Languages of the United States

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Languages of the United States
Officialnone
MainAmerican English (82%)
IndigenousHawaiian, Navajo, Dakota, Central Alaskan Yup'ik, Cherokee, Western Apache, Piman, Choctaw, Keres, Zuni, Ojibwe
MinoritySpanish 10.7%, French Cajun French, Louisiana Creole, Haitian creole, German Pennsylvania German, Chinese, Hindi, Italian, Russian, Scandinavian languages, Tagalog
ForeignSpanish, French, German[1]
Keyboard layout

The United States does not have an official language; however, the majority of the population speaks English as a native language (about 82%.) The variety of English spoken in the United States is known as American English; together with Canadian English it makes up the group of dialects known as North American English. 96% of the population of the U.S. speaks English "well" or "very well".[2] There have been several proposals to make English the national language in amendments to immigration reform bills.[3][4] None of these bills have become law with the amendment intact.

The Spanish language is the second-most common language in the country, spoken by almost 30 million people (or 13% of the population) in 2005. In Puerto Rico, both Spanish and English have the status of official language, and in New Mexico laws are published in both languages. Throughout the Southwestern United States, long-established Spanish-speaking communities coexist with large numbers of more recent Spanish-speaking immigrants. The United States holds the world's fifth largest Spanish-speaking population, outnumbered only by Mexico, Spain, Argentina, and Colombia. The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico is predominantly Spanish-speaking. Although many new Latin American immigrants are less than fluent in English, second-generation Hispanic Americans commonly speak English fluently, while only about half still speak Spanish.[citation needed]

According to the 2000 US census, people of German ancestry make up the largest single ethnic group in the United States, and the German language ranks fifth. Italian, Polish, and Greek are still widely spoken among populations descending from immigrants from those countries in the early 20th century, but the use of these languages is dwindling as older generations pass away. Starting in the 1970s and continuing until the mid 1990s, many people from the Soviet Union and later its constituent republics such as Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Uzbekistan have immigrated to the United States, causing Russian to become one of the minority languages in the United States.

Tagalog and Vietnamese have over one million speakers in the United States, almost entirely within recent immigrant populations.

There is also a small population of Native Americans who still speak their native languages, but these populations are decreasing, and the languages are almost never widely used outside of reservations. Hawaiian, although having few native speakers, is still used at the state level in Hawaii along with the English language. Likewise, Louisiana declared French an official language alongside English in 1974. Besides English, Spanish, French, German, Navajo and other Native American languages, all other languages are usually learned from immigrant ancestors that came after the time of independence or learned through some form of education.

Approximately 337 languages are spoken or signed by the population, of which 176 are indigenous to the area. 52 languages formerly spoken in the country's territory are now extinct.[5]

Census statistics

Language Spoken At Home (2000)[6]
English only 82.10%
Spanish 10.71%
Chinese 0.61%
French 0.61%
German 0.52%
Tagalog 0.46%
Vietnamese 0.38%
Italian 0.38%
Korean 0.34%
Russian 0.26%
Polish 0.25%
Arabic 0.23%
Portuguese 0.21%
Japanese 0.18%
French Creole 0.17%
Greek 0.13%
Hindi 0.12%
Persian 0.11%
Urdu 0.10%
Cantonese 0.09%
Gujarati 0.08%
Armenian 0.07%
Hebrew 0.07%
Mon-Khmer, Cambodian 0.06%
Kru, Igbo, Yoruba 0.06%
Yiddish 0.06%
Navajo 0.06%
Mandarin 0.06%
Hmong 0.06%
Dutch 0.05%

According to the 2000 census[7], the main languages by number of speakers older than 5 are:

  1. English - 215 million
  2. Spanish - 28 million
  3. Chinese languages - 2.0 million + (mostly Cantonese speakers, with a growing group of Mandarin speakers)
  4. French - 1.6 million
  5. German - 1.4 million (High German) + German dialects like Hutterite German, Texas German, Pennsylvania Dutch, Plautdietsch
  6. Tagalog - 1.2 million + (Most Filipinos may also know other Philippine languages, e.g. Ilokano, Pangasinan, Bikol languages, and Visayan languages)
  7. Vietnamese - 1.01 million
  8. Italian - 1.01 million
  9. Korean - 890,000
  10. Russian - 710,000
  11. Polish - 670,000
  12. Arabic - 610,000
  13. Portuguese - 560,000
  14. Japanese - 480,000
  15. French Creole - 450,000 (mostly Louisiana Creole French - 334,500)
  16. Greek - 370,000
  17. Hindi - 320,000
  18. Persian - 310,000
  19. Urdu - 260,000
  20. Gujarati - 240,000
  21. Armenian - 200,000

Official language status

The United States does not have a national official language; nevertheless, English (specifically, American English) is the primary language used for legislation, regulations, executive orders, treaties, federal court rulings, and all other official pronouncements, although there are laws requiring documents such as ballots to be printed in multiple languages when there is a large number of non-English speakers in an area. Some federal legislation implicitly standardizes English.[8]

Many individual states and territories have adopted English as their official language:[9]

Official language status of states and territories.

