What is the most common language spoken in each state, apart from English or Spanish?

[Jesus Malverde]

http://mic.com/articles/89371/the-most-common-language-spoken-in-your-state-besides-english-and-spanish

[cali]

1. I didn't realize that the most common language outside of English and Spanish is German

In my state, French is the most common language other than English.

[Gormy Cuss]

3. I think that's true in all of northern New England

Last edited Sat Sep 13, 2014, 01:54 PM - Edit history (1)

and French is still far more common than Spanish even though many of the historic Francophone communities are losing that heritage rapidly. I know that in Maine small cities like Waterville, Lewiston, and Biddeford were predominantly French-bilingual 50 years ago, but that's not the case anymore. It's only in the historically French Canadian towns in northern Aroostook where that is true.

[merrily]

6. Isn't the map showing Portuguese for Massachusetts? Or is Massachusetts not considered northern NE?

[Gormy Cuss]

14. MA is southern New England.

VT, NH, ME= northern, MA, CT, RI = southern.

[merrily]

15. Thanks. How would I know? I am a transplant to Massachusetts.

From NY and originally from NJ. So, the Deep South.

[Gormy Cuss]

19. Okay, that made me snort.

The Jersey shore must be THE Deep South.

[merrily]

41. To get serious for a sec, I think there are parts of

New Jersey that are south of the Mason Dixon line. At least, that is what I read on this board once. I have not verified.

I always wished for a Southern accent, but you don't grow up with those in Jersey.

Remember, though, the cast of the Jersey shore was not actually from the Jersey shore. And the cattle call for that show specified "Guidos and Guidettes." So, there was an agenda and that agenda was not to portray the "reality" of the Jersey shore.

(I just googled historic photos of Jersey shore and got a very enjoyable slide show, made more enjoyable by my picturing the cast of the Jersey shore in Victorian times.)

[Art_from_Ark]

58. The Mason-Dixon line is the boundary between Pennsylvania and Maryland

so part of New Jersey is, indeed, south of it.

[merrily]

60. Thank you! One less thing I need to verify on my own.

[Cleita]

10. When DH and I were traveling the States, we were amazed at all the little German

flavored towns across the nation, especially in Texas. It seems like Germany is where we got many of our European immigrants not England or Ireland as I once believed. I myself have a lot of German blood in me.

[merrily]

16. So does Obama. Just a touch of Irish too.

[Boom Sound 416]

46. Texas received a large amount of German POW's too

[NutmegYankee]

13. 53% of Americans can trace back to German heritage.

Even our iconic food choices are of German origin. That we don't recognize this is one of the great cultural tragedies of the 20th Century.

[merrily]

20. Yes, but pasta and pizza are gaining fast.

At least, where I live!

[adigal]

26. I don't get the yellow? American?

Can you explain that?

[AverageJoe90]

30. They're mostly Scots-Irish and Anglo, and descended from pioneers, from all I've read.....of those..

who describe themselves as "American", that is.

[adigal]

31. Oh, thank you! I was confused. Duh! Nt

[NutmegYankee]

36. People of British heritage who consider themselves the only true Americans

They are the residual colonists in the South/Appalachia. Rather than answer English or Scottish, they just call themselves American.

The USA was populated in waves. First the British across the colonies and Germans in Pennsylvania, then a massive influx of Germans who fled west in the early 1800s to populate the Midwest. Then came the Irish and Italian waves that populated the NYC and Boston regions. The high African American population in the South is an obvious legacy of slavery. The German's in Florida are the "snowbirds" moving South.

My family is Pennsylvania German, both sides predating our Constitution and having served in the Continental army.

[amandabeech]

62. In the northern Midwest, there were many Scandinavians,

mostly Swedes and Norwegians, but also Finns and Danes.

I am partially of Swedish descent.

[eppur_se_muova]

40. A lot of Germans immigrated here after 1848 ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutions_of_1848#German_states

... but there were some very politically liberal German settlers from the 1830's as well:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_Settlement

It's surprising to find German settlers played such a prominent role in early Texas history, but if you head a little north-northwest of the Austin and San Antonio areas, you'll find a lot of towns named after Germans, including one named after a 19th-century feminist.
http://www.visitfredericksburgtx.com/history/

[Yupster]

53. Germany fought three wars

They beat Denmark in 1864.

They beat Austria in 1866.

They beat France in 1871.

That was enough for many Germans including my great-great grandfather who was in the Prussian Army and left in the 1870's. He was part of a huge wave of German emigrants.

[Cleita]

50. Sad how few the Native Americans are in their own land. n/t

[Scootaloo]

2. Does that mean we lost WW2?! We're all speaking German!

[merrily]

7. Even when we win, we lose.

I posted earlier today about The Mouse That Roared, a comedy based on that very premise.

