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Most-Spoken Languages of the United States

Try to name the languages with the most native speakers in the United States.
Source: U.S. Census, 2021 data
Languages spoken at home. Sign language is not counted.
Some languages grouped together becauses that's how the data was presented
Quiz by jess1769
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Last updated: November 26, 2022
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First submittedJuly 12, 2012
Times taken151,984
Average score57.7%
Rating4.52
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# Speakers
Language
245 m
English
41.3 m
Spanish
3.40 m
Chinese
1.72 m
Tagalog
1.52 m
Vietnamese
1.39 m
Arabic
1.18 m
French
1.07 m
Korean
1.04 m
Russian
937 k
Portuguese
895 k
French Creole
(Haitian)
865 k
Hindi
857 k
German
# Speakers
Language
640 k
Yoruba / Igbo
596 k
Amharic / Somali
574 k
Yiddish / Pennsylvania Dutch
533 k
Polish
513 k
Italian
508 k
Urdu
486 k
Samoan / Hawaiian
472 k
Persian
460 k
Telugu
455 k
Japanese
448 k
Nepali / Marathi
437 k
Gujarati
403 k
Bengali
oakleaf
+7
Level 52
Oct 26, 2017
I see that there are no native american languages listed. maybe the numbers are too small, but it does seem odd not to have some of them on the list.
Quizmaster
+4
Level ∞
Oct 27, 2017
Why would we add them to the list when there are too few speakers to qualify?
oakleaf
+17
Level 52
Oct 29, 2017
I guess I meant to say sad, not odd. Sad that what once were the dominant languages on the continent are not long spoken by the majority of people.
woshiwaiguoren
+2
Level 70
Jan 7, 2023
That's true on every continent. In this respect, pre-Columbian American populations are not special at all.
wiifly
+2
Level 59
Jul 28, 2023
It’s not nearly as true in Europe or most of Asia and lots of Africa
GeoGuy8
+1
Level 66
Oct 29, 2017
LOL!
GeoGuy8
+1
Level 66
Oct 29, 2017
Great quiz! You want to, say, Tagolog?
postwaste
+2
Level 85
Nov 23, 2017
No Quenya?
Guam
+1
Level 60
Sep 30, 2018
Never heard of Quenya, and I know lots of languages.
katerdids14
+1
Level 46
Aug 18, 2019
it's one of the elvish languages created by Tolkien for Middle earth :)
Findlay
+9
Level 82
Mar 18, 2018
I was surprised Tamil didn't make it, but perhaps the US has gotten less of the Tamil diaspora than we have here in Australia. I s'pose proximity counts for something.
GrammarBeane1
+2
Level 82
Jan 18, 2022
I was surprised, too. I guess my corner of the US has more than the average number of Tamil-speakers
IsleAuHaulte
+2
Level 89
Jun 28, 2018
Thank God Lolcat has died out.
Sifhraven
+2
Level 67
Jan 13, 2019
I is happy :)
samiamco
+2
Level 69
Jul 4, 2019
Also, Doge! Such funny. Much delightful. So lamenting.
Lily00
+2
Level 26
Jul 14, 2018
How about 'ASL' or 'American Sign Language'
ElReichlicho
+1
Level 27
Dec 22, 2018
Maybe accept Cajun for french creole, or would that be too far of a stretch?
redsplat
+1
Level 74
Jul 1, 2019
No, they're different.
brandybuck96
+1
Level 83
Jul 2, 2019
Cajun French is a dialect of French that comes from Acadian French. Creoles are an entirely different set of languages. It's likely that the majority of French Creole speakers here are Haitian, but Louisiana Creole is a different language again that is often referred to as just 'Creole', and which is different from Cajun.
Master27
+2
Level 89
Apr 5, 2019
Navajo?
Quizmaster
+32
Level ∞
Jul 1, 2019
Navano.
garou
+1
Level 20
Jan 29, 2021
This is hilarious, thank you.
GeoDude
+1
Level 48
Apr 21, 2019
No way buddy, I speak American
Djilas
+4
Level 82
Jul 1, 2019
Please accept Nepalese for Nepali
cpgatbyu
+3
Level 85
Jul 1, 2019
Why no credit for Farsi?
Quizmaster
+3
Level ∞
Jul 1, 2019
Farsi will work now
Tramp
+21
Level 76
Jul 1, 2019
I understand some of the other groupings, but why on earth is Marathi grouped with Nepali? They may as well have grouped German and French together.
Quizmaster
+14
Level ∞
Jul 1, 2019
I don't know. Why did they group Yiddish with Pennsylvania Dutch? It doesn't make sense and I wish they hadn't done it.
communisteggplant
+4
Level 73
Jul 1, 2019
I take it you don't have the Hasidic Amish in your part of the US?
Tramp
+3
Level 76
Jul 1, 2019
That one seemed bizarre to me too, but I didn't know enough about either language to confidently call it out. Weird choices.
