America is a place defined by immigrants, its identity forged by a vast array of disparate cultures and languages. Simply put, it’s never been a single-language nation, and in homes across the United States, millions of residents speak a language other than English.
Yet America’s linguistic landscape shifts dramatically from one state to the next. 45% of California’s residents speak a non-English language, whereas in states like West Virginia and Montana the figure is less than 5%.
In this study, we’ll take a closer look at the most popular languages spoken at home in the United States. We’ll look at the states with the most non-English speakers, the variable non-English speaker access to interpreting services and associated costs, and which states most need a bilingual workforce.
First, let’s take a broad look at the language share in America.
The Languages of America
According to the 2024 American Community Survey, around 74.1 million U.S. people aged 5 and older speak a non-English language at home. That’s 23% of the population, and well up on the roughly 60 million that spoke a non-English language at home in the U.S. between 2009 and 2013. (Of over 321 million Americans counted, 77% speak only English at home.)
Census Bureau data tells us that over 430 languages are spoken or signed across the country, including 177 indigenous languages. This means that the United States is one of the world’s most linguistically diverse nations, reflecting centuries of immigration and well-established Indigenous and historic communities.
Of non-English languages spoken in the U.S., Spanish is by far the most popular. It’s spoken at home by just under 45 million people (13.9% of the population aged 5 and older). The Spanish-speaking U.S. population has more than quadrupled since 1970, making the United States the world’s second-largest Spanish-speaking country after Mexico. Spanish speakers alone outnumber the combined total of speakers of French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese, Arabic and every Native American language.
Apart from Spanish, Other Indo-European languages (French, Portuguese, German, Russian, Polish and Greek) accounted for 13 million speakers (4.1% of the population), while Asian and Pacific Island languages (Chinese, Vietnamese, Tagalog, Korean and Hindi) were spoken by 11.9 million people (3.7% of the population).
Some U.S. language communities have undergone rapid expansion. The number of Arabic speakers grew more than 580% between 1980 and 2023; Portuguese speakers increased by 275,000 between 2018 and 2023; and Ukrainian speakers grew by around 150,000 during the five years following the start of the recent war in Ukraine.
These trends reflect immigration and the continual growth of thriving communities across the country. Other examples include Somali communities in the Upper Midwest, Bengali neighborhoods in New York, and Haitian Creole South Florida residents.
There are groups of non-English speakers in every state. Of the 74.1 million people who speak a non-English language at home, 39.1% do so less than ‘very well’ and meet the federal definition of limited English proficiency (LEP).
This means that about 28.9 million people are eligible for language help in courts, hospitals, schools, and government agencies. Among residents 18 and older, 17.4% speak a non-English language at home, with 30.4% classified as LEP (that’s over 12.9 million voting-age citizens who have limited English proficiency).
U.S. linguistic diversity continues to impact access to public services, healthcare, education, legal systems, and civic participation.
English-Speaking Residents
While many states feature vast multilingual populations, a look at the opposite end of the language spectrum is just as revealing. According to the 2024 American Community Survey, West Virginia features the nation’s highest share of English-only speakers (97.2% of residents aged 5 and older speak only English at home).
Other high English-only state representations include Montana (95.5%), Mississippi (95.4%), Vermont (94.2%), Maine (93.7%), Wyoming (93.6%), Alabama (93.6%), North Dakota (93%), South Dakota (93%), and Missouri (92.6%).
California features the country’s lowest English-only rate (54.7%), meaning nearly half of its residents live in multilingual households. Other states with relatively low English-only households include Texas (64.3%), New Jersey (65.7%), Florida (68%), and New York (68.4%).
Overall, states with the highest English-only rates tend to be rural and historically less subject to significant immigration, while those with the lowest rates are often coastal, urban and shaped by sustained immigration from Latin America, Asia, and the Caribbean.
Let’s narrow our focus and ask: which U.S. states feature the highest numbers of non-English speakers?
The States With The Most Non-English Speakers
The best way to fully appreciate the wide diversity of languages spoken in the U.S. is to carefully measure the characteristics of each state.