[roody]

9. And the Indo-China war.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

27. It would have been interesting to see how America's participation

in the world wars might have been different, if we'd gone with German as our unofficial national language.

[Neoma]

51. I heard somewhere that German was the 2nd language until WWII happened.

Then people stopped speaking it as much, but it's not surprising to see a residual connection from that era.

I think the German spoken now however, might mostly be from the Amish.

[merrily]

4. Hi, Jesus.

I'm in Boston, MA.

You have to say "Boston proper" because a lot of people who live near Boston, like Newton or Needham or Brookline, tell people from out of state that they are in Boston or from Boston. So, I am in Boston proper.

I personally never heard anyone in Massachusetts speaking Portuguese, except for a priest praying in Portuguese in Gloucester, MA, when I attended the Fisherman's Feast there.

I do hear Italian and Spanish in Boston, though. (Boston's fishers were mostly from Sicily or of Sicilian origin, but no one fishes Boston harbor anymore.)

Lots of nationalities represented in Massachusetts. In all the coastal states, I guess. I have spent my life in coastal states, so I really know nothing else.

[cali]

5. New Bedford area is where you'll here it. Or at least where you used to.

[merrily]

8. Also the North Shore, where I did hear it. The fishing communities.

I've never been to New Bedford. Guess I should check it out.

Then again, I didn't hear French Creole in Orlando, Miami or Miami Beach, FL, nor Vietnamese in San Antonio or Houston, TX. Or Tagalog anywhere in California.

[katmondoo]

11. I was born in New Bedford and My parents came from there

They had a French section, A Polish section, and a Portuguese section with Catholic churches that spoke the language heard confessions in the language. Maybe others that I don't know about. The food was ethnic. The Kielbasa was the best in the Polish section along with the best corn bread ever. My Aunt used to visit us in New York with a suitcase full of Kielbasa and Bread. A real treat that may not be available anymore. Times have changed.

[merrily]

22. Guy Fieri (Diners, Drive Ins and Dives, Food Network) visited Cafe Polonia

not long ago for great Polish food in Massachusetts. I need to check it out.

I usually agree with his recommendations, but you need to try the dishes he recommends and I don't know which he recommended for that place.

[Gormy Cuss]

18. Until recently it was common to hear Portuguese in East Cambridge & Somerville e. of Union Square

Plus as you and others noted, in the coastal fishing communities especially in Bristol county (New Bedford.)

[Tanuki]

24. There is a large Brazilian population in Framingham and you would hear Portuguese there.

The Portuguese speakers in the MA coastal regions and islands tend to be from Cape Verde and the Azores.

[merrily]

42. A relative of my husband lives in Framingham, so I've been there, but

only to visit inside the home. So, I still missed out.

I should really make it a point to soak up some of that culture and eat some Portuguese food. It's a golden opportunity that I have been letting go by, except for the Fisherman's Feast.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

12. Profanity. Expecially when dealing with politicians or computers.

[hifiguy]

17. I suspect that Drunkenese

is a nationally-spoken language.

[merrily]

43. I do enjoy the drunk uncle character on SNL.

[IDemo]

21. I would bet there are more Basque speakers than German in Idaho

Last edited Sun Sep 14, 2014, 11:15 AM - Edit history (2)

We have the largest Basque population outside of the Iberian peninsula and I have heard the language spoken many times over the 45 years I've lived here, including by Boise's Basque mayor Dave Bieter. I have never once heard a native German speaker (excepting of course the year my family lived in Germany over 50 years ago).

Edit for more info - The largest concentration of Basque Americans is in the Boise, Idaho, area, where approximately 15,000 Basque Americans live.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basque_diaspora#cite_note-13

There is zero chance that even a fraction of that many native Germans live here. This makes me think that anyone who made it through high school German or a tour of duty in Germany answered as such for the census.

http://vimeo.com/56008007

[socialist_n_TN]

23. This could be correct for Tennessee as a whole, but........

I would be willing to bet the third most spoken language in the Nashville area is Mandarin. And here I would put Kurdish as the fourth instead of German.

[merrily]

44. That's impressive. Kurdish might not even be the 4th language of Iraq.

Some of my cousins grew up in Lebanon with an Armenian dad. They learned, in this order, Armenian, French, Arabic and English. They moved to Houston as adults and the two who worked in a hospital picked up Spanish, seemingly by osmosis. Sigh.

[socialist_n_TN]

56. Well, please understand I'm only going on personal experience, although.........

I have read where the Kurdish population of Nashville is the biggest in all of the USA.

