Editing Language Spoken at Home

{{Short description|Data set published by the United States Census Bureau on languages in the United States}}
'''Language Spoken at Home''' is a [[data set]] published by the [[United States Census Bureau]] on [[languages in the United States]]. It is based on a three-part language question asked about all household members who are five years old or older. The first part asks if the person speaks a language other than English at home. If the answer is "yes", the respondent is asked what that language is. The third part of the question asks how well the person speaks English ("Very well", "Well", "not well", "Not at all").

The three-part question was first asked in 1980; It replaced a question about mother tongue. In 2000, the language question appeared on the long-form questionnaire which was distributed to 1 out of 6 households. After the long form census was eliminated (after the 2000 census), the language question was moved to the [[American Community Survey]] (ACS). The language questions used by the US Census changed numerous times during 20th century.<ref name="Stevens1999">{{cite journal |doi=10.2307/2648061 |last=Stevens |first=Gillian |year=1999 |title=A Century of US Censuses and the Language Characteristics of Immigrants |journal=Demography |volume=36 |issue=3 |pages=387–397|jstor=2648061 |pmid=10472502 }}</ref> Changes in the language questions are tied to the changing ideologies of language in addition to changing language policies.<ref name="Leeman2018">{{cite journal |doi=10.1515/ijsl-2018-0013 |last=Leeman |first=Jennifer |year=2018 |title=It's All about English: The Interplay of Monolingual Ideologies, Language Policies and the U.S. Census Bureau's Statistics on Multilingualism |journal=International Journal of the Sociology of Language |issue=252 |pages=21–43}}</ref>

== Data published ==
The published data varies in the amount of detail provided each year. 

In [[2000 United States census|2000]] and 1990, language spoken was a part of Summary File 3. For the 2000 census, data was published for 30 languages, chosen for their nationwide distribution, and 10 language groupings (see list below). Data from households which report languages other than the 30 are reported under the language groupings. Thus, languages which are widespread in certain areas of the country but not nationally get put together, even in block level data. [[Lithuanian language|Lithuanian]], and [[Welsh language|Welsh]] are simply "Other Indo-European languages," [[Yoruba language|Yoruba]] and [[Swahili language|Swahili]] are simply "African languages," and [[Indonesian language|Indonesian]] and [[Hakka language|Hakka]] are simply "Other Asian languages." Several locally very well represented languages, such as [[Punjabi language|Punjabi]] and [[Pennsylvania Dutch language|Pennsylvania German]], are collated into smaller groupings. Native North American languages besides [[Navajo language|Navajo]] are also collated, though they are reported on several geographic levels in another data set.  

For the 2009-2013 ACS data, [https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2013/demo/2009-2013-lang-tables.html detailed information] was provided on over 300 languages. In addition to the number of speakers reported for each language, the count of speakers whose English speaking ability is less than "very well" is also reported. 

Updated information is available via the Census Bureau's [https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs/data.html American Community Survey Data page].

== Data usage ==
Statistics on English-speaking ability and language spoken at home are used by the Justice Department in the implementation of the [[Voting Rights Act]] and to allocate funds for to schools for programs for English Language Learners. Federal and local governments, as well as non-governmental and private interests also use these statistics.


