Arkansas

Legal Status of official English in Arkansas

In 1986, Arkansas made English the official language through legislation.

Official English Law in Arkansas

ARKANSAS CODE ANNOTATED
Section 1-4-117: Official Language (1987)

  • (a) The English language shall be the official language of the state of Arkansas.
  • (b) This section shall not prohibit the public schools from performing their duty to provide equal educational opportunities to all children.

LANGUAGES SPOKEN IN ARKANSAS

2,368,450 English
123,755 All languages other than English combined
82,465 Spanish or Spanish Creole
7,444 German
7,312 French (incl. Patois, Cajun)
3,467 Vietnamese
2,529 Chinese
2,502 Laotian
1,627 Tagalog
1,250 Korean
1,193 Japanese
1,106 Italian
955 Arabic
879 Other Native North American languages
807 African languages
629 Polish
571 Russian
447 Urdu
395 Hindi
382 Gujarathi
380 Serbo-Croatian
356 Thai
326 Persian
318 Portuguese or Portuguese Creole
314 Greek
256 Scandinavian languages
251 Hungarian
169 Hebrew
157 French Creole
142 Armenian
130 Miao, Hmong
53 Navajo
21 Yiddish
14 Mon-Khmer, Cambodian