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America's Most-Spoken Languages After English and Spanish
- razorbeamz 5mo agoVery surprised Navajo is so strong.
- adzm 5mo agoMakes sense considering the Navajo Nation in those states though
- xhevahir 5mo ago> Chinese (Mandarin/Cantonese) This is enough to discredit the whole infographic in my eyes. No matter what the CPC or anybody else may claim, these are distinct languages, and not dialects. Not only that, but in some of these places a lot of Chinese speak other regional Chinese languages, such as Fuzhounese, rather than Mandarin or Cantonese. (I remember a blog from twenty or so years ago by a NYC Chinatown native who mapped his building by language; something like a dozen Chinese languages were spoken by residents of that building's apartments.)
- make3 5mo agothe point is to give an idea of the approximate region that people come from, not to give a professionally accurate linguistic picture
- andsoitis 5mo agoMandarin and Cantonese are distinct, mutually unintelligible languages that sound as different to each other as Spanish and French.
- bloak 5mo agoCantonese is a language, yes, but mutual intelligibility and similarity to other languages is hardly relevant unless the languages are very similar indeed. For example, there are spoken varieties of English that are mutually unintelligible, while speakers of different Slavic languages are often capable of having a good conversation by speaking slowly and listening carefully. In practice the main criterion for being a language as opposed to a continuum of dialects is the degree of standardisation. So an example of something that may or may not be a language might be something like Swiss German (but I'm not an expert so I can't guarantee that's a good example). Another type of borderline case is when you have two standardised languages which differ only slightly, for example US English and GB English, or DE German and AT German.
- graemep 5mo ago> For example, there are spoken varieties of English that are mutually unintelligibl Which? I have travelled to, worked in, or lived in multiple countries with English speaking populations (by which I mean some people speak English as a first language, though it may be a small minority) on five continents and never had a serious problem understanding people. Some slang and idiom and loan words, but thing much.
- bloak 5mo agoI have personally been baffled by some Scottish and Indian speakers of English, particularly when I was younger and less experienced. And Singapore English is said to be particularly hard for someone with no previous experience. And I know of a case in which someone from London sat at a table with some in-laws who were speaking a traditional native dialect of southern England to each other and found they understand almost nothing, though that was a few decades ago and the dialect in question is perhaps only spoken by old people today. When you say you "never had a serious problem understanding people", do you mean you could understand them when you overheard them speaking to each other? Because that, of course, is the real test of how intelligible their language is to you. They may well speak a bit differently when speaking to an outsider. Also, you may be particularly skillful at understanding spoken English. I feel I have got better at understanding British dialects as I got older and gained experience of them. I was terribly confused by some dialects as a child. With compulsory education almost everyone today has some knowledge of a standard language besides whatever dialects they have learnt. If you want to find someone who only speaks dialect X of language Y you might have to look in places where Y is neither official nor widely taught, or among very old people who never went to school.
- make3 5mo agoit's about cultural relatedness from a Western centric pov, not language
- aumlhyuzdnv 4mo ago[dead]
- wenc 5mo agoPeople often say Mandarin and Cantonese are like Spanish and Portuguese, but that undersells how different they are. Your example of Spanish and French is more accurate -- same language family, but different grammar and vocabulary. I offer German and Dutch as another example pair -- same language family as well, but different enough that no one will say "oh they're just different dialects". Dutch is an example of what happens when a Germanic language (Low Franconian) gets it's own state.
- bloak 5mo agoThe thing you're complaining about doesn't even mention the word "dialect" and it says underneath: "Some Census categories combine multiple languages or language groups". So they're probably just doing the best they can with the data that is available to them. I think you're right that Cantonese should be (and usually is) referred to as a "language" but the categories "dialect" and "language" are not mutually exclusive. For example, Dutch is both a language (for most purposes) and a dialect of West Continental Germanic (for some linguistic purposes).
- cyberrock 5mo agoWhile I land on agreeing that finer language data should be collected anonymously, I think you may be too quick to view the motivations through a modern geopolitical lens. Historically Chinese American have had bigger domestic issues than this. Just a decade ago, Asian Americans in Massachusetts protested bill H3361 out of fear that finer census data would be used improperly.
- useyourloaf 5mo agoSure. But blame the U.S. Census: the languages tracked are "Chinese", "Mandarin Chinese", and "Yue Chinese". Can't map the data they don't have.
- guidedlight 5mo agoYou know there are 34 countries in America other than the United States.
- titanomachy 5mo agoYou are welcome to remind people of this, but don’t expect that you’ll change anyone’s habits on an English-speaking USA-based forum.
- defrost 5mo agoThe USAians are largely seemingly already convinced the name of their country starts with an A, those that live elsewhere generally have better geography chops, so you're correct - it's unlikely any minds will change.
- leereeves 5mo agoIt's possible for a name to refer to both a country and a continent (or two). Just as "New York" could mean the state or the city.
- defrost 5mo agoAre there any countries named after continents though? Aside from Australia?
- titanomachy 5mo agoI was taught that the continent is Oceania, not Australia
- bloak 5mo agoWe have a similar thing on this side of the Atlantic where people argue about whether it is acceptable to refer to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland as "Britain". I feel it is, as an abbreviation, and it is my preferred abbreviation, along with "GB", because I like to look forward to the time when we won't have a monarchy any more and I therefore don't like the abbreviation "UK", and also, despite not having any strong Irish connections, I tend to feel that Ireland ought to be reunited. This may seem like the opposite of my opinion on the US/America question, where I prefer "US", and I suppose it is, but I have my reasons!
- sarabande 5mo agoIt would be helpful to show n. speakers of those languages or at least grade based on % of remaining non-English, non-Spanish speakers. My intuition is that German, for example, is much less active of a language in the US, where immigration peaked long ago, than Chinese, where immigration is active.
- bmn__ 5mo ago[flagged]
- autuni 5mo agothat's a lot more German than I would have guessed
- niek_pas 5mo agoWhat in the world is “other native” supposed to mean? Those languages don’t have names?
- type0 5mo agocreole?
- useyourloaf 5mo ago"Central Yupik" for Alaska, "Lakota" for S. Dakota
- dustypotato 5mo agoSurprised to see no Indian languages (India the country, not American Indians)
- useyourloaf 5mo agoJust not in the top 3. hindi, gujarati, urdu, punjabi and tamil all appear in the data.
- aworks 5mo agoThe three surprises for me: NV/Tagalog, AL/Korean, KY/German. The first two are presumably recent immigration. Kentucky in particular surprises me despite my German ancestors settling in Indiana during the 19th Century. I had assumed Kentucky had been English immigrants from colonial Virginia/Carolina.
- vander_elst 5mo agoVery surprised to see German there. Any way that I can learn more about this? Does anyone happen to have sources or links?
- useyourloaf 5mo agohttps://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/language-use/2017-2021-lang-tables.html https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/language... Top languages E.g. Alabama: English - 94% Spanish - 3% Korean - 0.22% German - 0.18%