Neighborhood

East Harlem

Manhattan
In the Census-defined PUMA including East Harlem, according to recent Census data, (in descending order) French, Russian, and Italian each have at least 2000 speakers. English and Spanish varieties are widely 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:

Bengali

বাংলা
Between 1917 and 1965, legislation severely limited South Asians from immigrating to the US, but speakers of Bengali and (the closely related) Sylheti nonetheless found their way to New York, often by working on British steamships that stopped at various East Coast ports. Living among and assimilating into African-American and Puerto Rican communities, a notable Bengali-speaking community grew up in East Harlem, as chronicled in Vivek Bald's book Bengali Harlem. Another cluster, as Bald describes, found their way to the Lower East Side, where a substantially Sylheti-speaking community has now existed for over half a century, with Bengali known as a second language.

Classical Arabic

الفصحى
A broad representation of the world's Arabic varieties, as used by Muslims, Christians, and Jews from West Africa to Iraq, can be found across the metropolitan area — although many of them are mutually unintelligible with each other, speakers are able to communicate in the Modern Standard Arabic known as al-fuṣḥā ("the purest", and there is often widespread familiarity with larger varieties like Egyptian Arabic. In the second half of the 20th century, what had been primarily a Levantine Arabic speaking community (by then mostly in Brooklyn) was joined by significant numbers of Egyptian Arabic and Yemeni Arabic speakers, as well as smaller numbers of many other varieties found throughout the city. Significant Arabic-speaking areas include Bay Ridge, Astoria, the Bronx (for West African Arabic speakers), Yonkers, and Paterson, New Jersey. Classical (or Qu'ranic) Arabic flourishes widely at mosques like the Islamic Cultural Center on the Upper East Side and the Jamaica Muslim Center in Queens as well schools like Al-Noor in Brooklyn. Jewish varieties of Arabic, often linked to the local variety of the particular country of origin, are still spoken to some degree among the sizeable Middle Eastern and North African Jewish communities in the city, especially in Brooklyn.

Garifuna

Garifuna
New York’s Garifuna community began taking root in the 1960s, with nearly every Garifuna village was represented by at least one hometown association. Initially many from Spanish-speaking countries (especially Honduras and Guatemala) settled among other Spanish speakers in East Harlem, later moving in large numbers to the Bronx. The Happy Land fire on 1990, which killed 87 people, had a deep impact on the community. Multiple churches serve the community, and Ferry Point Park and Rainey (Waporu) Park are important gathering places, and the language is used and taught at Casa Yurumein. Many Garifuna coming today are fleeing an epidemic of violence and dispossesion in Honduras.

Italian

Italiano
Little Italy (at first the Mulberry Bend) and then Greenwich Village were the crucible, but patterns were highly specific — for example Sicilians, especially from Sambucca, on Elizabeth Street, Neapolitans and Calabrians on Mulberry; Genoese on Baxter; Tyroleans and others from the far north of Italy on 69th Street by the Hudson, and so on. The first Italians in East Harlem, arriving in 1878, were reportedly from Polla in the province of Salerno, and settled in the vicinity of 115th Street; later, there was a Barese (Pugliese) community on East 112th Street; a group from Sarno near Naples on 107th; Calabrians on 109th; immigrants from Basilicata between 110th and 115th. In the 1920s and '30s, Italian gained ground as a language of national pride, reinforced by the innovative bilingual education programs at Benjamin Franklin High School.

Kaqchikel

Kaqchikel
Along with other speakers of Indigenous Mayan languages of Guatemala, more and more Kaqchikel speakers have been arriving in the United States, to the point there the language has become one of the most frequently encountered by Border Patrol at the U.S. southern border. Together with K'iche' and Mam speakers, Kaqchikel speakers may constitute the most numerous Mayan group in the metropolitan area, with speakers within the Guatemalan communities in the city as well as in New Jersey and on Long Island (a community from San Raymundo now in Riverhead). In Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, one soccer team from the town of Pajoca is reported to speak Kaqchikel to each other in the fields.

Mahouka

Mahou
The Mande language family comprises dozens of related languages spoken by tens of millions of people across West Africa. The most widely spoken Mande languages in New York belong to a subgroup called Manding, originally connected to the Mali empire which lasted until the 17th century and today forming a language and dialect continuum from Senegal to Burkina Faso. Among the most widely spoken Manding languages both in West Africa and New York are Bambara (Mali), Dyula (Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso), Maninka (Guinea), and Mandinka (Gambia), which are substantially mutually intelligible. In fact, those who use the N'ko alphabet may refer to these varieties collectively as N'ko (which roughly translates to "I say" in all these varieties). New York today is home to over 12,000 "Mande" speakers according to (the likely very low figure in the) 2015-2019 American Community Survey data, with speakers often living near each other in parts of Harlem and the central Bronx.

Mam

Mam
Indigenous Maya Mam speakers from the Guatemalan departments of Huehuetenango and Quetzaltenango live across New York City and New Jersey in significant numbers, with a large, relatively new community from the town of Cabricán, for instance, that has members in East Harlem, the Bronx, Staten Island, and Queens. Many in Morristown, New Jersey are from Cajolá, with others reported to be from San Juan Ostuncalco — many different varieties of Mam, not always fully mutually intelligible, are spoken.

