Neighborhood

Jackson Heights

Queens
In the Census-defined PUMA including Jackson Heights & North Corona, according to recent Census data, (in descending order) Bengali, Tibetan, Panjabi, Hindi, Mandarin, Cantonese, Russian, and Urdu each have more than 1000 speakers. English, Tagalog, and Spanish varieties are widely spoken in the area as well.
De-select
Languages with a significant site in this neighborhood, marked by a point on the map:

Amdo Tibetan

ཨ་མདོ་སྐད་
Amdo Tibetan is a broad term covering some of the diverse Tibetic language varieties spoken in Amdo, the traditional province of northeastern Tibet. Queens is the center of gravity for at least half a dozen distinct Amdo organized communities (e.g. those from Kokonor/Tso Ngonpo) representing these quite distinct language varieties. Many Amdo communities have long been nomadic pastoralists. Dorje Ling temple, led in part by a rinpoche from the Golok region of Amdo, is a religious hub for the Brooklyn Himalayan community. The Amdo community may also include a small number of speakers of non-Tibetic languages from Amdo, such as Gyalrong. (ELA recognizes that the Chinese government's rule in Tibet, where this language is spoken, is disputed.)

American Sign Language

American Sign Language
A significant portion of New York City's estimated Deaf population of over 200,000 use American Sign Language, as well as a number of CODAs (children of Deaf adults). Worldwide there exist up to several hundred other sign languages, often little documented and highly endangered, and at least some are likely used in New York, particularly by those who may have attended Deaf school in other countries — though it's likely they shift to ASL or at least codeswitch with ASL once in the city. While ASL signers live throughout the city, there are key hubs for the language, including the few remaining Deaf Clubs, important social clubs; religious institutions like St. Elizabeth's Deaf Church in Manhattan; and Queens' Lexington School for the Deaf, memorably described in Leah Hager Cohen's book Train Go Sorry.

Aymara

Aymar Aru
Some individual speakers of Aymara, a major Indigenous language of Bolivia, have been reported to be part of the Queens Bolivian community, which is one of the country's largest.

Batak (Karo)

Bahasa Karo
New York's relatively new Indonesian community is several thousand strong and growing, with the largest concentration in Elmhurst, and the Al-Hikmah mosque in Astoria serving as an important community center for Indonesian Muslims (while churches serve an analogous role for Christians). Indonesian serves as a lingua franca to which all Indonesians are increasingly shifting, but the New York community is highly multilingual with numerous speakers of Javanese, Manado Malay, Sundanese, and a dozen other languages.,Persadaan Bangsa Batak is a long-standing institution, dating even from before Indonesian independence, that has represented the well-organized Batak community in NYC. Churches also play a vital role in community near where Batak people, both Toba and Karo, live. Gustavus Adolphus Church in Manhattan was a formerly Swedish church that has long welcomed Batak congregants, while in Jackson Heights the Batak Christian Protestant Church shares space with others.

Batak (Toba)

Batta
New York's relatively new Indonesian community is several thousand strong and growing, with the largest concentration in Elmhurst, and the Al-Hikmah mosque in Astoria serving as an important community center for Indonesian Muslims (while churches serve an analogous role for Christians). Indonesian serves as a lingua franca to which all Indonesians are increasingly shifting, but the New York community is highly multilingual with numerous speakers of Javanese, Manado Malay, Sundanese, and a dozen other languages.,Persadaan Bangsa Batak is a long-standing institution, dating even from before Indonesian independence, that has represented the well-organized Batak community in NYC. Churches also play a vital role in community near where Batak people, both Toba and Karo, live. Gustavus Adolphus Church in Manhattan was a formerly Swedish church that has long welcomed Batak congregants, while in Jackson Heights the Batak Christian Protestant Church shares space with others.

Bengali

বাংলা
Nowhere in New York (or indeed in the US) is as quintessentially Bangladeshi as Queens, which is home to a tremendous variety of Bengali-speaking communities and institutions everywhere from Astoria (an earlier area of settlement) to Jamaica, Ozone Park, and beyond, with Jackson Heights one particularly visible hub in between.