California has agreed to allow the publication of state documents in other languages to represent minority groups and immigrant communities. Languages such as Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Tagalog, Persian, Russian, Vietnamese, and Thai appear in official state documents, and the Department of Motor Vehicles publishes in 47 languages.

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

The state of New York had state government documents (i.e., vital records) co-written in the Dutch language until the 1920s, in order to preserve the legacy of New Netherlands, though England annexed the colony in 1664.[15]

Native American languages are official or co-official on many of the U.S. Indian reservations and pueblos. In Oklahoma before statehood in 1907, territory officials debated whether or not to have Cherokee, Choctaw and Muscogee languages as co-official, but the idea never gained ground.

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 required (by Act) to be made accessible to speakers of both languages.

Some have asserted that the New Mexico situation is part of the provisions in the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo; however, no mention of "language rights" is made in the Treaty or in the Protocol of Querétaro, beyond the "Mexican inhabitants" having (1) no reduction of rights below those of citizens of the United States and (2) precisely the same rights as are mentioned in Article III of the Treaty of the Louisiana Purchase and in the Treaty of the Florida Purchase. This would imply that the legal status of the Spanish language in New Mexico and in non-Gadsden Purchase areas of Arizona is the same as of French in Louisiana and certainly not less than that of German in Pennsylvania.

The issue of bilingualism also applies in the states of Arizona and Texas, while the constitution of Texas has no official language policy. Arizona passed a proposition in the November 7, 2006 general election declaring English as the official language.[16] But historical bilingual representation existed in the Southwest states.

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

On May 19, 2006, the United States Senate voted to make English the national language of the United States. According to the bill, written by Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), the federal government would no longer provide multilingual communications and services, except for those already guaranteed by law. Shortly after the approval of the Inhofe amendment, the Senate voted for another bill by Sen. Ken Salazar (D-Colo.), according to which English is the "common unifying language of the United States", but mandated that nothing in that declaration "shall diminish or expand any existing rights" regarding multilingual services. Neither of the bills were signed into law.

The English-only movement seeks to establish English as the only official language of the entire nation despite Treaty obligations to the contrary.[citation needed]

Indigenous languages

Native American languages

The Native American languages predate European settlement of the New World. In a few parts of the U.S. (mostly on Indian reservations), they continue to be spoken fluently. Most of these languages are endangered, although there are efforts to revive them. Normally the fewer the speakers of a language the greater the degree of endangerment, but there are many small Native American language communities in the Southwest (Arizona and New Mexico) which continue to thrive despite their small size.

The U.S. (and North America in general) is one of the most linguistically diverse areas in the world, as Edward Sapir observes:

"Few people realize that within the confines of the United States there is spoken today a far greater variety of languages ... than in the whole of Europe. We may go further. We may say, quite literally and safely, that in the state of California alone there are greater and more numerous linguistic extremes than can be illustrated in all the length and breadth of Europe."

According to the 2000 Census and other language surveys, the largest Native American language-speaking community by far is the Navajo. The largest communities are:

Navajo

178,000 speakers. Navajo is one of the Athabascan languages of the Na-Dené family. Along with the closely related Apache, the Navajo were first.

Dakota

Dakota has 18,000 speakers (22,000 including speakers in Canada), not counting 6,000 speakers of the closely related Lakota. Dakota is a member of the Siouan language family.

Central Alaskan Yup'ik

Central Alaskan Yup'ik has 16,000 speakers. The Yup'ik are part of the Eskimo-Aleut language family but are not Inuit.

Cherokee

Cherokee, which has 16,000 speakers, belongs to the Iroquoian language family. The Cherokee have the largest tribal affiliation in the U.S., but most are of mixed ancestry and do not speak the language. Recent efforts to preserve and increase the Cherokee language in Oklahoma and the Cherokee Indian Reservation in North Carolina have been productive.

Western Apache

Western Apache, with 12,500 speakers, is a Southern Athabaskan language closely related to Navajo, but not mutually intelligible with it.

Piman

Piman dialects (Pima and Tohono O'odham) have more than 12,000 speakers. Piman is one of the Uto-Aztecan languages along with Hopi, Comanche, Huichol, and Aztec.

Choctaw

Choctaw has 11,000 speakers. One of the Muskogean language family, like Seminole and Alabama.

Keres

Keres has 11,000 speakers. A language isolate, the Keres are the largest of the Pueblo nations. The Keres pueblo of Acoma is the oldest continually inhabited community in the United States.

Zuni

Zuni has 10,000 speakers. Zuni is a language isolate mostly spoken in a single pueblo, Zuni, the largest in the U.S.

Ojibwe

Ojibwe has 7,000 speakers (about 55,000 including speakers in Canada). The Algonquian language family includes populous languages like Cree in Canada.

