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[Steejee]

Portuguese for MA doesn't surprise me. Lots of Brazilians in Boston area (east somerville, everett I think, other places), and yelling, arguing, and cursing in portuguese at my soccer games is only less common than yelling, arguing, and cursing in english.

 

[Tugatrix]

Surprised at Portuguese in Utah. Maybe Brazilians?

Also Arizona - Navajo

How is Navajo foreign?

Same, the other two are easy to explain given the portuguese communities there, now Utah is strange

 

[TangoAlphaLima]

Surprised at Portuguese in Utah. Maybe Brazilians?

Utah obviously has a huge Mormon population, and they go on missionaries to foreign countries. Maybe they go on a disproportionate amount of missionaries to Brazil? I don't know.

 

[Hexxen-Panda]

Is there a huge foreign French population in North Carolina?

And wth is the article talking about saying Tagalog is the "second" official language of the Philippines. Filipino and Tagalog are the same thing..

As someone from a region named "Southern Tagalog", Tagalog is more of a regional dialect spoken in Luzon, while Filipino is the national version of it without the regional quirks and more English influence. I don't know if that's the article's intentions, but there is a distinction for Filipinos about it.

 

[Prime crotch]

Didn't knew there was such a strong Portuguese diaspora out in the US. Wonder if there's a Portugaltown.

 

[Zoe]

Didn't knew there was such a strong Portuguese diaspora out in the US. Wonder if there's a Portugaltown.

I think it's more from Brazil rather than Portugal...

 

[Laekon]

What exactly is Hmong? Quick search says it covers Southern China, Vietnam, Thailand, etc. Those countries have different languages with some large differences.

In the Northeast the Portuguese speakers are from Portugal.

 

[Tal Shiar Agent]

Can Spanish and German really be considered foreign languages? Spanish is a second language like French in Canada and German was spoken widely before the First World War and large numbers of Amish still natively speak Pennsylvanian Dutch.


Or can any American Indian/Alaskan Native/Hawaiian Native language be considered foreign either?

 

[zer0das]

Would not have guessed German for my home state of Missouri. Learn something new everyday.

Hard to miss unless you live in St. Louis or KC.

 

[Catdaddy]

Arabic here in Tennessee, don’t think that would have made my Top 20.

 

[Astarte]

awh yeah korean in ga represent

 

[Phu]

Arabic makes sense for Michigan. I actually would have guessed that over Spanish.

 

[Luxorek]

More Polish speakers than I expected. Now, Illinois was a given since there is a big Polish diaspora living in Chicago, but Idaho is a bit surprising.

Wonder what attracted my countrymen to that place.

 

[Tugatrix]

I think it's more from Brazil rather than Portugal...

Nope, they are mostly from Portugal specifically Azores

 

[Zoe]

Nope, they are mostly from Portugal specifically Azores

Interesting. Don't think that's the case for most Portuguese-speakers in Texas.

 

[moist]

Also Arizona - Navajo

How is Navajo foreign?

Throw Yupik in with this question.

 

[linko9]

I wanna know what's up with all the german. Would have never guessed it would be so common. Are these people living in communities that have spoken german for generations? Or just because it's a popular second language?

 

[SecretMoblin]

I think a lot of posters are right in that "German" includes dialects that aren't modern Standard German, like Pennsylvania Dutch or Plautdietsch.

What exactly is Hmong? Quick search says it covers Southern China, Vietnam, Thailand, etc. Those countries have different languages with some large differences.

In the Northeast the Portuguese speakers are from Portugal.

Hmong is an ethnic group from that region. They largely emigrated as refugees after the wars in Vietnam (where they were allied with the U.S.) and the Laotian civil war. A lot of VOLAGs helped bring them to the country. I think there are still technically more in CA but are more spread out, whereas in MN they are all concentrated in the Twin Cities.

My guess is Somali will surpass Hmong very soon, if it hasn't already. I think there are now more Somalis in the state than Hmong, although the numbers are still pretty close.

 

[Palmer_v1]

I'm somewhat surprised by Nebraska being Arabic. I would have bet money on it being German.

 

[LFMartins86]

I think it's more from Brazil rather than Portugal...

It might not be. Almost everyone in the Azores has family that has moved to the USA back in the 50s-80s. In the 80's almost 200.000 Azoreans left for the USA.

 

[Zoe]

It might not be. Almost everyone in the Azores has family that has moved to the USA back in the 50s-80s. In the 80's almost 200.000 Azoreans left for the USA.

The article broke down Massachusetts as a 3:1 ratio in favor of Portugal.

