21. Languages of the United States

The United States does not have an official language, but English is spoken by about 82% of the population as a native language. 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’. On May 18, 2006, the Senate voted on an amendment to an immigration reform bill that would declare English the national language of the United States. The immigration reform bill itself, S. 2611, was passed in the Senate on May 25, 2006, but expired when the Senate and the House of Representatives failed to agree upon the amendments in conference.

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.

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 are 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.

Tagalong 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 dropping 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.