In the US, we talk a lot about students’ language skills, or more commonly – lack thereof. Some quick number crunching from the 2011 US census shows that about 20% (60,577,020/291,524,091) speak a language other than English at home. There are obviously some people beyond that who speak English at home but know another language (or languages) that they don’t speak at home, so you can add a bit to that number (though no studies I found could quantify or even ballpark how many Americans are bi or multilingual). Spanish is the most widely spoken language other than English in the US, making up a whopping 62% of folks who don’t speak English at home.

But what other languages do your students speak when they’re outside of school? The handy map below takes a look at the most common languages spoken at home, other than Spanish or English. Pretty interesting! Do you think that it is accurate based on where you live and what you know anecdotally from your students? Weigh in by leaving a comment below, mentioning @Edudemic on Twitter or leaving your thoughts on our Facebook page.