According to the 2024 American Community Survey, California features the highest number of residents aged 5 and older (45.3%) who speak a non-English language at home.
That’s 16.9 million people out of 37.3 million, with no other state featuring such a high number or proportion of non-English speakers. Spanish-speakers accounted for 28.8% of California’s population: that’s 10.8 million speakers.
Texas ranked second with a 35.7% share of non-English speakers, representing just over 10.5 million of 29.3 million residents. This share is largely driven by Texas’ Spanish-speaking population, which makes up 28.2% of residents. New Jersey (34.3%), Florida (32.0%), and New York (31.6%) completed the top five.
Together, the top ten states feature 49.1 million non-English speakers, 66.3% of the national total (74.1 million). Seven states feature non-English speaker rates of over 30%, while ten featured rates over 25%. Those numbers confirm that at least one in four residents speak a non-English language at home.
The dominant non-English languages vary from state to state. New Jersey (9.1%) and New York (9.2%) feature the highest shares of Other Indo-European languages, reflecting their significant Russian, Polish and Portuguese communities. Massachusetts is notable as its Spanish-speaking population (9.9%) almost matches its Other Indo-European population (9.6%).
New Mexico features the highest Spanish-speaking share in the U.S. outside California and Texas (24.8%), reflecting centuries of Spanish-speaking settlers. Hawaii features the nation’s highest proportion of Asian and Pacific Island languages (20.6%) due to longstanding Japanese, Filipino, and Korean communities.
A number of states feature particularly high levels of limited English proficiency (LEP). California is home to around 6.7 million LEP residents (17.9% of its population), followed by Texas with 3.9 million (13.2%), Florida with 3 million (13.5%), New York with 2.7 million (14.4%) and New Jersey with 1.2 million (13.9%).
At the other end of the spectrum, West Virginia features the nation’s lowest non-English speaker rate (2.8%), which works out at fewer than 47,600 non-English speakers, followed by Montana (4.5%), Mississippi (4.6%), Vermont (5.8%) and Maine (6.3%).
The contrast between California’s 45.3% and West Virginia’s 2.8% emphatically shows the extent to which multilingual populations are concentrated in specific regions shaped by distinct immigration histories and historic communities.
Such disparities have day-to-day consequences for schools, hospitals, courts, law firms and civic agencies. Institutions in California, Texas and New Jersey must accommodate very different linguistic environments than those in West Virginia and Montana.
For policymakers, legal professionals and service providers, this state-specific data can help them to identify where there’s the greatest demand for interpreters, translation services and language access.
Non-English Languages: Which Are Used Most?
Once we consider the use of individual languages as opposed to broad group data, we can clearly discern the full scale of America’s linguistic diversity. According to the 2024 American Community Survey, eleven languages were spoken by more than a million people in the United States, a clear reflection of significant, well-established immigrant communities.
Combined, the ten largest non-English languages account for around 58.5 million speakers, with Spanish by far the most popular (44.4 million speakers, 75.9% of the total
Chinese (including Mandarin and Cantonese) ranks second with around 3.7 million speakers. Tagalog (including Filipino) is next with 1.8 million speakers, ahead of Vietnamese (1.6 million), Arabic (1.5 million), French including Cajun (1.2 million), Korean (1.1 million), Portuguese (1.1 million), Hindi (1.1 million) and Haitian Creole (1 million). Haitian Creole’s place in the top ten reflects incessantly growing Haitian communities in South Florida, New York and Massachusetts.
The rate of limited English proficiency (LEP) varies significantly across language groups. Vietnamese speakers represent the highest LEP rate (57.5%), followed by Chinese (50.7%) and Korean (49%) speakers.
While Spanish speakers have a lower LEP rate (41.1%), their much larger population means they account for more than 18.2 million LEP residents, by far the largest LEP population of any language group.
Haitian Creole speakers represent a 43.7% LEP rate, Russian speakers 42.2%, Arabic 34.6%, and Portuguese 36%. At the other end of the spectrum, Hindi (16.5%) and French (22.1%) speakers had the lowest LEP rates among high-use languages, reflecting variable immigration and educational patterns. Across the ten largest language groups, 23.9 million people are categorised as possessing limited English proficiency.
