Houston high in language diversity

City near top of list in nation with at least 145 different tongues, from Spanish to Welsh

Houstonians speak at least 145 languages at home, according to a new analysis of U.S. Census data released this week.

The analysis, among the most comprehensive Census data ever released on languages spoken less widely in the United States, found Houstonians speak more languages at home than residents in Miami, Detroit, Boston and Riverside, Calif.

New Yorkers spoke the most variety of languages, 192, followed by Los Angeles, where 185 languages are spoken at home.

More than a third of Houston residents who are older than 5 speak a language other than English at home, according to the Census analysis.

In Harris County, 2.2 million residents speak only English at home while 1.6 million people also speak another language. Not surprisingly, of those, 1.3 million residents speak Spanish.

But the analysis also unearthed some lesser-known languages. Nearly 4,700 people speak Tamil, for instance, which is spoken in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in Sri Lanka.

More than 15,500 people speak French and 8,915 speak German. Just 2,202 Houstonians speak Italian, however,

compared with more than 12,200 in tiny Richmond County, home to Staten Island.

Houston’s sizeable Indian population was well-represented, with about 15,150 people speaking Hindi at home. Nearly 17,600 speak Urdu, the national language of Pakistan, but also spoken widely in India, and more than 17,200 speak Arabic.

Vietnamese far outnumbered any of the other Asian languages, with nearly 73,000 speaking it at home. Nearly 40,000 speak Chinese, about 2,890 speak Japanese, and nearly 9,500 speak Korean. Filipinos also had a strong presence with about 17,500 speaking Tagalog at home.

Meanwhile, more than 19,700 speak a variety of African languages at home with Yoruba, a language spoken in Nigeria, the most widely spoken. But only 445 people speak Afrikaans, a language with Dutch origins that’s common in South Africa and Namibia. Slightly more people, 460, speak Danish. Just 60 people speak Slovak.

On the bottom end, just 25 people speak Welsh.