Pennsylvania

Legal Status of official English in Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania does not have an official language, and it does not allow referenda or voter initiatives.

8.4 percent of this state’s residents speak a language other than English. This state has the nation’s highest proportion of speakers of Pennsylvania Dutch, and Slovak.


LANGUAGES SPOKEN IN PENNSYLVANIA

10,583,054 English
972,484 All languages other than English combined
356,754 Spanish or Spanish Creole
70,434 Italian
68,672 German
47,735 French (incl. Patois, Cajun)
42,790 Chinese
32,189 Russian
31,717 Polish
25,978 Korean
25,880 Vietnamese
19,557 Arabic
17,348 Greek
10,045 Hindi
9,673 African languages
9,604 Tagalog
8,957 Gujarathi
8,710 Mon-Khmer, Cambodian
8,648 Serbo-Croatian
8,346 Portuguese or Portuguese Creole
7,202 Japanese
6,166 Hungarian
5,918 Hebrew
5,444 Yiddish
5,064 Urdu
4,782 French Creole
3,703 Persian
3,318 Scandinavian languages
2,271 Armenian
2,249 Laotian
2,067 Thai
1,190 Other Native North American languages
880 Miao, Hmong
41 Navajo