarily by the Amish community who have not embraced the modern lifestyle.