Other languages

Many other languages have been spoken within the current borders of the United States. The following is a list of 28 language families (groups of demonstrably related languages) indigenous to the territory of the continental United States. With further study, some of these will probably turn out to be related to each other. For example, a relationship between Alsea, Coos, Siuslaw, and Wintu looks promising.[citation needed]

In addition to the above list of families, there are many languages in the United States that are sufficiently well-known to attempt to classify but which have not been shown to be related to any other language in the world. These 25 language isolates are listed below. With further study, some of these will likely prove to be related to each other or to one of the established families. Yuki-Wappo, for example, looks promising, and Natchez is frequently classified with the Muskogean family. Others, such as Cayuse and Adai, are so poorly known that it will probably never be possible to classify them properly. There are also larger and more contentious proposals such as Penutian and Hokan.

Since the languages in the Americas have a history stretching for about 17,000 to 12,000 years, current knowledge of American languages is limited. There are doubtless a number of languages that were spoken in the United States that are missing from historical record.

Native American sign languages

A sign-language trade pidgin, known as Plains Indian Sign Language or Plains Standard, arose among the Plains Indians. Each signing nation had a separate signed version of their spoken language, that was used by the hearing, and these were not mutually intelligible. Plains Standard was used to communicate between these nations. It seems to have started in Texas and then spread north, through the Great Plains, as far as British Columbia. There are still a few users today, especially among the Crow, Cheyenne, and Arapaho. Unlike other sign languages developed by hearing people, it shares the spatial grammar of deaf sign languages.

Austronesian languages

Hawaiian

Hawaiian is an official state language of Hawaii as prescribed in the Constitution of Hawaii. Hawaiian has 1,000 native speakers. Formerly considered critically endangered, Hawaiian is showing signs of language renaissance. The recent trend is based on new Hawaiian language immersion programs of the Hawaii State Department of Education and the University of Hawaii, as well as efforts by the Hawaii State Legislature and county governments to preserve Hawaiian place names. In 1993, about 8,000 could speak and understand it; today estimates range up to 27,000. Hawaiian is related to the Māori language spoken by around 150,000 New Zealanders and Cook Islanders as well as the Tahitian language which is spoken by another 120,000 people of Tahiti.

Samoan

Samoan is an official territorial language of American Samoa. Samoans make up 90% of the population, and most people are bilingual.

Chamorro

Chamorro is co-official in the Mariana Islands, both in the territory of Guam and in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. In Guam, the Chamorro people make up about 60% of the population.

Carolinian

Carolinian is also co-official in the Northern Marianas, where only 14% of people speak English at home.

Immigrant languages

A trash can in Seattle labeled in four languages: English, Chinese, Vietnamese (incorrectly), and Spanish/Tagalog.

Some of the first European languages to be spoken in the U.S. are English, Dutch, German, French, and Spanish.

From the mid-19th century on, the nation had large numbers of immigrants who spoke little or no English, and throughout the country state laws, constitutions, and legislative proceedings appeared in the languages of politically important immigrant groups. There have been bilingual schools and local newspapers in such languages as German, Hungarian, Irish, Italian, Norwegian, Greek, Polish, Swedish, Romanian, Czech, Japanese, Yiddish, Hebrew, Lithuanian, Welsh, Cantonese, Bulgarian, Dutch, and others, despite opposing English-only laws that, for example, illegalized church services, telephone conversations, and even conversations in the street or on railway platforms in any language other than English, until the first of these laws was ruled unconstitutional in 1923 (Meyer v. Nebraska).

Currently, Asian languages account for the majority of languages spoken in immigrant communities: Korean, various Chinese languages, and various Indian or South Asian languages like Hindi/Urdu, Gujarati, Marathi, Punjabi, Bengali, Tamil, Telgu, Kannada, Arabic, Vietnamese, Tagalog, Persian, and others. Typically, immigrant languages tend to be lost through assimilation within two or three generations, though there are some groups such as the Cajuns (French), Pennsylvania Dutch (German) in a state where large numbers of people were heard to speak it before the 1950s, and the original settlers of the Southwest (Spanish) who have maintained their languages for centuries.

English

Main article: American English

English was inherited from British colonization, and it is spoken by the vast majority of the population. It serves as the de facto official language: the language in which government business is carried out. According to the 1990 census, 97% of U.S. residents speak English "well" or "very well." Only 0.8% speak no English at all as compared with 3.6% in 1890. American English is different from British English in terms of spelling (a classic example being the dropped "u" in words such as color/colour), grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation and slang usage. The differences are not usually a barrier to effective communication between an American English and a British English speaker, but there are certainly enough differences to cause occasional misunderstandings, usually surrounding slang or region dialect differences.

English language spread in the United States.

Some states, like California, have amended their constitutions to make English the only official language, but in practice, this only means that official government documents must at least be in English, and does not mean that they should be exclusively available only in English. For example, the standard California Class C driver's license examination is available in 32 different languages.

Spanish

Spanish language spread in the United States.
Main article: Spanish in the United States

Spanish is taught in various regions as a second language, especially in areas with large Hispanic populations such as the Southwestern United States along the border with Mexico, as well as Florida, the District of Columbia, Illinois, New Jersey, and New York. In Hispanic communities across the country, bilingual signs in both Spanish and English may be quite common. Furthermore, numerous neighborhoods exist (such as Washington Heights in New York City or Little Havana in Miami) in which entire city blocks will have only Spanish language signs and Spanish-speaking people.

