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MLA Language Map FAQLanguages in the United States TodayThe United States Census and the DataThe MLA Language MapDo people in the United States who speak languages other than English speak English too? Of the 47.0 million respondents (18% of the entire population over five years old) who reported that they spoke other languages, 55% said that they also spoke English "very well," 22% that they also spoke English "well," 16% that they also spoke English but "not well," and 7% that they did not speak English at all (Census 2000 SF3, PCT 12). The MLA Language Map Data Center collapses these four categories into two, suggesting an upper and a lower range of English ability. This is done on the assumption that gradations between "well" and "very well" and between "not well" and "not at all" will vary according to factors such as speakers' sense of what their ability ought to be, whereas a broad distinction between the upper and lower ranges of ability is likely to be less individually defined (see Robert Kominski, "How Good Is 'How Well'? An Examination of the Census English-Speaking Ability Question," 1989, www.census.gov/population/socdemo/language/ASApaper1989.pdf). Back to top What information does the US Census provide about people who report that they speak a language other than English at home? "America Speaks: A Demographic Profile of Foreign-Language Speakers for the United States: 2000," published in 2006 by the Census Bureau, summarizes data by language spoken in terms of age, sex, race and Hispanic origin, nativity, citizenship, year of entry, place of birth, level of school enrollment, educational attainment, employment status, and employment class. The 104 tables reporting these data are found at www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/hh-fam/AmSpks.html. Languages are collapsed into four categories in this profile: Spanish, other Indo-European languages, Asian and Pacific Island languages, and all other languages. The ages of speakers in the tables are broken out in eighteen intervals. Back to top What does it mean when the Language Map or the census reports that someone speaks a language other than English at home? If people report that they speak a language other than English at home, it may mean that they speak that language to everyone in their home and perhaps often speak it on the street or at work as well. Or it may mean that they speak their language only to some of the people in their home--for instance, to parents or grandparents but perhaps not to siblings, or possibly to older siblings but not to younger ones. Many languages are falling into disuse and may even be threatened with extinction. Some people who do not use a language consistently at home may declare themselves speakers of it out of loyalty to family, culture, or nation. Visitors to the Language Map may gain insights into the nature of some language communities by comparing numbers of speakers in various age groups in the light of their ability to speak English. Back to top Are any of these languages taught in United States institutions? In the United States, 2,795 two- and four-year colleges and universities reported teaching languages to 1,577,810 students in 2006. The languages most frequently studied in 2006 were, in alphabetical order, American Sign Language, Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Ancient Greek, Biblical Hebrew, Modern Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. Ranked in descending order of numbers of college enrollments, they are as follows: Spanish, French, German, American Sign Language, Italian, Japanese, Chinese, Latin, Russian, Arabic, Ancient Greek, Biblical Hebrew, Portuguese, Modern Hebrew, and Korean. In addition, 204 other languages, from Afrikaans to Zulu, are studied in American postsecondary institutions (see Nelly Furman, David Goldberg, and Natalia Lusin, "Enrollments in Languages Other Than English in United States Institutions of Higher Education, Fall 2006," (www.mla.org/pdf/enrollmentsurvey_final.pdf). Back to top Where can I find learning and teaching materials for languages less commonly taught in the United States? The Language Materials Project at the University of California, Los Angeles, offers teaching resources for less commonly taught languages through an interactive map that also provides concise profiles of over one hundred languages (www.lmp.ucla.edu). The University of Minnesota's Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition features a database of postsecondary institutions in the United States that teach less commonly taught languages (carla.acad.umn.edu/lctl/db/). Back to top How can I find out where the languages listed on this site are spoken outside the United States? The language name index at the Ethnologue Web site (www.ethnologue.com/language_index.asp) has an alphabetical listing of 7,299 of the world's languages and includes such details as countries in which languages are spoken, numbers of speakers, variations in language names, dialects, and related languages. Back to top What are the most-spoken languages in the world today? Estimates differ as to the numbers of primary (mother-tongue) speakers of the world's most-spoken languages. The following listing is based on figures published in the 1990s: Mandarin Chinese (726 million; all Chinese languages, 1,071 million); English (427 million); Spanish (266 million), Hindu/Urdu (223 million); Arabic (181 million); Portuguese (165 million); Bengali (162 million); Russian (158 million); Japanese (124 million); German (121 million); French (116 million); Javanese (75 million); Korean (66 million); Italian (65 million); Panjabi (60 million); Marathi (58 million); Vietnamese (57 million); Telugu (55 million); Turkish (53 million); Tamil (49 million); Ukrainian (45 million); Polish (42 million). These figures do not include second-language speakers. (David Crystal, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language, 2nd ed. [Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1997] 289) Back to top How can I find out more about immigrants and migrants in the United States? Between 1990 and 2000, the foreign-born population of the United States increased by 11.3 million. The Migration Policy Institute provides an interactive map showing state-by-state data on foreign-born populations in the United States from the 1990 and 2000 censuses (www.migrationinformation.org/USFocus/statemap.cfm) and a "Who's Where" device that allows the user to look up where foreign-born groups live in the United States, by country, region, or continent of origin and by state or region of current residence (www.migrationinformation.org/DataTools/). Back to top What are the populations of the United States and of the world today? The Census Bureau provides regularly updated estimates of these numbers at www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html. Back