What’s the third most common language in your state?
Fascinating.
And here’s the Canadian version that shows the top 3 languages spoken aside from English or French.
The most common are Chinese, German, and Arabic.
Thanks to Alicia for finding it!
25 Comments
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save. spend. splurge.
My goodness. German to me seems like the hardest language to learn and pin down. A German colleague once told me that Germans separate between every action based on its context such as you seeing the dog, the dog seeing you, someone you knew saw the dog.. all use different verbs or something like that.
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MelD
@save. spend. splurge.: LOL I don’t think German is harder than any other language, it’s certainly got fewer rules when you’re reading it than English. You do have to get your head round three articles rather than two in French and one in English – I think Latin helps! Any language that is “foreign” is going to seem difficult, I guess. I’m sure Spanish is no more easy or difficult than any other Romance language (French, Italian…) but in the US it’s probably heard more.
Also, foreign nationals always appreciate an attempt to speak their language, even if you do have difficulties with the grammar or vocabulary, they are always keen to help out (or practice their own English!!!).
I have been fortunate in growing up with English, French and German, now Swiss-German and Italian, but then both my parents were language teachers. My daughter has bettered me by adding Japanese, ancient Greek, Latin and Korean… for fun :O-
save. spend. splurge.
You are really lucky. I find that some people just do really well in languages (I can speak fluently and without trouble but I hate learning grammar and the rules), but the Swiss have an excellent control of languages in general. I find that this country is THE BEST in languages.. I am never surprised when Swiss people speak at a minimum, 4 languages. Admirable.
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GirlinaTrenchcoat
@MelD: I wish France would go back to the septante/octante/nonante way of counting hehe. It was so hard to learn French when it got to numbers 70 and up! 🙂
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MelD
@save. spend. splurge.: Ah but these days I go to Brittany and have to stop and think every time, which makes me stutter…!!
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GirlinaTrenccoat
I was surprised that Tagalog was the most spoken aside from Spanish ad English in California, I honestly thought it would be Chinese, so it was a pleasant surprise. We definitely have a huge Filipino population in the Bay Area, so if you are ever down in this area you would find a ton of Filipino and Filipino-inspired cuisine!
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Tania
I’m not surprised at all for Hawaii (Tagalog). We have a huge Filipino community on all islands, past generations as well as recent immigrants. The whole “other than English and Spanish” is n/a for us. Spanish isn’t widely spoken here. I’d like to see where Japanese falls for Hawaii. There are also immersion schools for the Hawaiian language. Interesting.
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save. spend. splurge.
Do you get a lot of Filipino food there? I haven’t tried it yet… and I want to.
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Tania
@save. spend. splurge.: Oh yes! And it’s delicious. Not so much from dining out though, more from co-workers and friends during potlucks, at the office, etc. But we do have cultural festivals with the cuisine, music etc.
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The Asian Pear
Wow. I had no idea that Tagalog was so highly spoken in the US and in Canada. (It’s even in the territories!)
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Alicia
Turns out it has been done for Canada (but I can’t reply to your comment)! Oh google, how I love thee…
http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/map-canada-s-most-common-non-official-languages
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NZ Muse
Some fascinating diversity there! The other day I heard/read that more people in the US have German heritage than Irish and this map reinforces that.
Definitely Chinese (presumably Mandarin) in Auckland. These days if I go into a big department store and get approached by an Asian sales rep they always greet me in Chinese. A little awkward.
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save. spend. splurge.
In Canada it’s mostly Chinese too: http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/map-canada-s-most-common-non-official-languages
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Shannon @ Financially Blonde
I love this map! I live in New York and since there are so many people from other countries here, I was curious about what the second most common language would be. I used to live in Atlanta, though, and I am not surprised to see Korean. There are a number of areas outside the city that have signs and advertisements completely in Korean.
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Alicia @ Financial Diffraction
So cool. I would not have expected so much German… though it does make sense when I think about it.
I admit I had to look up Tagalog, but I definitely echo what Liquid said about another map like this for Canada. Wouldn’t be too difficult to do either considering it’s only 13 provinces/territories.
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Liquid
Cool map. Now I know where South Dakota got its name from. We need a map like this for Canada 🙂
“Most Commonly Spoken Language in Your Province Other Than English or French” -
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MelD
Fascinating – I hadn’t expected those results, to be honest!
And another laugh – we have four official languages alone in Switzerland: German, French, Italian and Romansch… 😉
Although I should point out that there is a big difference between written High/official German and spoken Swiss-German (“real” Germans can be spotted a mile away LOL!), much more so than with the French, which is more of a series of accents and a few different words (we say “septante” and “nonante” for 70 and 90, for instance, here, rather than soixante-dix or quatre-vingt-dix) and the same with Italian, where the mountain valley dialects are hard or next-to-impossible for an Italian to understand. Romansch is a series of mountain dialects in the eastern region that was brought together in an artificial “official” Romansch in the 1970s, but basically has 5 different versions…
After that there is a lot of English, Spanish, Portuguese, Serbian, Croatian, Albanian and so on, now also with more eastern European languages (Russian, Polish, Bulgarian). We also have quite a lot of Philippine population.