In addition to Spanish-speaking Hispanic populations, younger generations of non-Hispanics in the United States seem to be learning Spanish in larger numbers due to the growing Hispanic population and increasing popularity of Latin American movies and music performed in the Spanish language. Over 30 million Americans, roughly 12% of the population, speak Spanish as a first or second language, making Spanish easily the country's second-most spoken language; the United States thus has the fifth-largest Spanish speaking population in the world after Mexico, Spain, Colombia, and Argentina.[17]

Spanglish is a code switching variant of Spanish and English and is spoken in areas with large bilingual populations of Spanish and English speakers, such as along the U.S. - Mexico border (California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas), Florida, and New York City.

Chinese

Chinese, mostly of the Cantonese variety, is the third most-spoken language in the United States, almost completely spoken within Chinese American populations and by immigrants or the descendants of immigrants, especially in California.[18] Many young Americans not of Chinese descent have become interested in learning the language, specifically Standard Mandarin, the official spoken language in the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China on Taiwan. Over 2 million Americans speak some variety of Chinese, with the Mandarin variety becoming increasingly more prevalent due to the opening up of the PRC.[18]

In New York City at least, although Mandarin is spoken as a native language among only 10% of Chinese speakers, it is used as a secondary dialect among the greatest number of them and is on its way to replace Cantonese as their lingua franca.[19]

French

French language spread in the United States. Counties and parishes marked in yellow are those where 6% to 12% of the population speak French at home; brown, 12% to 18%; red, over 18%. Cajun French and French-based creole languages are not included.
Main article: French in the United States

French, the fourth most-common language, is spoken mainly by the native French, Cajun Haitian or French-Canadian populations. It is widely spoken in Maine, New Hampshire, and in Louisiana.

French is the second de facto official language in the state of Louisiana (where the French dialect of Cajun predominates). The largest French-speaking communities in the United States reside in Northeast Maine; Hollywood and Miami, Florida; New York City; certain areas of rural Louisiana; and small minorities in Vermont and New Hampshire. Many of the New England communities are connected to the dialect found across the border in Quebec. More than 13 million Americans possess primary French heritage, but only 1.6 million speak that language.

German

Main article: German in the United States

German was a widely spoken language in some of the colonies, especially Pennsylvania, where a number of German-speaking religious minorities settled to escape persecution in Europe. Dutch, Swedish, and Scottish Gaelic all became less common than German after the American Revolution. Another wave of settlement occurred when Germans fleeing the failure of 19th Century German revolutions emigrated to the United States. Large numbers of Germans settled throughout the U.S., especially in the cities. Neighborhoods in many cities were German-speaking. German farmers took up farming around the country, including the Texas Hill Country, at this time. German was widely spoken until the United States entered World War I. Numerous local German language newspapers and periodicals existed.

German language spread in the United States.

In the early twentieth century, German was the most widely studied foreign language in the United States, and prior to World War I, more than 6% of American school-children received their primary education exclusively in German, though some of these Germans came from areas outside of Germany proper. Currently, more than 47 million Americans claim German ancestry, the largest self-described ethnic group in the U.S., and 10% of them speak or could speak the language. The Amish speak a dialect of German known as Pennsylvania Dutch. In addition to Pennsylvania, German was widely spoken in the Midwest until the late 1950s. One reason for this decline of German language was the perception during both World Wars that speaking the language of the enemy was unpatriotic; foreign language instruction was banned in places during the First World War. Another was the demise of traditional agriculture. The last wave of German immigration followed World War II, as post-war Germany suffered economic problems, and ethnic Germans were uprooted from their homes in Eastern Europe. Unlike earlier waves, they were more concentrated in cities, and integrated quickly. Since the Wirtschaftswunder, German immigration to the U.S. has all but ended. Most German Americans are completely integrated into the mainstream American society and the language is being taught less and less in schools because of diminishing demand. However, in recent years, immigration of highly skilled Germans to the US has picked up to some degree.
See also: Hutterite German, Texas German, Pennsylvania Dutchified English, Plautdietsch.

There is a myth (known as the Muhlenberg Vote) that German was to be the official language of the U.S., but this is inaccurate and based on a failed early attempt to have government documents translated into German.[20] The myth also extends to German being the second official language of Pennsylvania; however, Pennsylvania does not have an official language.

Tagalog

Tagalog language spread in the United States.

Tagalog speakers were already present in the United States as early as the late sixteenth century as sailors contracted by the Spanish colonial government. In the eighteenth century, they established settlements in Louisiana, such as Saint Malo.

After the American annexation of the Philippines, the number of Tagalog speakers steadily increased, as Filipinos began to migrate as students or contract laborers. Their numbers, however, decreased upon Philippine independence, as many Filipinos were repatriated.

Today, Tagalog, together with its standardized form Filipino, is spoken by over a million Filipino Americans, and is promoted by Filipino American civic organizations and Philippine consulates.

