Beyond Spanish, New Data Reveals the Surprising Second Languages Shaping Every U.S. State

A new analysis from The Mendoza Law Firm of 2024 American Community Survey data has identified eleven individual languages spoken by more than a million people in the United States, underscoring just how many distinct, well established immigrant and indigenous communities exist across the country, and revealing sharp regional differences in which non-English language ranks second behind Spanish in each state.

Spanish remains far and away the most spoken non-English language in America, used at home by 44.4 million people, or 75.9% of all speakers among the ten largest non-English language groups combined, which together total around 58.5 million speakers. Chinese, including Mandarin and Cantonese, ranks a distant second nationally with roughly 3.7 million speakers, followed by Tagalog, including Filipino, at 1.8 million, Vietnamese at 1.6 million, Arabic at 1.5 million, French, including Cajun, at 1.2 million, and Korean, Portuguese, and Hindi each at roughly 1.1 million, with Haitian Creole rounding out the list at around 1 million speakers, a reflection of steadily growing Haitian communities in South Florida, New York, and Massachusetts.

Rates of limited English proficiency, or LEP, vary significantly by language group. Vietnamese speakers post the highest LEP rate among major language groups at 57.5%, followed by Chinese speakers at 50.7% and Korean speakers at 49%. Spanish speakers have a comparatively lower LEP rate of 41.1%, but because the Spanish-speaking population is so much larger, it still accounts for more than 18.2 million LEP residents, by far the largest LEP population of any language group in the country. Haitian Creole speakers post a 43.7% LEP rate, Russian speakers 42.2%, Portuguese speakers 36%, and Arabic speakers 34.6%, while Hindi speakers post the lowest LEP rate among high-use languages at 16.5%, followed by French speakers at 22.1%. Across the ten largest language groups combined, 23.9 million people are classified as having limited English proficiency.

While Spanish ranks first in 47 of 50 states, the second most common non-English language tells a very different, distinctly regional story. Chinese ranks second in 13 states, including California, where it is spoken by 1.3 million people, New York (646,302), Washington (160,131), New Jersey (138,338), and Pennsylvania (96,813). French, including Cajun, ranks second in Louisiana, spoken by 57,844 people, as well as in Nebraska, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, while Arabic ranks second in Michigan (190,833 speakers), Tennessee (30,232), and Virginia (65,738). Large East African communities push Amharic, Somali, and other Afro-Asiatic languages into second place in Minnesota and the District of Columbia.

Several other states stand out for their distinctive runner-up language. Vietnamese ranks second in Texas with 254,659 speakers, largely concentrated in the Houston area, while Portuguese ranks second in Massachusetts with 247,638 speakers. Hmong ranks second in Wisconsin with 36,777 speakers, Navajo ranks second in Arizona with 70,691 speakers, and Yoruba, Twi, Igbo, and other West African languages rank second in Maryland with 75,279 speakers combined.

State-level detail below the second-ranked language shows just how layered this diversity becomes. California, beyond its 10.8 million Spanish speakers, is home to 1.3 million Chinese speakers, 820,806 Tagalog speakers, 559,609 Vietnamese speakers, and 350,520 Korean speakers. Florida features the nation’s largest Haitian Creole speaking population at 512,329, alongside 210,218 Portuguese speakers and 123,268 French speakers, while New York, beyond its 646,302 Chinese speakers, is home to 244,264 Yiddish and West Germanic speakers, 209,622 Russian speakers, and 192,476 Bengali speakers. New Mexico posts the highest Spanish-speaking share outside California and Texas at 24.8%, reflecting centuries of Spanish-speaking settlement, while Hawaii records the nation’s highest share of Asian and Pacific Island language speakers at 20.6%, rooted in longstanding Japanese, Filipino, and Korean communities.

“Every state has its own linguistic fingerprint, shaped by its own history of migration and settlement,” said a spokesperson for The Mendoza Law Firm. “Understanding those patterns, from Haitian Creole in South Florida to Navajo in Arizona, helps us meet immigrant families where they are, in the language and the community they already know.”