Response to inquiry: Statistics on foreign language speakers in the U. S.

[Scott McGinnis]

From: Joy Peyton [mailto:joy at cal.org]
Sent: Friday, September 21, 2001 1:06 PM

I have responded to the entire list, because I thought others might like
to have this information.

The Census 2000 statistics on language use are VERY generalized.They
only report (at least at this point) in terms of language groups
(Spanish, Other Indo-Euro, Asian and Pacific Islander, "Other
Languages"). That information is at
http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/DTTable?ds_name=D&geo_id=D&mt_name=
ACS_C2SS_EST_G2000_P035&_lang=en and looks at the population from age 5
and up.

There is a more detailed list of the top 50 languages spoken in the U.S.
according to the 1990 Census data. It's at
http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/language/table5.txt

Ethnologue has a list of all the languages spoken in the U.S. at
http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=USA  Just a warning,
though--it's difficult to read and some of the individual stats seem to
come from different places. The chart they have at
http://www.sil.org/lla/usa_lg.html is a little easier to read, but the
dates on many of the statistics are older than those on the first
address above.

NCBE has some statistics on the most common language groups for English
language learners in the public school systems, but that only covers the
children (http://www.ncbe.gwu.edu/askncbe/faqs/05toplangs.htm)

See also NCLE (http://www.cal.org/ncle/stats.htm) for links to a variety
of sources of statistics related to adult ESL and the populations served
by adult ESL programs.


Joy Kreeft Peyton
Center for Applied Linguistics
4646 40th St., NW
Washington, DC 20016
202-362-0700
joy at cal.org
www.cal.org


At 10:57 AM 9/20/01 -0400, Scott McGinnis wrote:
>Please respond directly to Wayne Barr (address given below)
>
>Can you recommend a research reference containing estimates of the
number
of
>speakers of various foreign languages within the United States (e.g.,.
>French, Farsi, etc.)?
>
>Thank you.
>
>Wayne Barr
>.waynebarr at barronseduc.com <mailto:.waynebarr at barronseduc.com>