Feels different in Texas though. I know of a Brazilian presence, but I never hear anything about Portugal.

 

[studyguy]

Yeah there's a ton of Filipinos in CA. Most of my Filipino friends also speak Spanish to boot so it's cool.

 

[Business]

Navajo... I looked down the list for a native american language and wasn't disappointed. lol.

 

[Chris R]

Saying "Aleut-Eskimo Languages" for Alaska is kinda bullshit.

It would be like saying "Asian" for states when it is Chinese or something, because there are some people who speak Korean who live there too.

And it kinda isn't foreign either, non-English sure, but whatever.

 

[lyrick]

Full study with all states

http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2017/07/07/tagalog-californias-most-commonly-spoken-foreign-language/



24/7’s Most Commonly Spoken Foreign Languages for the 10 largest states by population:

Alaska - Aleut-Eskimo Languages
Arizona - Navajo
Florida - French Creole
New Mexico - Navajo
South Dakota - Dakota {Guessing this should probably be Sioux: which would cover Lakota and the multiple Dakota variants}

Foreign Languages?

 

[JCHandsom]

*Ctrl/F Swedish*
*0 of 0 results*

 

[Zoe]

Saying "Aleut-Eskimo Languages" for Alaska is kinda bullshit.

It would be like saying "Asian" for states when it is Chinese or something, because there are some people who speak Korean who live there too.

And it kinda isn't foreign either, non-English sure, but whatever.

That's because of the census (starting page 80):

985 .Other Indo-European languages
986 .Other Asian languages
988 .Other Pacific Island languages
989 .Other specified African languages
[B]990 .Aleut-Eskimo languages[/B]
992 .South/Central American Indian languages
993 .Other Specified North American Indian languages
994 .Other languages
996 .Language not specified

Though if it were made more granular, it's possible none of them would have ranked high enough to appear on the list.

 

[Kisaya]

Where in Tennessee are there Arabic speakers? My parents lived in Cookeville in the late 80s and didn't connect with any Arabs in the five years they were there.

 

[StopMakingSense]

It might not be. Almost everyone in the Azores has family that has moved to the USA back in the 50s-80s. In the 80's almost 200.000 Azoreans left for the USA.

Yeah, this, a large migration to New England. Learned about this from a Bourdain show.

 

[Kusagari]

Foreign Languages?

French Creole aka the Haitian variant is most assuredly foreign.

 

[_Ryo_]

This is anecdotal and mostly from time spent in libraries but in VA I've noticed many people speaking Asian languages. A lot of Japanese speaking peoples I've encountered in different libraries, though I don't know if they're tourists or immigrants.

 

[Zoe]

Going back to the Tagalog vs Filipino thing, the census only gives Tagalog as an option.

I've never heard of Filipino as being distinctly different, but my father was born in the 30's and the change happened in 1959.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filipino_language

In reality, however, Filipino has been variously described as "simply Tagalog in syntax and grammar, with no grammatical element or lexicon coming from ... other major Philippine languages,"[13] and as "essentially a formalized version of Tagalog."[14] In most contexts, Filipino is understood to be an alternative name for Tagalog,[15][16] or the Metro Manila dialect of Tagalog.

On December 13, 1937, Presisis of the new 'national language,' Quezon issued Executive order No. 134, s. 1937, approving the adoption of Tagalog as the language of the Philippines', and declared and proclaimed the national language so based on the Tagalog dialect as the national language of the Philippines.[26] On December 31 of the same year, Quezon proclaimed Tagalog as the basis of the Wikang Pambansâ (National Language) based on the following factors:[25]

In 1959, the language became known as Pilipino in an effort to dissociate it from the Tagalog ethnic group.[27]

The 1973 Constitution, in both its original form and as amended in 1976, designated English and Pilipino as official languages and provided for development and formal adoption of a common national language, termed Filipino, to replace Pilipino. However, neither the original nor the amended version specified either Tagalog or Pilipino as the basis for Filipino.

 

[gutter_trash]

Didn't knew there was such a strong Portuguese diaspora out in the US. Wonder if there's a Portugaltown.

Mostly Massachusetts, New Jersey and Rhode Island.

California and Hawaii also have some

 

[SeanC]

Those damn foreigners are taking our languages.

 

[IceCold]

Didn't knew there was such a strong Portuguese diaspora out in the US. Wonder if there's a Portugaltown.

