Neighborhood

Financial District

Manhattan
In the Census-defined PUMA including Battery Park City, Greenwich Village & Soho, according to recent Census data, (in descending order) French, Italian, Cantonese, Mandarin, and Russian each have at least 1000 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:

Cuban Spanish

Español Cubano
In the late 19th century, a significant community Cuban political refugees and cigar makers formed, with many working in lower Manhattan. Most famous among them was the writer and revolutionary José Martí, who helped forge a modern Cuba from his exile base in the city. Cubans continued to arrive after the Spanish-American War of 1898 made the island a US territory, and yet another wave after the Cuban revolution, now settling in parts of the Bronx, Queens (home to the long-time restaurant Rincon Criollo), and elsewhere. Union City and West New York, across the river in New Jersey, have since become "Havana on the Hudson", home to one of the largest and most organized Cuban-American communities outside Florida.

Danish

Dansk
Danes were among the earliest settlers of New Amsterdam, with up to 100 already arrived by 1675 and many coming together with Norwegian New Yorkers in 1704 to build a small Lutheran church in lower Manhattan at Broadway and Rector. Peak Danish immigration came in the second half of the 19th century, with many passing through the city on their way west, and others settling within the port-oriented world of Scandinavian Brooklyn that stretched from Red Hook to Bay Ridge. Until 2020, the Danish Athletic Club in Sunset Park continued as a point of focus for both those who remain and for the many who have moved elsewhere.

Dutch

Nederlands
When New York was New Netherland, with its headquarters at what is now Peter Minuit Plaza at the southern tip of Manhattan, Dutch was the lingua franca of a highly multilingual entrepôt. Even after the British took over in 1664, Dutch language and culture persisted, mixing with English, and was likewise used by migrants who came from across Europe and by enslaved Africans living in the area, remaining until today in numerous place names.

Flemish

Vlaams
Among the earliest colonists to New Amsterdam were speakers of Flemish, native to a historical region of Flanders in today's Belgium. Today, not only individual Flemish speakers but an official Flemish presence exists in the city, in the form of Flanders House, the General Delegation of the Government of Flanders to the USA, which has been part of Belgium's diplomatic corps in New York since 2009 and is now on the 38th floor of The New York Times Building.

Frisian

Frysk
North and West Frisian speakers were among the earliest settlers in the colony of New Amsterdam, possibly constituting, according to one source, the single largest ethnic group in the multicultural mix of early New Amsterdam. Peter Stuyvesant himself, the famous director general of the colony from 1647 to 1664, was born and raised in Friesland (part of the Dutch Republic) and would have been familiar with West Frisian. Others like Brooklyn settler Pieter Claessen (Wyckoff) were North Frisians. Frisian immigration resumed on a significant scale in the 19th century, with most going to the Midwest, but many West Frisians also passed through or stayed in New York or Paterson, New Jersey, forming social organizations with some ties to the Dutch-speaking community. North Frisians (more tied to the German community) came in large numbers to Brooklyn from the islands of Föhr and Amrum—1,500 Föhrer before 1929, for instance, who mostly spoke Fering and founded an association later headquartered in Valley Stream. Today, West Frisian is an official national language of the Netherlands along with Dutch and remains vital in its home territory, but North Frisian and Saterland Frisian, minority languages within Germany, have much smaller numbers of speakers. Among the German languages, the Frisian languages are the closest group linguistically to the Anglic group, of which English is a part.

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.

North Levantine Arabic

(اللهجة الشامية (الشمالية
Most early Arabic speakers in New York, primarily Levantine Christians from the Ottoman Province of Lebanon, began to arrive in the 19th century, originally settling in the "Little Syria" along Washington Street in a then deeply diverse pocket of lower Manhattan. As the "Syrians in New York" research initiative demonstrated, many factors, ultimately including construction of the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, drove the community to Brooklyn — first South Ferry (now known as Boerum Hill) and later primarily Bay Ridge (where Palestinian New Yorkers have formed the organization Beit Hanania). Yonkers, and Paterson, New Jersey also have significant Levantine-Arabic speaking communities.

