Languages of the United States
Updated: Wikipedia source
The most commonly used language in the United States is English (specifically American English), which is the national language. While the U.S. Congress has never passed a law to make English the country's official language, a March 2025 executive order declared it to be. In addition, 32 U.S. states out of 50 and all five U.S. territories have laws that recognize English as an official language, with three states and most territories having adopted English plus one or more other official languages. Overall, 430 languages are spoken or signed by the population, of which 177 are indigenous to the U.S. or its territories, and accommodations for non-English-language speakers are sometimes made under various federal, state, and local laws. The majority of the U.S. population (77%) speaks only English at home as of 2024, according to the American Community Survey (ACS) of the U.S. Census Bureau. The second most common language by far is Spanish, spoken by 13.9% of the population, followed by Chinese, spoken by around 1% of the population. Other languages spoken by over a million residents are Tagalog, Vietnamese, Arabic, French, Korean, and Russian. Only 8.4% of U.S. residents report that they speak English less than "very well". Many residents of the U.S. unincorporated territories speak their own native languages or a local language, such as Spanish in Puerto Rico and English in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Over the course of U.S. history, many languages have been brought into what became the United States from Europe, Africa, Asia, other parts of the Americas, and Oceania. Some of these languages have developed into dialects and dialect families (examples include African-American English, Pennsylvania Dutch, and Gullah), creole languages (such as Louisiana Creole), and pidgin languages. American Sign Language (ASL) and Interlingua, an international auxiliary language, were created in the United States.