Taglish, a form of code-switching between Tagalog and English, is also spoken by a number of Filipino Americans.

As the Filipinos became the second fastest growing Asian population in the United States, Tagalog easily became the second most spoken Asian language in the continent. Today, Tagalog is being majored in some universities where a significant number of Filipinos exist. Some of these schools include the University of Hawaii at Manoa and the University of California.

As Tagalog is the basis of Filipino, most of all the Filipinos living in the United States are proficient in Tagalog.

Ilocano

Like the Tagalogs, the Ilocanos are an Austronesian stock which came from the Philippines. They were the first Filipinos to migrate en masse to the United States. They first entered the State of Hawai'i and worked there in the vast plantations.

As they did in the Philippine provinces of Northern Luzon and Mindanao, they quickly gained importance in the areas where they settled. Thus, the state of Hawai'i became no less different from the Philippines in terms of percentage of Ilocano speakers.

Like Tagalog, Ilocano is also being taught in universities where most of the Filipinos reside.

Italian

Current distribution of the Italian language in the United States.
Main article: Italian language in the United States

The Italian language has been a widely spoken language in the United States for more than one hundred years due to large-scale immigration beginning in the late 19th century. Today it is the eighth most spoken language in the country, being spoken by just over one million people at home.[21] Furthermore, in addition to the Standard Italian taught in textbooks and spoken on the street there is also presence of the dialects/languages of Southern Italy (Sicilian and Neapolitan in particular) in some of the areas on the map at right.

Russian

Russian language spread in the United States.

The Russian language is frequently spoken in areas of Alaska, Los Angeles, Seattle, Miami, San Francisco, New York City, Philadelphia, and Chicago. The Russian-American Company used to own Alaska Territory until selling it after the Crimean War. Russian had always been limited, especially after the assassination of the Romanov dynasty of tsars. The largest Russian-speaking neighborhoods in the United States are found in Queens, Brooklyn, and Staten Island in New York City (specifically the Brighton Beach area of Brooklyn), parts of Los Angeles, particularly West Los Angeles and West Hollywood, and in Sunny Isles Beach, Florida.

Arabic

Arabic is spoken by immigrants from the Middle East as well as many Muslim Americans. The highest concentrations of native Arabic speakers reside in heavily urban areas like Chicago, New York City, and Los Angeles. Detroit and the surrounding areas of Michigan boast a significant Arabic-speaking population including many Arab Christians of Syrian, Palestinian, and Lebanese descent. Arabic is used for religious purposes by Muslim Americans and by some Arabic Christians (notably Catholics of the Malekite rite and Maronites as well as Rum Orthodox). A significant number of educated Arab professionals who immigrate often already know English quite well, as it is widely used in the Middle East. Lebanese immigrants also have a broader understanding of French as do many Arabic-speaking immigrants from North Africa.

Hebrew

Modern Hebrew is used by some immigrants from Israel and Eastern Europe. Liturgical Hebrew is used as a religious or liturgical language by many of the United States' approximately 7 million Jews.

Yiddish

Yiddish has a much longer history in the United States than Hebrew; it has been present since at least the late 19th century and continues to have roughly 179,000 speakers as of the 2000 census. Though they came from varying geographic backgrounds and nuanced approaches to worship, immigrant Jews of Eastern Europe and Russia were often united under a common understanding of the Yiddish language once they settled in America, and at one point dozens of publications were available in most East Coast cities. Though it has declined by quite a bit since the end of WWII, it has by no means disappeared. Many Israeli immigrants and expatriates have at least some understanding of the language in addition to Hebrew, and many of the descendants of the great migration of Ashkenazi Jews of the past century pepper their mostly English vocabulary with some loan words. Furthermore, it is definitely a lingua franca alive and well among Orthodox Jewry, particularly in New York and Los Angeles.[22]

Dutch

Dutch language spread in the United States.

In 1602, the government of the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands chartered the Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie, or VOC) with the mission of exploring for a passage to the Indies and claiming any unchartered territories for the Dutch republic.

In 1609, English explorer Henry Hudson attempted to find a northwest passage to the Indies, instead discovering areas of current United States and Canada, among others giving his name to the Hudson River and Hudson Bay and claiming the surrounding land for the VOC.

After some early trading expeditions, the first settlement was founded in 1615: Fort Nassau, on Castle Island, near present-day Albany. The settlement served mostly as a trade post for fur trade with the natives and was later replaced by Fort Oranje (or Fort Orange) at present-day Albany.

In 1621, a new company was established with a trading monopoly in the Americas and West Africa: the Dutch West India Company (Westindische Compagnie or WIC). The WIC sought recognition for the area in the New World - which had been called New Netherland - as a province, which was granted in 1623. Soon after, the first colonists, mostly from present-day Belgium and Germany, arrived in the new province.

