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Whether you’re trying to find the perfect word in Scrabble or study the languages of the world, Wolfram|Alpha has always provided computational insights into how we communicate. Now we’re taking that a step further—with data from the American Community Survey, we can take a closer look at where different languages are spoken in the United States.
From Arabic to Yiddish, Wolfram|Alpha can tell you where over 30 different languages are spoken at home. To get an overview of where a given language is spoken, try a query like “French speakers in the US”:
A few interesting facts pop out from this result:
- The number of people who speak French at home in the United States has been declining in recent years.
- Still, the number of French speakers is about the same as the number of people who live in Hawaii (to answer your next question, there are about 4,700 French speakers in Hawaii).
- Louisiana appears to have a notably high number of French speakers—in fact, it’s second in the nation on a per capita basis.
So, what cities in Louisiana have the largest populations of French speakers?
New Orleans ranks high, as you’d expect, but the #1 spot goes to the home of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette—whose sports teams, appropriately enough, are the Rajin’ Cajuns.
You can compare cities to see which one has the highest percentage of speakers of a given language:
(The final chart of the query above can be recreated for common languages spoken in a given city by using the query “most common languages spoken in…“, for example.)
Wolfram|Alpha can also report on language patterns broken down by ZIP code:
Or Congressional district:
Try taking a look at the linguistic breakdown of your hometown, or find out where you can talk with speakers of a language you’d like to learn. Best of luck exploring!