== Languages and language groupings ==

{| class="wikitable floatright" style="font-size: 90%; border: 1px solid #999; float: right; margin-left: 1em; width: 240px; text-align: right;"
|+Language spoken at home summary (U.S. Census 2000){{Update inline|date=March 2025}}
|-
! scope="col" | Language
! scope="col" | %
|-
| [[English language|English]] 
| 82.105%
|-
| [[Spanish language|Spanish]]
| 10.710%
|-
| [[Chinese language|Chinese]] (all [[varieties of Chinese]] incl.)
| 0.78%&nbsp;&nbsp;
|-
| [[French language|French]] (incl. [[Patois]], [[Cajun French|Cajun]])
| 0.627%
|-
| [[German language|German]]
| 0.527%
|-
| [[Tagalog language|Tagalog]] (Filipino)
| 0.467%
|-
| [[Vietnamese language|Vietnamese]]
| 0.385%
|-
| [[Italian language|Italian]]
| 0.384%
|-
| [[Korean language|Korean]]
| 0.341%
|-
| [[Russian language|Russian]]
| 0.269%
|-
| [[Polish language|Polish]]
| 0.254%
|-
| [[Arabic language|Arabic]]
| 0.234%
|-
| [[Portuguese language|Portuguese]] or [[Portuguese-based creole languages|Portuguese Creole]]
| 0.215%
|-
| [[Albanian language|Albanian]]
| 0.201%
|-
| [[Japanese language|Japanese]]
| 0.182%
|-
| [[French-based creole languages|French Creole]]
| 0.173%
|-
| Other [[Indo-Aryan languages|Indic languages]] (including [[Dravidian languages]]?)
| 0.167%
|-
| [[Languages of Africa|African language]]s
| 0.160%
|-
| Other [[Asian languages]]
| 0.152%
|-
| [[Greek language|Greek]]
| 0.139%
|-
| Other [[Indo-European languages]]
| 0.242%
|-
| [[Hindi language|Hindi]]
| 0.121%
|-
| [[Persian language|Persian]]
| 0.119%
|-
| Other [[Slavic languages]]
| 0.115%
|-
| [[Urdu language|Urdu]]
| 0.100%
|-
| [[Dutch language|Dutch]] (and [[Afrikaans]])
| 0.096%
|-
| [[Gujarati language|Gujarati]]
| 0.090%
|-
| Other [[Native American languages]]
| 0.078%
|-
| [[Armenian language|Armenian]]
| 0.077%
|-
| [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]]
| 0.074%
|-
| [[Mon language|Mon]], [[Khmer language|Khmer]]
| 0.069%
|-
| [[Yiddish language|Yiddish]]
| 0.068%
|-
| [[Navajo language|Navajo]]
| 0.068%
|-
| [[Hmong language|Hmong]]
| 0.064%
|-
| [[North Germanic languages]]
| 0.062%
|-
| [[Lao language|Lao]]
| 0.057%
|-
| [[Thai language|Thai]]
| 0.046%
|-
| [[Hungarian language|Hungarian]]
| 0.045%
|-
| All other and unspecified
| 0.055%
|}

* [[English language|English]]
* [[Spanish language|Spanish]] or Spanish [[creole language|Creole]]
* [[French language|French]] (incl. Patois, Cajun)
* [[Nepali language|Nepali]]
* [[German language|German]]
* [[Italian language|Italian]]
* [[Portuguese language|Portuguese]] or Portuguese Creole
* [[Romanian language|Romanian]]
* [[Yiddish]]
* [[Dutch language|Dutch]] (and Afrikaans) (West Germanic languages)
* [[North Germanic languages|Scandinavian languages]]
* [[Greek language|Greek]]
* [[Russian language|Russian]]
* [[Polish language|Polish]]
* [[Albanian language|Albanian]]
* [[Croatian language|Croatian]] 
* [[Serbian language|Serbian]]
* Other [[Slavic language]]s
* [[Armenian language|Armenian]]
* [[Persian language|Persian]]
* [[Bengali language|Bengali]]
* [[Gujarati language|Gujarati]]
* [[Hindi]]
* [[Urdu]]
* [[Kurdish language|Kurdish]]
* [[Marathi language|Marathi]]
* Other Indic languages (besides [[Gujarati language|Gujarati]], [[Hindi]], [[Bengali language|Bengali]], [[Urdu]] and [[Marathi language|Marathi]])
* Other Indo-European languages (besides the above 20 languages and 3 groupings)
* [[Tamil language|Tamil]] (South Indian - Dravidian)
* [[Malayalam language|Malayalam]] (South Indian - Dravidian)
* [[Kannada language|Kannada]] (South Indian - Dravidian)
* [[Telugu language|Telugu]] (South Indian - Dravidian)
* [[Chinese language|Chinese]] (all varieties, including "Formosan" (i.e. [[Taiwanese Hokkien]]))
* [[Japanese language|Japanese]]
* [[Korean language|Korean]]
* [[Mon-Khmer languages|Mon-Khmer]], [[Cambodian language|Cambodian]]
* Miao, Hmong
* Filipino, (including [[Tagalog language|Tagalog]] and [[Ilocano language|Ilocano]])
* [[Thai language|Thai]]
* [[Laotian language|Laotian]]
* [[Vietnamese language|Vietnamese]]
* Other Asian languages (besides the above 11 languages)
* [[Navajo language|Navajo]]
* Other Native North American languages
* [[Hungarian language|Hungarian]]
* [[Arabic language|Arabic]]
* [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]]
* [[African languages]]
* Assyrian language (including [[Suret language|Suret]] and [[Turoyo language|Turoyo]])
* Other and unspecified languages

== See also ==
*[[Languages of the United States]]
*[[Languages in censuses]]
*[[Ancestry (United States Census)]]
*[[Historical racial and ethnic demographics of the United States]]
*[[Race and ethnicity in the United States census]]
*[[List of U.S. communities where English is not the majority language spoken at home]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
*[https://www.census.gov/topics/population/language-use.html Language Use (Official US Census)]
*[https://www.census.gov American Fact-finder (Official US Census)]

{{Demographics of the United States}}

[[Category:Demographics of the United States]]
[[Category:Languages of the United States]]