Wednesday, December 16, 2015

More on US Census Bureau & African languages

Last July I posted on the U.S. Census Bureau's coverage of African languages spoken in the United States. That focused on names and categories used (which I understand will be reviewed for possible revision), and included a map from Slate based on the Bureau's data showing the most spoken African languages or categories by State.

In October, the Census Bureau released its detailed data on over 300 languages (and language categories) spoken in the U.S. A summary table of this data was featured in an article written by Nikhil Sonnad last month on Quartz (and on CityLab under a different title). There is a small error in the text of that article, where it mentions "Sudanese" (spelled like the nationality) as a language - that should actually be "Sundanese" (spelled correctly in the table), which is spoken in Indonesia.

Below is a table with information excerpted from the Census Bureau's data, showing the numbers for the African languages discussed in my previous post, sorted by number of speakers. I have added Krio and Pidgin, which were omitted from that post. "African" stands for "African (not further specified)" in the Bureau's list of languages. The total number of speakers of African languages as defined by the Bureau - all of the below except Afrikaans, Arabic (which of course is spoken in Southwest Asia as well as North Africa), Krio, Malagasy, and Pidgin - is 894,499.



Number of speakers1
Margin of Error2
Speak English less than "Very Well"1
Margin of Error2
Arabic
924,374
13,743
341,425
5,888
Kru, Ibo, Yoruba
322,255
7,681
64,690
2,487
Amharic
195,260
6,368
81,385
3,479
Cushite
122,445
4,437
59,495
2,817
Swahili
88,685
3,414
22,055
1,913
Bantu
56,685
2,641
16,635
1,574
Fulani
30,475
2,022
11,745
1,193
Mande
29,835
2,461
10,370
1,171
Afrikaans
23,010
1,525
1,885
318
African
12,320
1,508
5,000
997
Krio
10,560
1,240
2,820
718
Chadic
8,565
991
2,275
426
Sudanic
8,510
1,317
3,935
710
Nilotic
6,890
1,184
2,235
490
Efik
5,620
775
905
305
Pidgin
4,445
636
1,100
352
Berber
2,940
756
1,630
472
Gur
1,310
529
405
272
Nilo-Hamitic
1,275
644
575
327
Malagasy
720
231
225
101
Mbum (and related)
715
353
370
269
Nubian
305
234
185
175
Nilo-Saharan
270
183
155
127
Saharan
80
95
(D)
(D)
Khoisan
55
89
20
32

Notes:
1. Detailed-language estimates are rounded to the nearest multiple of five. Aggregate estimates (in this selection from the original, only Arabic) are unrounded and appear in table B16001 (http://factfinder.census.gov/bkmk/table/1.0/en/ACS/13_5YR/B16001/0100000US). Detailed-language estimates may not sum to aggregate estimates because of rounding.
2. Data are based on a sample and are subject to sampling variability. The degree of uncertainty for an estimate arising from sampling variability is represented through the use of a margin of error. The value shown here is the 90 percent margin of error. The margin of error can be interpreted roughly as providing a 90 percent probability that the interval defined by the estimate minus the margin of error and the estimate plus the margin of error (the lower and upper confidence bounds) contains the true value. In addition to sampling variability, the ACS estimates are subject to nonsampling error (for a discussion of nonsampling variability, see Accuracy of the Data at http://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs/tech_docs/accuracy/MultiyearACSAccuracyofData2013.pdf). The effect of nonsampling error is not represented in these tables.

Source: 
U.S. Census Bureau, 2009-2013 American Community Survey, Table 1. Detailed Languages Spoken at Home and Ability to Speak English for the Population 5 Years and Over for United States:  2009-2013. Release Date: October 2015. http://www2.census.gov/library/data/tables/2008/demo/language-use/2009-2013-acs-lang-tables-nation.xls

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