In 1626, director general of the WIC Peter Minuit "purchased" the island of Manhattan from Indians and started the construction of fort New Amsterdam. In the same year, Fort Nassau was built in the New Jersey area. Other settlements were Fort Casimir (Newcastle) and Fort Beversrede (Philadelphia). In 1655, the main settlement of New Sweden, Fort Christina, was captured after the Swedes had briefly occupied Fort Casimir. Large numbers of the inhabitants of these settlements were not Dutch, but came from a variety of other European countries, including England.

In 1664, English troops under the command of the Duke of York (later James II of England) attacked the New Netherland colony. Being greatly outnumbered, director general Peter Stuyvesant surrendered New Amsterdam, with Fort Orange following soon. New Amsterdam was renamed New York, Fort Orange was renamed Fort Albany.

Martin Van Buren, the first President born in the United States following its independence, spoke Dutch as his native language, making him the first of two Presidents whose first language was not English.

Dutch was still spoken in many parts of New York at the time of the Revolution. For example, Alexander Hamilton's wife Eliza Hamilton attended a Dutch-language church during their marriage.

In a 1990 demographic consensus, 3% of surveyed citizens claimed descent from Dutch settlers. Modern estimates place the Dutch American population at 5 million, lagging just a bit behind Scottish Americans and Swedish Americans.

Notable Dutch Americans include the Roosevelts (Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Eleanor Roosevelt) Marlon Brando, Thomas Alva Edison, Martin Van Buren and the Vanderbilts. It's been widely claimed the Roosevelts are direct descendants of Dutch settlers of the New Netherlands colony, now New York state in the 17th century.

Only 150,000 people in the United States still speak the Dutch language at home today[23], concentrated mainly in Michigan (i.e. the city of Holland), Tennessee, Miami, Houston, and Chicago. The Dutch language is studied as a novelty in mostly Dutch communities of Pella, Iowa, and San Joaquin County, California has a renowned Dutch and Frisian settlement history since the 1840s.

A vernacular dialect of Dutch, known as Jersey Dutch was spoken by a significant number of people in the New Jersey area between the start of the 17th century to the mid-20th century. With the beginning of the 20th century, usage of the language became restricted to internal family circles, with an ever-growing number of people abandoning the language in favor of English. It suffered gradual decline throughout the 20th century, and it ultimately dissipated from casual usage.

Swedish

Swedish language spread in the United States.

New Sweden, or Nya Sverige, was a Swedish colony in North America corresponding roughly to the networked region of urban sprawl around Philadelphia, containing such settlements as New Stockholm (now Bridgeport) and Swedesboro in New Jersey, as well as others in Delaware, Pennsylvania and Maryland. The colony existed from March 1638 to September 1655.

The first Swedish expedition to North America was launched from the port of Gothenburg in late 1637. Samuel Blommaert assisted with the fitting-out and appointed Peter Minuit to lead the expedition. Minuit was formerly the governor of the Dutch colony of New Netherlands. The members of the expedition, traveling aboard the ships Fågel Grip and Kalmar Nyckel, arrived in Delaware Bay, a location within the territory claimed by the Dutch, in late March 1638. They built a fort on the present-day location of the city of Wilmington, which they named Fort Christina, after Queen Christina of Sweden. In the following years, approximately one thousand people from the Swedish mainland and Finland settled in the colonized establishments and townships.

Widespread diaspora of Swedish immigration did not occur until the latter half of the 19th century, bringing in a total of a million Swedes. No other country had a higher percentage of its people leave for the United States except Ireland and Norway. At the beginning of the 20th century, Minnesota had the highest ethnic Swedish population in the world after the city of Stockholm.

3.7% of US residents claim descent from Scandinavian ancestors, amounting to roughly 11-12 million people. According to SIL's Ethnologue, over half a million ethnic Swedes still speak the language, though according to the 2000 census only 67,655 speak it at home[24]. Cultural assimilation has contributed to the gradual and steady decline of the language in the US. After the independence of the US from Great Britain, the government encouraged colonists to adopt the English language as a common medium of communication, and in some cases, imposed it upon them. Subsequent generations of Swedish Americans received education in English and spoke it as their first language. Lutheran churches scattered across the Midwest started abandoning Swedish in favor of English as their language of worship. Swedish newspapers and publications alike slowly faded away.

There are sizable Swedish communities in Minnesota, Ohio, Maryland, Philadelphia and Delaware, along with small isolated pockets in Pennsylvania, San Francisco, Fort Lauderdale, and New York. Chicago contains a large Swedish enclave called Andersonville on the city's north side.

John Morton, the person who cast the decisive vote leading to the United States Declaration of Independence, was a Swedish-speaking Finn.

Polish

The Polish language is very common in the Chicago metropolitan area. Chicago's largest white ethnic group are those of Polish descent. The Polish people and the Polish language in Chicago have been very prevalent in the early years of the city, as well as the progression and economical and social development of Chicago. Poles in Chicago make up the largest ethnically Polish population of any city outside of Poland (second only to Warsaw) making it one of the most important centers of Polonia and the Polish language in the United States, a fact that the city celebrates every Labor Day weekend at the Taste of Polonia Festival in Jefferson Park.[25].

Finnish

Finnish language spread in the United States.