Most Popular Languages
Although Spanish is the most popular non-English language in 47 of 50 states, the second most common non-English language in the U.S. varies by region.
According to the 2024 American Community Survey, Chinese (including Mandarin and Cantonese) ranks second in 13 states, including California (1.3 million speakers), New York (646,302), Washington (160,131), New Jersey (138,338) and Pennsylvania (96,813).
French (including Cajun) ranks second in Louisiana (57,844 speakers), as well as Nebraska, New Hampshire and South Carolina. Arabic was the second most popular non-English language in Michigan (190,833), Tennessee (30,232) and Virginia (65,738).
In Minnesota and the District of Columbia, large East African communities mean that Amharic, Somali, and other Afro-Asiatic languages rank second. Here are other key examples of second-ranking non-English languages.
Wisconsin
Hmong (36,777)
Texas
Vietnamese (254,659)
Arizona
Navajo (70,691)
Maryland
Yoruba, Twi, Igbo, and other West African languages (75,279)
Massachusetts
Portuguese (247,638).
The geographic variation of second-ranked languages emphasises the distinct state immigration histories and diaspora communities that characterise the United States.
Outside of Spanish, Languages Spoken
Each U.S. state’s secondary languages reflect their unique identities and their very different language access needs.
California’s 6.7 million LEP residents (17.9%) mean it features the nation’s most diverse language profile. Beyond its 10.8 million Spanish speakers, it has 1.3 million Chinese speakers, 820,806 Tagalog speakers, 559,609 Vietnamese speakers, and 350,520 Korean speakers.
Second-ranked Texas features 3.9 million LEP residents (13.2%). As well as 8.3 million Spanish speakers, Houston’s large Vietnamese community means that’s the second most popular spoken language (254,659 speakers). Florida (3 million LEP residents, 13.5%) features the country’s largest Haitian Creole-speaking population (512,329), as well as 210,218 Portuguese and 123,268 French speakers.
Of New York’s 2.7 million LEP residents (14.4%), there are 646,302 Chinese speakers, plus 244,264 who speak Yiddish and West Germanic, 209,622 Russian speakers, and 192,476 Bengali speakers, reflecting New York City’s broad ethnic diversity.
Other high-ranking LEP states such as New Jersey, Illinois, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Arizona further emphasize America’s linguistic diversity and the wide array of language access needs across the country. And in such states, there’s a persistent and significant demand for bilingual workers.
The Ongoing Need For Bilingual U.S. Workers
Job advertisements for bilingual employees more than doubled from nearly 240,000 in 2010 to over 630,000 by 2015, with demand continuing to rise. In 2023, bilingual job postings increased 24% compared to the previous year’s listings; bilingual healthcare positions rose 35%, and 40% of Fortune 500 companies actively sought bilingual staff to support their global operations. Additionally, nearly one in four employers suggested they’d lost or been unable to pursue business opportunities due to a lack of staff with the right foreign-language skills.
California, Texas, Florida, New York and New Jersey feature the highest levels of bilingual worker needs, with millions of non-English-speaking residents representing both a major customer base and a key part of the local labor force. Bilingual employees are also subject to wage premiums, and usually earn between 5 and 20% more than monolingual workers. On average, Spanish-English bilingual customer service employees earn around 10% more, while bilingual nurses earn around $10,000 more a year: in both cases, the growing economic value of language skills is clear.
The flipside of this is that low English proficiency can represent a significant barrier for numerous reasons.
The Language Barrier
For the 28.9 million U.S. people with limited English proficiency (LEP), the language barrier can hinder access to employment, healthcare, education, housing, civic life, and legal help.
According to a 2024 KFF analysis, while LEP immigrant workers were almost as likely to be employed as English-proficient immigrants (64% compared to 67%), they were also much more likely to work hourly jobs (60% compared to 45%) and much less likely to hold a salaried role (21% versus 42%). More than half (55%) lived in a household earning less than $40,000 a year, compared with 28% of English-proficient immigrants. 50% also reported workplace discrimination, including fewer opportunities to be promoted.
