Report: Nearly 65 Million Speak Non-English Languages at Home

The number of non-English speakers in the United States touched a record high with 64.7 million residents speaking another language at home, according to a new report.

The report by the Center of Immigration Studies, also specified that residents who were 5 years of age and older spoke a language other than English at home. The data revealed that the fastest growing language was Arabic.

Since 2010, the numbers have constantly been on the rise. Residents who spoke a foreign language at home rose to 5.2 million in five years with a massive 1.5 million surge in just the last year.

It was also noted that the largest percentage increase from 2010 to 2015 was for speakers of:

• Arabic, up 34 percent
• Hindi, up 33 percent
• Urdu, up 24 percent
• Chinese, up 19 percent
• French Creole, up 16 percent
• Gujarati, up 14 percent
• Persian, up 13 percent

Meanwhile, the largest numerical increases 2010 to 2015 were among speakers of:

• Spanish, up 3.1 million
• Chinese, up 525,000
• Arabic, up 292,000
• Hindi, up 203,000
• Tagalog, up 163,000
• French Creole, up 117,000
• Urdu, up 92,000

The study showed that certain languages crossed more than a million speakers in 2015. These were:

• Spanish, 40 million
• Chinese, 3.3 million
• Tagalog, 1.7 million
• Vietnamese, 1.5 million
• French, 1.3 million
• Arabic, 1.2 million
• Korean, 1.1 million

From the accumulated data so far, it can be said that almost one in four public school students now speak a language other than English at home.

Among the foreign language speakers at home, 26 million (40 percent) informed the Census Bureau that they speak English less than very well.

The CIS report pointed out that more than one in five U.S. residents now speaks a foreign language at home, according to the CIS report.

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