The first Finnish settlers in America were amongst the settlers who came from Sweden and Finland to New Sweden colony. Most colonists were Finnish. However Finnish language did not preserve so well as Swedish.

Shortly after the Civil War, many Finnish citizens immigrated to the United States, mainly in rural areas of the Midwest (and more specifically in Michigan's Upper Peninsula). Hancock, Michigan, as of 2005, still incorporates bi-lingual street signs written in both English and Finnish[26]. Americans of Finnish origin yield at 800,000 individuals, though only 39,770 speak the language at home[27]. There is a distinctive dialect of English to be found in the Upper Peninsula, known as Yooper. Yuper often has a Finnish cadence and uses Finnish sentence structure with modified English, German, Swedish, Norwegian, and Finnish vocabulary. Notable Finnish Americans include Gus Hall, U.S. Communist Party leader, Renny Harlin, film director, and the Canadian-born actress Pamela Anderson. Another Finnish community in the United States is found in Lake Worth, Florida, north of Miami.

Welsh

Welsh language spread in the United States.

Up to two million Americans are thought to have Welsh ancestry. However, there is very little Welsh being used commonly in the USA. According to the 2000 U.S. Census, 2,649 people speak Welsh at home[28] Some place names, such as Bryn Mawr in Chicago and Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania (English: Big Hill) are Welsh. Several towns in Pennsylvania, mostly in the Welsh Tract, have Welsh namesakes, including Uwchlan, Bala Cynwyd, and Tredyffrin.

Scottish Gaelic

In the 17th and 18th centuries, tens of thousands of Scots from Scotland, and Scots-Irish from Northern Ireland arrived in the American colonies. Today, an estimated 15 million Americans are of Scottish ancestry. The province of Nova Scotia, Canada was the main concentration of Scottish Gaelic speakers in North America (Nova Scotia is Latin for New Scotland). According to the 2000 census, 1,610 people speak Scottish Gaelic at home.[29].

New American languages, dialects, and creoles

Several languages have developed on American soil, including creoles and sign languages.

Gullah

Gullah, an English-African creole language spoken on the Sea Islands of South Carolina and Georgia, retains strong influences of West African languages. The language is sometimes referred to as "Geechee".

African American Vernacular English

African American Vernacular English (AAVE), also known as Ebonics, is a variety of English spoken by many African Americans, in both rural and urban areas. Not all African Americans speak AAVE and many European Americans do. Indeed, it is generally accepted that Southern American English is part of the same continuum as AAVE.

There is considerable debate among non-linguists as to whether the word "dialect" is appropriate to describe it. However, there is general agreement among linguists and many African Americans that AAVE is part of a historical continuum between creoles such as Gullah and the language brought by English colonists.

Some educators view AAVE as exerting a negative influence on the learning of Proper and Standard English, as numerous AAVE rules differ from the rules of Standard English. Other educators, however, propose that Standard English should be taught as a "second dialect" in areas where AAVE is a strong part of local tradition.

Hawaiian Creole

Hawaiian Pidgin, more accurately known as Hawaiian Creoles, is commonly used by locals and is considered an unofficial language of the state. This not to be confused with Hawaiian English which is standard American English with Hawaiian words.

Sign languages

See also: Languages in the United States#Native American sign languages.

Martha's Vineyard Sign Language

Martha's Vineyard Sign Language is now extinct. Along with French Sign Language, it was one of two main contributors to American Sign Language.

American Sign Language

American Sign Language (ASL) is the native language of between 500,000 and 2 million Deaf people in America. Unlike Signed English, ASL is a natural language in its own right, not a manual representation of English.

Signs are indicated by three things 1) hand shape 2) location and 3) motion. For example, a hand shape is having the index finger extended. Location is where the finger is on the signer's body, for example, an index finger touching the temple means "thinking." Motion is what the hand is doing, for example, an index finger pointed out and making a circle means "only." An index finger touching the throat and making a downward motion means "thirsty."

Sign language grammar does not usually use articles such as "an" or "the." It is a visual grammar so that a signer can indicate how high a person or thing jumped, how fast or slow someone moved, or the relationship between two objects, by the height, speed, or direction of the sign. An example of a sign language sentence, and the title of a book is, "Train, Go, Sorry." It is the equivalent of "you missed the boat." The English sentence "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" would be signed "lazy dog, fox, brown, quick jumps." The signer would place the dog in a spot, describe it, place the fox in a different position and describe it, and then show the fox jumping over the dog.

Grammar is also provided by the signer's facial expression. For example, whether a sentence is a statement or question is indicated by the signer's face. In addition, complex contextual information is provided by the signer's face and body language.

Black American Sign Language

Black American Sign Language developed in segregated schools in the south. Much like AAVE and standard English, it differs in vocabulary and grammatical structure from ASL.

