Geography 2 12 April 2012 According to the United States Census in 2007, from a total of 280,564,877 people, 225,488,799 of them

spoke only English at home. This means that 19.6% of the population surveyed speaks some language other than English at home. The most prominent language spoken other than English at home is Spanish, since out of the people surveyed, 34,183,747 of them speak Spanish or Spanish Creole. Thats 12.1% of the entire surveyed population, as well as 62% of the entire population that does not speak English at home. Among the people that do not speak English at home, 18.6% (10,320,730) speak some other Indo-European Language, 15% (8,316,426) speak Asian or Pacific Island Languages, and 4.1% (2,260,252) speak other languages [including Native North American Languages]. In California the impact of foreign languages is much more prominent. According to the Census between 2006 and 2008, from data Specific to California, an amazing 42.3% of people (14,292,655 of 33,748,857 surveyed) speak some other Language than English at home. Again Spanish Speakers are an impressive 66.6% of this population that does not speak English at home with a total of 9,531,304 people. 10.1% of this population (1,448,020) speak an IndoEuropean language, 21.1% (3,027,505) speak an Asian or Pacific Island language, and 1.9% (285,826) speak another language. In my neighborhood a large population speaks English, but that is to be expected. However, if I venture to places beyond the immediate area in which I live, a great number of people seem to be speaking Spanish. This is made even more apparent with the numbers that I crunched out from the data I got from the US Census. Approximately over a fourth of the whole population of California speaks Spanish. Otherwise, in my neighborhood, I suppose I hear my

friend speaking Hebrew sometimes, as well as the occasional Indonesian person at the store. The Dialects seem to be less discernible due to my lack of knowledge of most of these foreign languages, but sometimes I have friends that are able to point out noticeable differences that make them question their origin. Sometimes these interactions even lead to our eventual acquaintance with a foreign language speaking person. Languages written on media are usually English and Spanish. It is logical to have such indications for Spanish speakers, especially due to the immense numbers of these people recorded in the US census for California. Sometimes I see French in addition to English and Spanish, or sometimes I see Spanish and no English at all. Thats when I know how much consideration advertising firms put into the demographics of an area. As far as an official language in the United States, to me, it would seem as though it would diminish the ideals by which the country was founded and maintained: the freedom of individuals. Any legislation against the freedom of any individual would be ignoring these ideals and most likely voted against by the Nation, regardless of whether I have an opinion on the matter.

Source: http://www.census.gov/hhes/socdemo/language/data/other/detailed-lang-tables.xls (Under: http://www.census.gov/hhes/socdemo/language/)