Nearly 1 in 5 Speak a Foreign Language at Home

[ronkinm at georgetown.edu]

Nearly 1-in-5 Speak a Foreign Language at Home; Most Also Speak English
'Very Well,' Census Bureau Reports

10/8/03 10:17:00 AM

To: National Desk

Contact: Mike Bergman of the U.S. Census Bureau, 301-763-3030 or
301-457-1037 (TDD), pio at census.gov

WASHINGTON, Oct. 8 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Nearly 1-in-5 people, or
47 million U.S. residents age 5 and older, spoke a language other than
English at home in 2000, the U.S. Census Bureau said today. That
was an increase of 15 million people since 1990.

The report, Language Use and English-Speaking Ability: 2000,
said 55 percent of the people who spoke a language other than English at
home also reported they spoke English "very well." Combined with
those who spoke only English at home, 92 percent of the population age 5
and over had no difficulty speaking English.

Among those who spoke a language other than English at home were
almost 11 million additional Spanish speakers. According to the report,
Spanish speakers increased from 17.3 million in 1990 to 28.1
million in 2000, a 62 percent rise. Just over half the Spanish speakers
reported speaking English "very well."

The report found that more than 9-in-10 people age 5 and older
spoke a language other than English at home in Hialeah, Fla., and
Laredo, Texas, the highest such proportion among U.S. places of 100,000
population or more. The 10 places with the highest proportions included
four in Texas and three in California. (See Table 1.)

The West was home to more than one-third (37 percent) of all
those who spoke a language other than English at home, the highest
proportion of any region. California led the states (39 percent),
followed by New Mexico (37 percent) and Texas (31 percent). (See Table
2.)

The number of people who spoke a non-English language at home at
least doubled in six states between 1990 and 2000, with the largest
percentage increase in Nevada (193 percent). Georgia's residents
who spoke a non-English language at home increased by 164 percent,
followed by North Carolina (151 percent).

After English (215.4 million) and Spanish (28.1 million),
Chinese (2 million) was the language most commonly spoken at home,
eclipsing French, German and Italian over the decade of the 90s. (See
Table 3.)

Other highlights:

Of the 20 non-English languages spoken most widely at home, the
largest proportional increase in the 1990s was Russian. Speakers of this
language nearly tripled, from 242,000 to 706,000. The second
largest increase was among French Creole speakers (including Haitian
Creoles), whose numbers more than doubled, from 188,000 to
453,000.

The West and South combined had about three times the number of
Spanish speakers (21 million) as the Northeast and Midwest combined
(7 million).

More than 80 percent of the population spoke a non-English
language in seven Texas counties Maverick, Webb, Starr, Kenedy, Zavala,
Presidio and Hidalgo.

The data are based on the responses from a sample of households
who received the census long form. Nationally, about 1-in-6 households
were included in the sample. Estimates in the report are subject
to sampling and nonsampling error.

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 EDITOR'S NOTE: The information, including detailed tables, can
 be accessed at http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/c2kbr-29.pdf.

 http://www.usnewswire.com/