Research also confirms that LEP patients also suffer: they experience a higher number of hospital admissions and are subject to more medication-related errors, mainly because of a comparative lack of access to care. One national study found that 40% of ambulatory physicians have never used a professional interpreter with an LEP patient.
Among Hispanic immigrants with LEP, 36% said they’d had difficulty accessing healthcare, 33% struggled to find or retain a job, and 23% of parents suggested they’d found it hard to communicate effectively with their children’s schools.
A 2024 KFF/Los Angeles Times Survey of immigrants also found that one in four felt they’d been treated unfairly by healthcare providers due to their accent or lack of English; for Black immigrants, the number was four in ten.
Additionally, language barriers negatively impact educational results. Around 10% of U.S. K-12 students are defined as English Language Learners. During the 2010-2011 school year, only 57% of English Language Learners graduated high school, compared with 79% of other students.
LEP parents often struggle to understand school communications, attend and understand conferences, and navigate enrollment, which leads to potentially severe educational disadvantages.
And more than 27 million people with LEP struggle to access government benefits, healthcare, and legal help due to a lack of language assistance. In New York, approximately 58% of immigrants and 30% of all residents are hampered by limited English proficiency.
The ‘Translation Tax’
Yet providing adequate language access costs public institutions significant sums of money. The federal government spends around $800 million dollars a year on outsourced language services. And that number doesn’t include the extra money states, local governments, schools, hospitals and courts must spend to provide language assistance under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.
The cost of inadequate language access can also mean poor communication, which in turn contributes to insufficient preventive care, misdiagnoses, unnecessary testing, and increased use of hospital and emergency rooms. Three hospital systems each saved between $1.3 million and $1.7 million a year when they improved their language service contracts.
The Costs and Benefits of Linguistic Diversity in America
The United States is one of the world’s most linguistically diverse countries, shaped by centuries of immigration and long-standing multilingual communities. 74.1 million U.S. residents (23% of residents age 5+) speak a non-English language at home, with over 430 languages represented across the country.
Spanish dominates: it’s spoken by almost 45 million people, and alone exceeds the combined total of all other major non-English languages. Other significant spoken languages include Chinese (3.7 million), Tagalog (1.8m), Vietnamese (1.6m), Arabic (1.5m), French (1.2m), Korean (1.1m), Portuguese (1.1m), Hindi (1.1m) and Haitian Creole (1m).
Limited English proficiency (LEP) affects around 28.9 million people, with 39.1% of non-English speakers struggling with English. High-LEP populations are especially significant in major states: California, Texas, Florida, New York and New Jersey. At the other end of the scale, rural states such as West Virginia and Montana feature very small non-English-speaking populations, confirming marked regional disparities.
The Spanish-speaking U.S. population has more than quadrupled since 1970, making the United States the world‘s second–largest Spanish–speaking country after Mexico
Language differences in the U.S. significantly shape daily life. People with LEP are more likely to work hourly, lower-wage jobs, face workplace discrimination, and earn less than English-proficient workers.
n healthcare, a lack of adequate interpretation contributes to poorer outcomes, while in education, English learners have lower graduation rates and face numerous barriers due to limited parental language access. These challenges also limit access to public services.
Addressing the clearly established language challenges carries major economic costs but also generates demand for bilingual workers, whose skills are increasingly rewarded across healthcare, business, and public services.
Ultimately, linguistic diversity is a defining structural feature of modern American society, shaping both opportunity and inequality. But without the ability to understand crucial aspects of daily existence, many of the immigrants who enrich the country will continue to miss out on the basic but hugely important benefits the majority of U.S. citizens take for granted.
An immigration lawyer is a trained and certified legal advisor who processes legal documents during or after the migration process.
At The Mendoza Law Firm, we’ve proudly represented immigrants and families undergoing the relocation process to the United States. Get in touch with us today for a case evaluation.