Quizmaster
+9
Level ∞
Jul 3, 2019
Throw all the old-timey religious people together I guess?
mschiesser
+4
Level 91
Feb 21, 2020
Yiddish and Penn Dutch (Deutsch) are both variants (i won't call them dialects for fear of angering someone) of German. I've heard that some folks that know one are able to understand the other, some don't.
Kahikatea
+9
Level 76
Jun 3, 2021
It's also weird how they grouped Hawaiian and Samoan together. Hawaiian is an East Polynesian language and Samoan is a West Polynesian language
Soryaz
+1
Level 39
Aug 11, 2022
If you separated them like that, the numbers would be low. They probably come from the same family anyway.
Gwaur
+3
Level 39
Jul 2, 2019
Others have commented this already, but I'm joining in: Why no sign language? Do you think it's not a language?
Quizmaster
+6
Level ∞
Jul 3, 2019
Yo dawg. We get the data from the Census Bureau. What I think has nothing to do with it.
IsleAuHaulte
+1
Level 89
Aug 21, 2019
Arf.
Jiaozira
+9
Level 70
Jul 4, 2019
Interesting. I'm surprised Punjabi isn't here, in Canada Punjabi is the most spoken language from the Subcontinent by far!
PRALKAPL
+1
Level 21
Aug 18, 2019
xd more people speak igbo than polish
GoatUnicorn
+1
Level 59
Aug 18, 2019
Polynesian for Samoan/Hawaiian?
Zefyrinus
+2
Level 71
Aug 18, 2019
*sigh* I didn't try Hawaiian simply because I was thinking there's no way there are more than 300 000 speakers.
rcshelton23
+3
Level 56
Aug 18, 2019
How in the world did I get Amharic, but forget Russian and Italian...
CapitalAce
+8
Level 58
Aug 18, 2019
Ridiculous. Hindi and Urdu are counted separately, French and Haitian creole are counted separately, but Igbo and Yoruba are counted together? Igbo and Yoruba are definitely separate languages, not dialects of each other.
rockymountaineer
+4
Level 59
Aug 18, 2019
Marathi and Nepali are completely different languages and should not be grouped together.
YashShelar
+1
Level 46
Apr 15, 2020
I agree. The only similarity is that they are both derived from Sanskrit.
undeadwarrior
+1
Level 63
Aug 19, 2019
Could you do one for Australia, if you have the data? The same languages are likely to be on there, but in a completely different order - the difference would be quite extraordinary.
CrazeddRabbi
+1
Level 44
Aug 19, 2019
Pretty sure Pennsylvania Dutch is a group of people, while Yiddish is a language (typically not spoked by Pennsylvanian Dutch unless their Jewish)
MungoJerry
+2
Level 53
Apr 2, 2020
both languages are German-derived
ppaaccoojrf
+4
Level 36
Aug 22, 2019
American census groupings make no sense to me.
Yetushelah
+1
Level 34
Jan 14, 2020
You should add Hebrew, there's about 500k Israelis living in the US.
kalbahamut
+2
Level 82
Jan 14, 2020
The last census only counted about 1/5 that number.
FadKrashmor
+7
Level 71
Jan 26, 2020
Weird that the subcontinental Indian languages are listed separately (mostly) whereas all the Chinese languages are lumped into one! I can only guess this comes from the fact Chinese languages look the same when written down (well, bearing in mind the modern simplification).
TheNatureThread
+2
Level 65
Dec 30, 2022
Must be because India doesn't claim that everything is one language, also North Indian and South Indian languages, both of which have multiple major languages, are completely unrelated linguistically, so it wouldn't make sense; even China doesn't claim that minority languages unrelated to Chinese (Sinitic) languages are dialects.
JackintheBox
+1
Level 79
Apr 15, 2020
Got all but Samoa/Hawaiian and Amharic/Somali!
callofduty45
+2
Level 55
Apr 15, 2020
serbo-croatian is at about 260k, were getting up there!
UltraEl1te
+1
Level 37
Aug 25, 2020
My god, Did i just forget arabic............
Thomas1VL
+1
Level 62
Sep 5, 2020
I thought it was Nepalese instead of Nepali...
Nathaniel
+2
Level 74
Oct 13, 2020
Really proud of getting Nepali, Gujarati, Yoruba and Telugu.
Asterlan
+1
Level 57
Oct 13, 2020
Could you accept Nepalese for Nepali?
HydratedMite
+2
Level 65
Oct 5, 2023
Could you accept Englese for English?
svelte
+1
Level 51
Nov 11, 2020
On literally every single quiz Telugu is on, I always end up spelling it Tegulu. Bruhhhh.
Neodymium
+2
Level 59
Mar 14, 2023
sad....
Kahaku
+1
Level 53
Dec 30, 2020
wow, i'm surprised the only native language is Samoan/Hawaiian, I thought Navajo would've made the list.
PenguinTorpedo
+3
Level 49
Dec 30, 2020
No native american languages?? Thats depressing
DukeOfLorraine
+1
Level 65
Jan 7, 2023
Grand total there may be around 400k Native Americans in the USA, so even if all native languages were grouped in a single group (I doubt it's the case) and all spoke their ancestral language at home, they would still not make the list.
