Top Languages in the US

Did you know? German was once a primary spoken language in the United States! Until the 1920s, it was the second-most spoken tongue, falling just behind English. There were many newspapers published in German, and schools often taught both languages to young students.

After World War I, however, speaking German was considered unpatriotic. Unsurprisingly, the usage of German quickly dropped, and the emphasis was placed solely on English.

Despite this, Slate recently published an interactive map of the United States, detailing the most spoken languages. As you can see below, when taking English or Spanish out of the equation, German is still one of the most popular languages spoken in the US!

Image from Slate

Slate has quite a few other amazing maps, all detailing the diversity of the United States. We recommend you browse them all! You can even make it a game: guess which language, excluding Spanish and English, is spoken in your home state.