For sure. There's a lot of Portuguese people in the east coast. Many started as fishermen (New Bredford for example). Then you have California which has many Portuguese people in San Jose and the Central Valley (I don't know if this is still the case, but there was a time where most dairy farmers in Cali were Portuguese owned). A lot of farmland in Cali is Portuguese owned too. Some in Silicon Valley, was sold to tech companies. Also you had a lot of Portuguese whalers in San Diego (fun fact: Cabrillo was Portuguese). Hawaii also has many Portuguese immigrants.

In US most of the Portuguese diaspora comes from the Azores, except for Hawaii, which has a lot of Portuguese people from Madeira. The Ukulele is based on a Portuguese instrument that was introduced by Portuguese immigrants.

Also this is different, but the first Jews in the US came from Portugal and they founded the first synagogues. They were expelled from Portugal due to the Inquisition.

 

[TheOfficeMut]

You may want to read the bolded sentence in the OP

I know. I completely missed that lol

 

[Fritz]

Guten Morgen Amerika ich liebe dich!

 

[distantmantra]

I refuse to believe there are immigrants in Nebraska.

There's a pretty good number of them in the Omaha and Lincoln areas.

 

[OG Shaka Zulu]

Isn't it Haitian Creole? I've never called it French Creole, have I been wrong this whole time?

 

[BLOODED_hands]

What exactly is Hmong? Quick search says it covers Southern China, Vietnam, Thailand, etc. Those countries have different languages with some large differences.

In the Northeast the Portuguese speakers are from Portugal.

We don't exactly have a country. We were nearly wiped out earlier in history. Then we spread out to south and south east of China. The only reason there are so many Hmong folks in the US is because of our involvement during the Vietnam War. We also have different dialects that adapted to each country - Hmong Green, Hmong White, etc.

Came in for Minnesota, Wisconsin - Hmong. Not shocked. Minnesota should be overtaken by Somali though.

 

[DorkLord54]

I think it's more from Brazil rather than Portugal...

While some are, the ones in New England are from Portugal due to the country's political instability before the Depression and the rise of Salazar's Estado Novo, its repressiveness during Estado Novo, and uncertainty afterwards.

 

[Zoe]

Isn't it Haitian Creole? I've never called it French Creole, have I been wrong this whole time?

The census only has French or Jamaican.

 

[gutter_trash]

Isn't it Haitian Creole? I've never called it French Creole, have I been wrong this whole time?

Sak Pasé!

 

[morningbus]

Portuguese for MA doesn't surprise me. Lots of Brazilians in Boston area (east somerville, everett I think, other places), and yelling, arguing, and cursing in portuguese at my soccer games is only less common than yelling, arguing, and cursing in english.

Also Fall River/New Bedford and, to a lesser extent, Provincetown have extensive Portuguese immigrant histories.

 

[Dreadnought]

The hell at all the German?

I know historically some states had huge numbers of Germans settle there, is this just a relic of that? People still speaking it generations on?

German culture was a big part of the U.S. German was the second most common language in the U.S in a lot of places it was common to speak both. Then WW1 happened and German everything was abandoned. There are still some places where it's still strong but now Spanish is the new second language

 

[big ander]

Only way I'd've been shocked was if Illinois wasn't Polish.

Where in Tennessee are there Arabic speakers? My parents lived in Cookeville in the late 80s and didn't connect with any Arabs in the five years they were there.

Not to be glib, but could it maybe possibly be that that was thirty years ago

Immigration to the US South from the Middle East increased slowly after the immigration act of 1965 but didn't really gain a lot of steam until the 90s and 00s. So it's just that your parents were there 30 years ago, not 20 years ago.

There's a pretty good number of them in the Omaha and Lincoln areas.

Yeah seriously. The obvious conclusion is that people just haven't been to Nebraska. But that doesn't surprise me, even most Americans tend towards distorted cliche ideas of the midwest as being solely irish-german-english blends. I mean immigrant populations are often have tight-knit and the midwest undeniably has a segregation problem but they're here.

 

[Prime crotch]

Time to turn up with my lost Portuguese brethren in the US.
Está aceso! (it's lit!)

 

[iamblades]

Larger than British? I thought British roots were hugely prevalent, albeit obfuscated as people tried to distance themselves following Independence?

Depends on what you mean by British.

If you count all the Irish(given that most of that immigration was prior to Irish independence) and Scots-Irish(who largely just answer 'American' on census questions), yes probably, but not by a huge amount.

If you subtract out those groups then German probably jumps over British.

 

[All Possible Ways]

Obligatory:

 

[Boogie9IGN]

Def would've thought Vietnamese/Mandarin would be more than Tagalog in CA

Was gonna say wtf at Vietnamese in Oklahoma/Nebraska but I seem to remember my gf's parents lived in one of those two states after arriving from Vietnam in the 70s lol