The number U.S. residents who speak a language other than English at home increased 3.7% to a record 61.8 million from 2010-2013: Note for a lecture, "E Pluribus Unum? What Keeps the United States United."

1,052,938 U.S. Residents Now Speak Arabic Other than English at Home
October 6, 2014 - 12:00 PM

By Craig Bannister, cnsnews.com

The number U.S. residents who speak a language other than English at home increased 3.7% to a record 61.8 million from 2010-2013 - fueled, in part, by a 21.7% increase in Arabic home-speakers.

According to a Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) analysis of Census data from the American Community Survey (ACS), the number of U.S. residents who say they speak Arabic other than English at home (1,052,938) replaced those who speak German as one of only seven languages to exceed a million.

The number of foreign language speakers grew 2.2 million, or 3.7%, since 2010 - with Arabic speakers contributing 187,977 (or 8.5%) of the growth. Between 2000 and 2013, the number of Arabic-speaking U.S. residents increased 71.3%, from 614,582 to 1,052,938.

The growth in foreign language speakers from 2010-2013 was driven almost entirely by an increase in Spanish, Chinese, and Arabic speakers, CIS reports. In all, more than one in five U.S. residents (21%) speak a language other than English at home.

The Census Bureau counts illegal aliens, legal immigrants, and native-born persons as U.S. citizens in the American Community Survey.