to top Where do these data come from? The United States Census 2000 long form, distributed to approximately one in six United States households, asked whether respondents spoke a language other than English at home. Respondents who answered in the affirmative were then asked to name the language they spoke. Information on Census 2000, including information on the long-form sample, sampling error, confidentiality protection, and definitions of terms can be found in the census publication Summary File 3--Technical Documentation. The data used for the maps on this Web site are drawn from the Census 2000, Summary File 3 (SF3) database. Data used in the Data Center (with the exception of zip code data) are drawn from a special tabulation (STP 258) of Census 2000 data commissioned by the Modern Language Association in 2005. The 2005 data are taken from the 2005 American Community Survey (ACS). Introduced by the Census Bureau in 1996, the ACS is conducted annually. It bases its estimates on samples much smaller than those used in the decennial long form. Annual data collection allows the Census Bureau to provide up-to-date information throughout the decade, but information is solicited from only about three million households each year, because the frequency makes a larger survey impractical. Back to top How accurate are the data? The Census 2000 data about language are based on sampling and may be somewhat different from data that would have been obtained if all the census respondents had been asked about their language use. The Census Bureau uses statistical formulas to determine the possible degree of error in a given sample (see the census publication Summary File 3--Technical Documentation). Because sample size varies depending on the size of the language community (e.g., Spanish in Los Angeles vs. Yiddish in Detroit), the possible degree of error also varies, but in all cases it is very small. Information about the accuracy of the data from the 2005 American Community Survey is found at www.census.gov/acs/www/Downloads/ACS/accuracy2005.pdf. Back to top Where can I find out more about Census 2000 and the American Community Survey? The Census 2000 Web site is www.census.gov. If you follow the link there to "American FactFinder" and from there to "Data Sets," you can find data collected in response to all census questions. Information on such subjects as housing, income, education, and language use is found in Summary File 3. The detailed tables about language use are PCT 10-PCT 14. Additional information on languages spoken at home and the ability to speak English can be found in a publication from the Census Bureau: Language Use and English-Speaking Ability: 2000, by Hyon B. Shin, with Rosalind Bruno (www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/c2kbr-29.pdf). Information about the American Community Survey is found at www.census.gov/acs/www/. Back to top What languages are included in the language groups listed on this site?
Why does the Language Map Data Center provide 2005 data only for large geographic areas and for the thirty languages most frequently spoken in the United States? The 2005 data are taken from the 2005 American Community Survey (ACS). The ACS bases its estimates on samples much smaller than those used in the decennial long form, which in 2000 sampled as many as one in six households in the United States. Because reducing the sample size may increase the margin of error of a statistical estimate, the ACS limits its reports to large geographic areas and population groups. The MLA Language Map Data Center provides 2005 ACS language data about the whole United States, major geographic regions (e.g., the South), combinations of states the Census Bureau terms divisions (e.g., the mid-Atlantic states), and the fifty states. ACS data for 2005 for counties and municipalities with populations over 65,000, not available at the Data Center, can be found at the Census Bureau's Web site factfinder.census.gov. Back to top How can I find out the name of the city or town in which a zip code is found? The United States Post Office provides a "Zip Code Lookup" tool at www.zip4.usps.com/zip4/citytown_zip.jsp. Back to top Why do percentage ranges differ from language to language in the by-percentage maps? Different percentage ranges are used for different languages because languages vary greatly in maximum density. In a set of ranges appropriate to a commonly spoken language, the gradations are not fine enough to bring out the variations in density of a less commonly spoken language. The percentage ranges used in the Language Map are determined by natural breaks in the data. Back to top What kind of map projection is used in the language maps? The MLA Language Map uses the Mercator projection. Mercator is a cylindrical map projection--the meridians and parallels are straight, not curved, and they intersect at 90-degree angles. All maps inevitably contain some distortion, because they reduce the three-dimensional earth to a two-dimensional representation, the equivalent of trying to make an orange peel lie flat on a table. The distortion in the Mercator projection means that the farther one goes from the equator, the more the size of land masses is exaggerated. States in the northern part of the United States therefore appear larger than states of similar size in the South. Back to top Why are there no language maps for the 2005 data? Changes in the sizes of language groups in most states have been gradual. Although the changes from 2000 to 2005 may be proportionally significant, maps based on 2005 data would only occasionally differ from those based on the Census 2000 data. This is because the maps are designed to reflect numbers broadly (each color on the map represents a range of numbers). Gradual changes are more readily evident in actual numbers, and these are reported in the Data Center. Back to top Are all personal computers compatible with the MLA Language Map? The MLA Language Map is built on ESRI's ArcIMS platform, which supports the following browsers: for Windows--Internet Explorer 5 and above (6 is recommended) and Netscape 6 and above; for Macintosh--Netscape 6 and above and Safari 1.2 and above. Other browsers have not been fully tested but may be compatible. Internet Explorer for Macintosh is not supported. Operating systems other than Windows and Macintosh are not supported. Back to top Does the Language Map have any bugs? We are aware of occasional technical problems in which the screen may freeze; the software may take more than a minute to produce a graphic, map, or table; or a map may zoom in or out more than expected. To cure any of these problems, click the "Stop" and then the "Refresh" buttons on your browser or the "Start Over" button on the map. You will have to enter your request on the map again. Back to top |
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