[merrily]

57. Relax. It's not that serious!

I am not going to invest my life savings in a Kurdish as a first language school in Nashville or anything. It was just interesting to find out you have a lot of Kurdish speakers in TN.

[delete_bush]

25. This is an amazing graphic,

telling me that I need to once again brush up on some history. I mean, French is the 3rd most in W. Virginia?

Here's another interesting chart....

https://www.census.gov/dataviz/visualizations/045/

[merrily]

45. Oui.

http://www.wikihow.com/Say-Yes-in-French

[Louisiana1976]

28. Very interesting map. I didn't know Polish was the third most common language in Illinois.

But I did know there are a lot of Polish people in Chicago.

[PeaceNikki]

32. North side of Chicago south side Milwaukee have a lot of Polish people.

We had a row of ten at work whose names all ended "ski".

It was an unintentional coincidence.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

29. Makes sense to me.

I had something like six years of German in school. Our SW Ohio school system offered it from 7th grade through 12th, iirc, plus it was the obvious choice for the college language requirement.

[treestar]

33. How are they asking?

I would think in Delaware there would be far more Chinese or Hindi or Vietnamese speakers than French. I have never met a French immigrant. Are they including people who think they speak it due to studying it?

[PeaceNikki]

34. it's census data

https://www.census.gov/history/www/through_the_decades/index_of_questions/2000_1.html

What is this person's ancestry or ethnic origin?
Does this person speak a language other than English at home?
What is this language?
How well does this person speak English?

[treestar]

35. thank you

Holy crap!

Maybe on second thought it is immigrants from Haiti. More numerous than I thought. Plus some immigrants from Quebec. Can't be French people!

[Aerows]

37. Most definitely French in mine

We likely have more Francophones than those that speak Spanish.

ETA: I see LA has more Fracophones, but MS is probably gaining as more Cajuns move our way.

[tblue37]

38. Interesting. My father's parents came here in the early 20th century

from Sicily and settled in Northeastern Pennsylvania, where Grandpa found work in the coal mines, along with most of the other immigrants from the part of Sicily that he and his relatives came from. (I see that Italian wins in Pennsylvania.)

[Aerows]

39. As an aside

I lived in Lafayette, LA for a while and there are places where you can call to ask for someone and they answer in French.

It's a tribute to their resilience as a community because there was a severe campaign in the 60's through the 80's to punish french speaking children at school.

[kelliekat44]

47. Hmm. German. That explains a lot about US social issues. nt

[Jackpine Radical]

54. Yeah, those damn German socialists…

One hundred years ago tomorrow, Milwaukee made political history. On April 5, 1910, we became the first (and only) major city in America to elect a Socialist mayor. A former patternmaker named Emil Seidel won a decisive victory in the spring election, beginning a period of Socialist success at the polls that would last until Frank Zeidler stepped down in 1960.

To those outside the city, Seidel's win seemed positively revolutionary, a bold and abrupt departure from the American norm. The truth is that municipal Socialism had been germinating here for generations. It mattered, first of all, that Milwaukee was the most German city in America and that some of its residents were genuine revolutionaries. An 1848 revolt against the German monarchs had ended in victory for the crowned set and exile for thousands of rebels, many of them well-educated idealists who wanted nothing less than to change the world.

A significant number of these "Forty-Eighters" found their way to Milwaukee, where they established music societies, theater groups, schools and other organizations that made their new home the "German Athens" of America. The exiles were as passionate about politics as they were about culture. Their Turner halls and freethinker congregations became forums for ideas that would come to life as Milwaukee Socialism.

http://www.jsonline.com/news/opinion/89804422.html

[kelliekat44]

48. I see my State-Department friend was right about the hidden resettlement programs between 1970-1990.

[Vattel]

49. I am surprised that Chinese doesn't have a bigger presence on this map

[PeaceNikki]

52. Or Hmong

Hmong Americans are the largest Asian ethnic group in the state of Wisconsin

[liberal N proud]

55. I would think a Slovak language for Ohio

Or another eastern European language.

[underpants]

59. Bookmarking very interesting.

[yuiyoshida]

61. Wow, I am impressed with all the Asian languges ...

I would have thought California would have far more Chinese, as I grew up with mostly Chinese kids, while there were some Vietnamese, and Filipino.. but across the country to see Korean, and Vietnamese ..and HMONG!! wow. I have a few friends who are Hmong.. and they are great!

This also amazes me why in high school they never taught Japanese, Tagalog, Mandarin, as a subject. It was always German, Spanish, Latin and French. I wanted to learn an Asian language, but My parents and their parents spoke English. (Family originally came from Hawaii.. I may even have some native Hawaiian roots.)