Languages
Native
English
78%
Secondary languages
Spanish
13%
Language Samples
Hello, how are you?
Hello, how are you?
I am very well, thanks.
I am very well, thanks.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
Linguistic History
The United States has no official language at the federal level, but English has been the de facto national language since the colonial era. American English developed from 17th-century British dialects and diverged in spelling and pronunciation over the following centuries, partly codified by Noah Webster's 1828 dictionary. The country is home to approximately 41 million native Spanish speakers and 12 million Spanish-English bilinguals, making it the second-largest Spanish-speaking country in the world by population after Mexico. Hundreds of indigenous languages survive, many critically endangered, alongside large communities speaking Chinese, Tagalog, Vietnamese, Arabic, French, and dozens of other languages.
Similar Languages
Dutch
67%
German
60%
Swedish
55%
Norwegian
55%
Media
Times Square in New York City, one of the most linguistically diverse urban areas on Earth.
Photo: Terabass · CC BY-SA 3.0
Did You Know
01
The United States has no official language at the federal level; 32 individual states have designated English as their official language through state legislation.
02
With roughly 41 million native Spanish speakers, the US has the second-largest Spanish-speaking population in the world, surpassing Spain itself.
03
Louisiana still has a small community of native French Creole speakers, and the state's legal system is partly based on Napoleonic Code rather than English common law.