Census Bureau finds 47 million speak a foreign language

COX NEWS SERVICE

WASHINGTON — In 14 million U.S. households, people speak a language other than English, the Census Bureau reported Tuesday.

Three million of those homes are "linguistically isolated," where all members 14 years and older have at least some difficulty with English, the report said.

The Census Bureau data, which was based on information from the 2000 census, also showed that one in five people over the age of 5 in the United States spoke a language other than English that year and that 21 million spoke English less than "very well."

Nationally, 47 million people speak a foreign language. Of those, 28 million speak Spanish, 10 million speak other Indo-European languages, nearly 7 million speak Asian and Pacific Island languages and 1.8 million speak other languages, according to the census.

Of the 3 million "linguistically isolated" households nationwide, 857,000 of the primary renters or homeowners did not finish high school and 685,000 had a bachelor's degree or more education.