Neighborhood

Canarsie

Brooklyn
In the Census-defined PUMA including Canarsie & Flatlands, according to recent Census data, (in descending order), French, Haitian Creole, Russian, Hebrew, Urdu, and Cantonese each have more than 1000 speakers. Varieties of English and Spanish are commonly spoken in the area as well.
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Languages with a significant site in this neighborhood, marked by a point on the map:

Grenadian Creole

Patois
The broad term Caribbean English refers to a whole range of Englishes — from highly distinctive creoles to "acrolectal" varieties close to other forms of English — spoken across much of the Caribbean. Beyond the varieties spoken by Jamaicans, Trinidadians, and Guyanese, which are the large Anglophone Caribbean communities in New York, there are also significant populations from Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Bahamas, Dominica, Grenada, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, and the Virgin Islands who have brought their own specific Caribbean cultures to the city. A Caribbean presence in the city goes back centuries, but larger waves started coming in the early 20th century and especially beginning in the 1950s. Today there are individuals from 17 English-speaking nations and territories, with the largest numbers in Brooklyn from Flatbush into Canarsie, but also in southeast Queens and the northeast Bronx. The Labor Day Carnival in Brooklyn is a major annual event that unites all these communities in a common celebration.

Guyanese Creole

Creolese
While most Indo-Guyanese ended up in Queens, most Afro-Guyanese New Yorkers ultimately settled mostly among other Caribbean communities in Brooklyn (especially between Flatbush and Canarsie). The Guyana Cultural Association New York in Canarsie is one community institution.

Haitian Creole

Kreyol Ayisyen
Haiti experienced despotic rule and economic despair in the latter half of the 20th century, leading tens of thousands of Haitians to move to the United States. New York became home to the densest concentration of Haitians outside Haiti, a heterogenous mix including educated elites, members of the middle class, and poorer communities forced to sail to Florida before heading northbound. Originally on the Upper West Side and in Harlem, the Haitian epicenter of the city can now be found between Flatbush and Canarsie: Haitian grocery stores, restaurants, churches, barber shops, and bars line Nostrand, Flatbush and Church Avenues. Communities have also grown up in a large area of eastern Queens and elsewhere throughout the five boroughs and the surrounding region in places like Spring Valley. In addition to the estimated 106,000 Haitian Creole speakers in New York, 2015-2019 American Community Survey data estimates that 7,401 French speakers were born in Haiti, many of whom may speak Haitian Creole as well or prefer to refer to identify as French speakers.

Lenape (Munsee)

Lunaape
Besides the southern bit of what is now New York, traditional Lenape-speaking territory encompasses New Jersey, northern Delaware, and eastern Pennsylvania, where people lived in a constellation of separate, but linguistically and culturally similar, bands — 40 or more of them with a few hundred members each. In New Jersey, there were the Raritans, the Haverstraw, the Tappan, the Hackensack, the Minisinks, and others; in what is now New York City, the Canarsee, the Nayack, the Rockaway, and others. Across the Lenape world, at least three closely related languages were probably spoken: Southern Unami, Northern Unami, and Munsee (the northern variety associated with most of today's metro NYC). Today, after centuries of dispersal and diaspora, the Lenape are in Ontario, with three officially recognized Lenape clusters at Moraviantown, Munsee, and the mixed Six Nations Reserve. They are in Oklahoma — two federally recognized Lenape tribes in the west and the east of the state — and they are at Stockbridge in Wisconsin. There are also a number of groups and individuals across New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and elsewhere who claim Lenape heritage. There are a few native speakers of Munsee remaining in Ontario, and revival efforts — including classes taught by Lenape language keeper Karen Hunter at the Endangered Language Alliance on 18th Street in Manaháhtaan and at Ramapough Lunaape Nation in Mahwah, New Jersey — are ongoing.

Tobagonian Creole

Dialect
New York is a major center of the Trinidadian and Tobagonian diaspora, with most Afro-Trinidadians living in Brooklyn, in a range of neighborhoods stretching from Crown Heights to Canarsie and Indo-Trinidadians, like most Indo-Guyanese, living in the Queens neighborhoods of Richmond Hill and Ozone Park. Most Trinidadians from both communities use the English-based creole, sometimes called Trini Talk, as a language of daily life distinct from "standard English". A smaller but still significant number of New Yorkers also have knowledge of the distinct Tobagonian Creole. (The endangered Trinidadian French Creole may also be known by some.) 2015-2019 American Community Survey data estimated that 79,175 New Yorkers were born in Trinidad and Tobago, a large percentage of whom are likely to be Creole speakers, even if they were recorded as being speakers of English (81,381) with smaller numbers speaking other languages: Spanish (1,002), French (346), Hindi (156), Urdu (8), Bengali (71), and more.

Trinidadian Creole

Trini Talk
New York is a major center of the Trinidadian and Tobagonian diaspora, with most Afro-Trinidadians living in Brooklyn, in a range of neighborhoods stretching from Crown Heights to Canarsie and Indo-Trinidadians, like most Indo-Guyanese, living in the Queens neighborhoods of Richmond Hill and Ozone Park. Most Trinidadians from both communities use the English-based creole, sometimes called Trini Talk, as a language of daily life distinct from "standard English". A smaller but still significant number of New Yorkers also have knowledge of the distinct Tobagonian Creole. (The endangered Trinidadian French Creole may also be known by some.) 2015-2019 American Community Survey data estimated that 79,175 New Yorkers were born in Trinidad and Tobago, a large percentage of whom are likely to be Creole speakers, even if they were recorded as being speakers of English (81,381) with smaller numbers speaking other languages: Spanish (1,002), French (346), Hindi (156), Urdu (8), Bengali (71), and more.
Additional languages spoken in this neighborhood:
  • Barbadian Creole
  • Garifuna
  • Jamaican Patois
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Canarsie

Brooklyn

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