Languages of the United States

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".^[1] 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,^[2][3] 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, Hawaiian, Ukrainian, Navajo, Indonesian, Malay, Vietnamese, Tagalog, Portuguese, etc. Are spoken in the United States as second languages.

1. ↑ Summary Tables on Language Use and English Ability: 2000 (PHC-T-20), U.S. Census Bureau, retrieved 2008-02-22
2. ↑ U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes 109th Congress - 2nd Session, United States Senate, retrieved 2008-02-22
3. ↑ "Senate Amendment 1151 to Senate Bill 1348, Immigration Act of 2007". project Vote Smart. Archived from the original on 2011-05-21. Retrieved 2008-07-04..