Mexican Spanish

Español Mexicano
NYC's Mexican population tripled in the 1990s, with the largest numbers arriving from Puebla and later Guerrero, south-central states with large Indigenous communities, though today there are more from the Mexico City area and the entire country. One informal survey found that up to 17 percent of Mexican New Yorkers may speak an Indigenous language, with Mixtec and Nahuatl varieties the most widely spoken, possibly by tens of thousands—some of whom learn Spanish in New York. Mexicans have largely settled throughout the metro area, usually in Spanish-speaking neighborhoods first settled by Puerto Ricans and Dominicans, but there are signs now of distinctly Mexican areas and a host of institutions created by the community.

Mixtec

Tu'un Savi
Mexican East Harlem is home to many speakers of Mixtec, including a number of new mothers with whom the Endangered Language Alliance and the Little Sisters of the Assumption Health Center, a local organization, have collaborated in a series of workshops on literacy, food, and health. Others live not far enough in Washington Heights.

Nahuatl

Nahuatl
Among those participating in the workshops around literacy, health, and food at the Little Sisters of the Assumption in East Harlem have been several Nahuatl speakers who live in the area. In late 2021, the intersection of 116th Street and 2nd Avenue was renamed México-Tenochtitlan Avenue in honor of the ancient Nahuatl-speaking capital and the contemporary Mexican presence in the neighborhood.

Neapolitan

Nnapulitano
Neapolitan, a lingua franca spoken across much of southern Italy for centuries, remained to some degree a lingua franca for the mostly southern Italian immigrants who entered New York in large numbers beginning in the late 19th century. In the following decades, Neapolitan music, particularly songs sung in Neapolitan, became big business both in Italy and New York. To some extent, local related varieties from surrounding provinces are also grouped under Neapolitan, though they remain distinct. In the New York area, this has included "Irpino" speakers such as the many Sturnese speakers from Sturno (Avellino province) who came to work in mansions on the North Shore of Long Island (later in landscaping and in light bulb factories) and now make up a significant community in Glen Cove. Likewise Long Island City's Societa Sant’ Amato Di Nusco has represented speakers of Nuscano from the town of Nusco (also Avellino).

P'urhépecha

P'urhépecha
P’urhépecha is spoken by over 100,000 people in the highlands of the state of Michoacán, Mexico, making it one of the country’s largest Indigenous languages spoken outside the diverse southern states. A number of dialects have been identified, and Ethnologue distinguishes two separate languages (P’urhépecha and Western Highland P’urhépecha), but there is considerable intelligibility between almost all varieties of the languages. P’urhépecha is a language isolate, with no demonstrated connection to any other language. Michoacán remains the language's homeland, but speakers have been migrating far and wide recently in search of economic opportunity, recently arriving in significant numbers in California, Florida, and Pennsylvania. Several thousand Purehpecha speakers have come to the United States in the last three decades, primarily to Riverside County, California, parts of Florida, and the area around York, Pennsylvania, often working in agriculture. Endangered Language Alliance collaborator Alexis Paz, who is originally from Ocumicho in Michoacán and grew up in York, Pennsylvania, may be the only speaker of P'urhépecha currently in New York City. Read more here.

Puerto Rican Spanish

Español Puertorriqueño
Puerto Ricans began moving to the mainland United States in significant numbers in the late 19th century, bringing with them their unique variety of Caribbean Spanish. The Great Migration following the Second World War brought tens of thousands of Puerto Ricans to the city each year, making Puerto Rican Spanish the dominant form of Spanish in New York for much of the 20th century in major barrios including East Harlem, the Lower East Side (sometimes called Loisaida), Williamsburg, Bushwick, and much of the Bronx. Proudly Nuyorican poets like Miguel Algarín and Tato Laviera, blending Puerto Rican and New York culture, forged a distinctive, poetic Spanglish. Today, Puerto Rican Spanish speakers live throughout the city, but an increasing number are moving to suburban areas of Westchester, New Jersey, and other states.

Spanglish

Spanglish
Puerto Ricans began moving to the mainland United States in significant numbers in the late 19th century, bringing with them their unique variety of Caribbean Spanish. The Great Migration following the Second World War brought tens of thousands of Puerto Ricans to the city each year, making Puerto Rican Spanish the dominant form of Spanish in New York for much of the 20th century in major barrios including East Harlem, the Lower East Side (sometimes called Loisaida), Williamsburg, Bushwick, and much of the Bronx. Proudly Nuyorican poets like Miguel Algarín and Tato Laviera, blending Puerto Rican and New York culture, forged a distinctive, poetic Spanglish. Today, Puerto Rican Spanish speakers live throughout the city, but an increasing number are moving to suburban areas of Westchester, New Jersey, and other states.

Susu

Sosoxui
The Mande language family comprises dozens of related languages spoken by tens of millions of people across West Africa. The most widely spoken Mande languages in New York belong to a subgroup called Manding, originally connected to the Mali empire which lasted until the 17th century and today forming a language and dialect continuum from Senegal to Burkina Faso. Among the most widely spoken Manding languages both in West Africa and New York are Bambara (Mali), Dyula (Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso), Maninka (Guinea), and Mandinka (Gambia), which are substantially mutually intelligible. In fact, those who use the N'ko alphabet may refer to these varieties collectively as N'ko (which roughly translates to "I say" in all these varieties). New York today is home to over 12,000 "Mande" speakers according to (the likely very low figure in the) 2015-2019 American Community Survey data, with speakers often living near each other in parts of Harlem and the central Bronx.
Additional languages spoken in this neighborhood:
  • Calabrese
  • Gallo-Italic (Basilicata)
  • Mandarin
  • Sicilian
  • Taíno
  • Tlapanec
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East Harlem

Manhattan

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