Hawaii Pidgin Sign Language

Hawaii Pidgin Sign Language (named after Hawaiian Pidgin English, but not itself a pidgin) is moribund.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Language learning trends in the United States. Retrieved on 2008-03-19
  2. ^ Summary Tables on Language Use and English Ability: 2000 (PHC-T-20), U.S. Census Bureau, retrieved 2008-02-22
  3. ^ U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes 109th Congress - 2nd Session, United States Senate, retrieved 2008002-22 {{citation}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  4. ^ "Senate Amendment 1151 to Senate Bill 1348, Immigration Act of 2007". project Vote Smart. Retrieved 2008-07-04.
  5. ^ Grimes 2000
  6. ^ MLA Language Map Data Center, Modern Language Association, retrieved 2008-02-22
  7. ^ Language Use and English-Speaking Ability: 2000 (PDF), U.S. Census Brueau, 2003, retrieved 2008-02-22 {{citation}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  8. ^ e.g. Section 1432(2) of the No Child Left Behind Act, which defines the term "AT-RISK":
    "AT-RISK.—The term ‘at-risk’, when used with respect to a child, youth, or student, means a school aged individual who is at-risk of academic failure, has a drug or alcohol problem, is pregnant or is a parent, has come into contact with the juvenile justice system in the past, is at least 1 year behind the expected grade level for the age of the individual, has limited English proficiency, is a gang member, has dropped out of school in the past, or has a high absenteeism rate at school." (emphasis added) (see http://www.ed.gov/policy/elsec/leg/esea02/107-110.pdf)
  9. ^ The 50 states at a glance, proenglish.org, retrieved 2008-04-12
  10. ^ Status as of April, 1998: blocked by a state judge pending trial. The case is still pending. See Legal Status of official English in Alaska, proenglish.org, retrieved 2008-04-12
  11. ^ Idaho Code 73-121. "Certain Documents to be in English the Official State Language." 2007.
  12. ^ 105 ILCS 5/14C‑1 (implicit)
  13. ^ Iowa Code Sec. 1.18, "Iowa English language reaffirmation." 2002.
  14. ^ New Mexico has a non-binding "English Plus" resolution, officially endorsing multilingualism. See Language Laws of New Mexico, proenglish.org, retrieved 2008-04-12
  15. ^ Dutch Colonies, National Park Service, retrieved 2008-02-22
  16. ^ America Votes 2006: Key Ballot Issues, CNN, retrieved 2008-02-22
  17. ^ A Bilingual America? The Trend Among Hispanics Suggests Not, Puerto Rico Herald, November 15, 2004, archived from the original on January 12, 2007, retrieved 2008-02-22 {{citation}}: Check date values in: |date= and |archive-date= (help)
  18. ^ a b Lai, H. Mark (2004). Becoming Chinese American: A History of Communities and Institutions. AltaMira Press. ISBN 0759104581.
  19. ^ García, Ofelia (2002). The Multilingual Apple: Languages in New York City. Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 311017281X. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  20. ^ Did Hebrew almost become the official U.S. language?, January 21, 1994, retrieved 2008-02-22 {{citation}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  21. ^ Italian, Modern language Association, citing Census 2000, retrieved 2008-02-22
  22. ^ Sewell Chan (October 17, 2007), A Yiddish Revival, With New York Leading the Way, The New York Times, retrieved 2008-08-15 {{citation}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
    + Patricia Ward Biederman (July 7, 2005), Yiddish Program Aims to Get Beyond Schmoozing, Los Angeles Times, retrieved 2008-08-15 {{citation}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
    + Yiddishkayt Los Angeles, yiddishkaytla.org, retrieved 2008-08-15
  23. ^ Dutch, Modern Language Association, citing census 2000
  24. ^ Swedish, Modern Language Association, citing census 2000, retrieved 2008-02-22
  25. ^ America the diverse: Chicago's Polish neighborhoods, usaweekend.com, May 15, 2005, retrieved 2008-07-04 {{citation}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  26. ^ Street names are in english and in finnish, The Selonen Family Network, archived from the original on September 24, 2006, retrieved 2008-02-22 {{citation}}: Check date values in: |archive-date= (help)[unreliable source?]
  27. ^ Finnish, Modern Language Association, citing census 2000, retrieved 2008-02-22
  28. ^ Welsh, Modern Language Association, citing Census 2000, retrieved 2008-02-22
  29. ^ Scottic Gaelic, Modern Language Association, citing Census 2000, retrieved 2008-02-22

Bibliography

  • Campbell, Lyle. (1997). American Indian languages: The historical linguistics of Native America. New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Campbell, Lyle; & Mithun, Marianne (Eds.). (1979). The languages of native America: Historical and comparative assessment. Austin: University of Texas Press.

* Grimes, Barbara F. (Ed.). (2000). Ethnologue: Languages of the world, (14th ed.). Dallas, TX: SIL International. ISBN 1-55671-106-9. Online edition: http://www.ethnologue.com/, accessed on December 7, 2004.

  • Mithun, Marianne. (1999). The languages of native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Zededa, Ofelia; Hill, Jane H. (1991). The condition of Native American Languages in the United States. In R. H. Robins & E. M. Uhlenbeck (Eds.), Endangered languages (pp. 135-155). Oxford: Berg.

External links

Template:Languages in North America

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