Norwegian

Norsk
Danish and Norwegian New Yorkers came together in 1704 to build a small Lutheran church in lower Manhattan at Broadway and Rector, but it was between 1930 and 1960 that the New York Norwegian community reached its peak of up to 62,000 members. This community, at one time the third largest Norwegian-speaking city in the world after Oslo and Bergen, Norway, had grown into a city unto itself with a full range of institutions and services, centered in Sunset Park and Bay Ridge. The decline of shipping and the Great Depression caused hundreds of Norwegian sailors to seek shelter in makeshift shacks in the rubble of a dump in Red Hook, known by some as "Ørkenen Sur" (Bitter Desert) and knocked down in 1934 to make way for the current athletic fields. A Norwegian presence remains in Bay Ridge through a few remaining institutions, as well as an annual Norwegian Day Parade that brings back those who grew up here. Other Norwegian and Scandinavian hubs existed around the city, including in Eltingville on Staten Island.

Persian

فارسی
A wide range of New Yorkers across the metropolitan area speak some form of Persian, including Bukhori (Uzbekistan), Dari (Afghanistan), Tajik (Tajikistan), and Hazara (Afghanistan). The largest centralized Iranian community in the region may be the Iranian Jewish community in Brooklyn and Great Neck which formed after the 1979 Revolution, where there are several other Jewish languages spoken but standard Persian (based on the Teheran variety) is a lingua franca. Although Iranian Muslims, many of them middle-class professionals who came after 1979, are not concentrated in any particular neighborhood, there are hubs in eastern Queens (where the Imam Al-Khoei is a religious center for some), Manhattan, and elsewhere.

Portuguese

Português
A small group of Sephardic Jews, originally from Portugal but expelled from Recife in Brazil, may have included the city's first Portuguese speakers when they arrived in 1654. Just north, many Portuguese settled in SoHo after the Second World War, near 6th Avenue south of Houston. Around the same period, Newark became and today remains a major hub for Portuguese speakers up and down the Eastern seaboard. There are also communities of speakers from different parts of Portugal scattered around New York City, including in the Carroll Gardens area of Brooklyn (with the Luso-American Social Club) and in Jamaica. Queens, which is home to the Portuguese Recreation Club as well as a language school (Escola D. Nuno Álvares Pereira) and a restaurant (O Lavrador). The community in Jamaica was larger from the 1970s to the 1990s, with a significant representation of people from the region of Trás-os-Montes and Mirandela, speaking those dialects. In all areas, recent decades have seen immigrants from other parts of the Lusophone world, especially Brazil, join those originally from Portugal.

Swedish

Svenska
Swedes were among the earliest settlers in New Amsterdam, which was not far from the short-lived colony of New Sweden. According to one theory, among them was farmer/settler Jonas Bronck, after whom the Bronx was later named; others were involved in the clearing of what became Harlem. An early Swedish Methodist congregation formed on the ship Bethel on Pier 11 on the Hudson. A much larger wave of Swedish immigration began in the mid-19th century, first in Manhattan and Cobble Hill around Atlantic Avenue, with Sunset Park and Bay Ridge soon after becoming the major Swedish-American hub by the end of 19th century, as Swedes joined Finns, Norwegians, and Danes in a pan-Scandinavian neighborhood with a rich communal life, where many were visiting seamen or worked in the shipyards. By 1930, as many as 40,000 Swedes lived in the city, though the community ultimately scattered and assimilated and most Swedish New Yorkers today (for whom Midtown's Church of Sweden is one important center) are recent arrivals.

Ulster Scots

Ulstèr-Scotch
Many immigrants arriving from Ireland before the 19th century were Protestants from what is today considered Ulster in northern Ireland, though originally of Scottish heritage. Many would likely have spoken Ulster Scots, the variety of Scots that took root in Ireland. Among them were the founders of Wesley Chapel, the oldest Methodist congregration in America, established on John Steeet in 1766.