LuigiDood227
+1
Level 64
Jan 29, 2021
HOW IS JAPANESE SO LOW?!
EvanAviator
+1
Level 59
Jan 7, 2023
almost nobody outside of japan learns Japanese, and japan doesn't have much immigrants to the usa
Hayst
+2
Level 60
Mar 8, 2021
Samoan and Hawaiian are different languages though>?
chailattee
+4
Level 62
Apr 30, 2021
Well, they also group Yiddish and Pennsylvania Dutch,Yoruba and Igbo, and Amharic with Somali. It doesn't make sense, but for some reason they did it.
Damangio
+4
Level 64
Mar 23, 2021
I need to have some strong words with the Census Bureau about what languages they combine.
FatSpartanJediLlama
+1
Level 67
Jun 1, 2021
I did not expect urdu to be above japanese and persian
FatSpartanJediLlama
+1
Level 67
Jun 1, 2021
Got Yoruba/Igbo
perfectbalance
+1
Level 59
Jun 3, 2021
How did I get Yoruba but miss Russian
pascalsiakam43
+3
Level 35
Jun 3, 2021
There is no language called Chinese is it mandarin or Cantonese
Jers13720
+1
Level 22
Jun 10, 2021
Wait why Yoruba and Tagalog is viral in the US
Hawke
+1
Level 74
Jun 11, 2021
Tagalog is pretty common in the U.S. because we have a lot of Filipinos' living here
Yeoryios
+1
Level 73
Oct 25, 2021
Accept Pennsylvanian Dutch?
IceCold
+2
Level 56
Jan 23, 2022
Nepali and Marathi being grouped together is a very strange decision
christanhan
+2
Level 21
Apr 13, 2022
There are over 500k Deaf that use ASL as their primary language to communicate. I'm surprised this didn't make the list.
Cordelia75
+2
Level 56
Jun 4, 2022
Do you think it could be because the instructions say sign language is not included?
tongie17
+1
Level 35
Jun 9, 2022
Why is canadian not on here????!!!!
kalbahamut
+1
Level 82
Nov 7, 2022
After that incident with the Baldwin family we stopped teaching it at public schools.
Amit1274
+3
Level 32
Aug 26, 2022
dear jess Marathi and Nepali are nowhere related to each other I am a Marathi speaking person
kennyyyanne
+1
Level 26
Nov 7, 2022
I wish they would have added aave and asl. aave is extremely common and different than english. asl is also often excluded from languages because it isnt a spoken language, but is still extremely valid and used through the country /:
Jango
+2
Level 64
Nov 21, 2022
Lumping Chinese as one language then splitting French from French Creole is just silly. And lazy. And before you ask, yes, I saw the disclaimer. All it means is that you've found the stats somewhere and made them into a rubbish quiz!
DrakiGuy
+2
Level 58
Jan 7, 2023
Why would Somali and Amharic be classified as interchangeable? They don't even belong to the same language family! Yet Hindi and Urdu (which is just Persianite Hindi) are different
AALLEEXX
+2
Level 45
Jan 7, 2023
It's sad that no Native languages are on the list
rutu14
+2
Level 40
Jan 7, 2023
Hi Marathi speaker here. Marathi and Nepali are very far apart. They cannot be considered the same language.
EvanAviator
+1
Level 59
Jan 7, 2023
tell that to the United States Census Bureau
JWatson24
+1
Level 71
Apr 15, 2023
Yeah agreed, they are nowhere near similar. Marathi isn't even the most similar Indian language to Nepali. It's absurd to group them together.
DukeOfLorraine
+1
Level 65
Jan 7, 2023
Interesting, french would shoot up to 4th place if counted together with french creole.

But there are some wide varieties of creole. Louisiana creole sounds almost exactly like french but writes nothing alike, it looks transcribed with english rules. Haitian creole is further away from french.

DaveH
+1
Level 48
Jan 8, 2023
Sorry, but I refuse to believe that nearly half of quiz takers knew Urdu.
sumguy
+2
Level 84
Jan 8, 2023
Why not?
abracadabrant
+4
Level 53
Jan 9, 2023
we're all nerds on this site
abracadabrant
+1
Level 53
Jan 9, 2023
im surprised there are that many yiddish speakers in the US
AndyTownsend7
+2
Level 47
Jan 9, 2023
American Sign Language (ASL)?
ballabrand
+1
Level 53
Mar 1, 2023
Yeah I'd like to see some consistency between these language quizzes, some include it and others dont.
ddddan
+3
Level 81
May 22, 2023
I thought it interesting that almost all the main Indian languages are here except Tamil. As a Canadian that's surprising.
JesseFromThe6
+1
Level 69
Jan 20, 2024
No Punjabi either.
Dollyfroggy
+1
Level 60
Oct 13, 2023
Why are Igbo / Yoruba grouped (and not Hausa too)? They are only related by their country...
Dollyfroggy
+1
Level 60
Feb 25, 2024
Never mind. The caveat answers my question. Still a strange choice by the census nonetheless.
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