RESOURCES
Industry News
Newsletter
Case Studies
HOME > RESOURCES > INDUSTRY NEWS > POPULATION AND LANGUAGE DISTRIBUTION IN AMERICA
Population and Language Distribution in America
While there is no official language of the United States, English is the de facto (meaning "in practice but not necessarily ordained by law") language since the majority (about 82%) of the population speaks English as a native language. The second most common language in the U.S. is Spanish (about 10%), followed by Chinese, French, and German (each less than 1%). As an illustration of the most prevalent languages in the U.S., the year 2000 census questionnaire was printed in six languages: English, Spanish, Korean, Chinese traditional characters, Vietnamese, and Tagalog. English, Spanish, French, German, Navajo and other Native American languages have been spoken in America since before its independence. Since then, nearly all other languages are passed on from immigrant ancestors or learned through education. As of 2009, approximately 337 languages are spoken throughout the Americas, and 52 languages are known to be extinct.
The language distribution throughout the United States generally reflects regional population dispersion. For instance, the Southwestern United States is made up of long-established Spanish-speaking communities that are now neighbors of large numbers of more recent
As it stands, the U.S. has the world's fifth largest Spanish-speaking population, behind only Mexico, Spain, Argentina, and Colombia. As of 2008, people of Hispanic or Latino ethnicity made up the second largest racial category with 14.8% of the population, or about 44.3 million people. This figure is projected to jump to 30% by 2050, meaning that non-Hispanic whites will no longer make up the majority of the population. As a culture, people of Hispanic decent tend to cherish their ethnicity and pass along Spanish as their first or second language. All indications suggest that the use of Spanish in America will continue to rise rather than fade away like languages such as Italian, Polish, and Greek, which are slowly dwindling as older generations pass away. | Continue
SERVICES
Translation and Localization Services
Desktop Publishing and Design Services
Interpretation Services
Voiceover Services
Subtitling and Closed Captioning Services
Transcription Services