Venetian

Veneto
Pietro Cesare Alberti (1608–1655) was Venetian immigrant among the earliest settlers of New Amsterdam and is thus sometimes regarded as the first Italian-American. Today the most organized group of speakers, who speak a form of Venetian speak the Istrian variety (Istro-Veneto), are post-Second World War migrants from what is today Croatia.

Walloon

Walon
Honored today by the Walloon Settlers Memorial, a number of Belgian Huguenot (Protestant) families, having fled to Holland in the religious wars of the time, arrived as part of the earliest wave of Dutch settlers who came to New Amsterdam in 1624. They spoke Walloon, a Romance language related to French and native to Wallonia, a region spanning parts of France and Belgium. Peter Minuit, the Governor of New Netherland credited with the "purchase" of the island of Manhattan, was also Walloon. Although more concentrated in the Midwest, Walloon speakers have been among and within New York’s small Belgian community ever since.
Additional languages spoken in this neighborhood:
  • Western Yiddish
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Financial District

Manhattan

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Language
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AbakuáAbakuá

Caribbean

  • Cuba flag
    Cuba
Lower East Side

Smallest

Liturgical
AbazaАбаза

Western Asia

  • Turkey flag
    Turkey
  • Russia flag
    Russia
49,800
Abkhaz-Adyge
Wayne (NJ)

Smallest

Residential
Abruzzese (Orsognese)Abruzzésë

Southern Europe

  • Italy flag
    Italy
Indo-European
Astoria

Small

Residential
Abruzzese (Orsognese)Abruzzésë

Southern Europe

  • Italy flag
    Italy
Indo-European
Little Italy

Small

Historical
AcehneseBahsa Acèh

Southeastern Asia

  • Indonesia flag
    Indonesia
3,500,000
Austronesian
Astoria

Smallest

Community
AcehneseBahsa Acèh

Southeastern Asia

  • Indonesia flag
    Indonesia
3,500,000
Austronesian
Elmhurst

Smallest

Residential
AdjoukrouMɔjukru

Western Africa

  • Ivory Coast flag
    Ivory Coast
140,000
Atlantic-Congo
Concourse

Smallest

Residential
AdygheК|ахыбзэ

Western Asia

  • Turkey flag
    Turkey
  • Russia flag
    Russia
117,500
Abkhaz-Adyge
Wayne (NJ)

Small

Residential
AfenmaiAfenmai

Western Africa

  • Nigeria flag
    Nigeria
270,000
Atlantic-Congo
Castle Hill

Smallest

Residential
African-American EnglishBlack English

Northern America

  • United States flag
    United States
45,109,521
Indo-European
Bedford-Stuyvesant

Largest

Residential
African-American EnglishBlack English

Northern America

  • United States flag
    United States
45,109,521
Indo-European
Newark (NJ)

Largest

Residential
African-American EnglishBlack English

Northern America

  • United States flag
    United States
45,109,521
Indo-European
Clifton

Largest

Residential
African-American EnglishBlack English

Northern America

  • United States flag
    United States
45,109,521
Indo-European
Hollis

Largest

Residential
African-American EnglishBlack English

Northern America

  • United States flag
    United States
45,109,521
Indo-European
Edenwald

Largest

Residential
African-American EnglishBlack English

Northern America

  • United States flag
    United States
45,109,521
Indo-European
Central Harlem

Largest

Residential
African-American EnglishBlack English

Northern America

  • United States flag
    United States
45,109,521
Indo-European
Hempstead (NY)

Large

Residential
AfrikaansAfrikaans

Southern Africa

  • South Africa flag
    South Africa
  • Zimbabwe flag
    Zimbabwe
17,543,580
Indo-European
Murray Hill

Small

Community
AkanAkan

Western Africa

  • Ghana flag
    Ghana
9,231,300
Atlantic-Congo
Flatbush

Small

Residential
AkanAkan

Western Africa

  • Ghana flag
    Ghana
9,231,300
Atlantic-Congo
Shore Acres

Small

Residential
AkanAkan

Western Africa

  • Ghana flag
    Ghana
9,231,300
Atlantic-Congo
University Heights

Large

Residential

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