Languages of the United States facts for kids

English is the de facto national language of the United States, with 82% of the population claiming it as a mother tongue, and some 96% claiming to speak it "well" or "very well". However, no official language exists at the Federal level. There have been several proposals to make English the national language in amendments to immigration reform bills, but none of these bills have made a federal language. However, some states have adopted the English language as their official language. On the other hand, a lot of another languages, like Spanish, French, Italian, Arabic, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Polish, Finnish, Dutch, German, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Welsh, Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Hindi, Mandarin, Hebrew, Cantonese, Chinese, Ukrainian, Navajo, Indonesian, Malay, Vietnamese, Tagalog, Portuguese, etc. Are spoken in the United States as second languages.

Images for kids

Map showing language families of the US prior to European settlement.
French language distribution in the United States. Counties and parishes marked in yellow are those where 6% to 12% of the population speak French at home; brown, 12% to 18%; red, over 18%. Cajun French and French-based creole languages are not included, even though they are spoken in areas throughout the United States.
Distribution of U.S. households that speak German at home
Raja Kumari at an awards event. She is a native Telugu-speaking American.
The New York City Metropolitan Area, including Central New Jersey as well as Long Island and Staten Island in New York, is home to the largest Tamil American population.