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It's a well-known cliche that New York City is a melting pot, but we do have the linguistical bonafides to back it up: according to the Department of City Planning, New Yorkers speak over 200 different languages. "Nearly one-half of all New Yorkers speak a language other than English at home, and almost 25%, or 1.8 million persons, are not English Proficient," the city says.
A new study from Word Finder X analyzed U.S. Census Bureau data in order to find the most spoken language in each NYC neighborhood. Unsurprisingly, English and Spanish are the most commonly spoken languages in households across the city, but which tongues take top marks if you take both of those languages out of the equation?
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Chinese ranked as the most spoken language in 15 neighborhoods—more than any other language—including Sunset Park, Brooklyn, Flushing, Queens, and Manhattan’s Chinatown, home to the largest population of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere.
Russian took the top spot in eight other NYC neighborhoods, including Brooklyn's Brighton Beach, long a haven for Eastern European immigrants who moved to the area in the late 1960s. Italian was the top language in three neighborhoods, including Howard Beach in Queens, "where half of the population is either Italian or claims Italian ancestry," reads the study. Haitian dominated areas like Flatbush in Brooklyn, the largest Haitian community in New York City. Bengali, French, Korean and Yiddish also popped up throughout several neighborhoods in the city.
The study extended beyond good ol' Gotham to measure the most common languages across the United States. Outside of English and Spanish, German was the most spoken language, popping up in 13 states, though Chinese was the most common tongue overall in New York State. In the west, Tagalog was the most spoken language in nine cities, including San Diego, California, Las Vegas, Nevada and Anchorage, Alaska. In the Midwest, French is the most spoken language (after English and Spanish) in four major cities, including Kansas City, Missouri, and Arabic had the strongest showing in the Southeast, including major cities like Nashville, Tennessee and Louisville, Kentucky.
Check out the full study at the Word Finder X website.