Bhojpuri

भोजपुरी
One community member estimated that there are at least 300 Bhojpuri speakers in New York City, primarily based in Queens: Elmhurst (Lefrak City), Corona, Jackson Heights, Woodside, and Sunnyside. Others live in New Jersey, where some from Bihar may be members of the multilingual Bihar-Jharkhand Association of North America, based in Toms River.

Bolivian Spanish

Español Boliviano
New York City is home to a tremendous diversity of Spanish varieties, largely mutually intelligible but highly distinctive along regional, ethnic, and local lines — for this map, as among speakers themselves, national distinctions (e.g. Peruvian Spanish, Colombian Spanish) are used even though these do not completely capture the nature of the diversity. Many early Spanish-speaking New Yorkers were Galicians or Castilians living in Manhattan's Little Spain in today's Chelsea or Brooklyn Heights, connected to the port or cigar-making; others were Latin Americans, especially Cubans and Puerto Ricans, who arrived as political refugees or cigar makers in the late 19th century or else after the Spanish-American War of 1898 made those U.S. territories. The largest waves comprised Puerto Rican Spanish speakers following the Second World War and Dominican Spanish speakers starting in the 1960s and 70s, making Caribbean Spanish varieties dominant in the city. Other major communities include the Mexican, Ecuadorian, Colombian, Central American, and Peruvian Spanish speakers who have settled in various zones throughout the metropolitan area, though there are also individuals and communities from virtually every Spanish-speaking community in the world. Spanish and English also mix in the city in distinctive ways, producing in some contexts a code-switching "Spanglish" associated particularly with long-resident Puerto Rican New Yorkers, also known as Nuyoricans.

Chak

Chak
The Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) region of Bangladesh is home to many Indigenous groups (collectively called the Jumma), speaking at least 12 languages and practicing a number of religions, including traditional animistic religion, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Christianity, as opposed to the Islam widespread in the rest of Bangladesh. While Bengali grows increasingly dominant as the national language, various factors have caused Indigenous people from the CHT to emigrate since the 1960s, including the construction of the Kaptai Dam, which destroyed the homes and farmland of tens of thousands, and an assimilationist political regime that favored Bengali culture and Islam. These refugees have consequently established communities in other areas of Bangladesh and overseas, and even as far as Jackson Heights, Queens, where the American Jumma Council unifies speakers of languages like Chak, Chakma, Marma, Tanchangya, and Tripuri. Fewer than 100 individuals may comprise the Jumma community in New York, most of whom arrived after 2010, practice Buddhism, and live in neighborhoods from Woodside to Jamaica. The council organizes frequent social and cultural events, with goals to solidify the community and ease transnational adapation for newcomers.

Chakma

Changma Vaj
The Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) region of Bangladesh is home to many Indigenous groups (collectively called the Jumma), speaking at least 12 languages and practicing a number of religions, including traditional animistic religion, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Christianity, as opposed to the Islam widespread in the rest of Bangladesh. While Bengali grows increasingly dominant as the national language, various factors have caused Indigenous people from the CHT to emigrate since the 1960s, including the construction of the Kaptai Dam, which destroyed the homes and farmland of tens of thousands, and an assimilationist political regime that favored Bengali culture and Islam. These refugees have consequently established communities in other areas of Bangladesh and overseas, and even as far as Jackson Heights, Queens, where the American Jumma Council unifies speakers of languages like Chak, Chakma, Marma, Tanchangya, and Tripuri. Fewer than 100 individuals may comprise the Jumma community in New York, most of whom arrived after 2010, practice Buddhism, and live in neighborhoods from Woodside to Jamaica. The council organizes frequent social and cultural events, with goals to solidify the community and ease transnational adapation for newcomers.

Chamling

किराती-रोदुङ
A large event held by the Kirat Rai Society of America drew some 300 people in December 2019, with both a large number of Rai and a large number of Nepali New Yorkers from other ethnolinguistic groups. The Kirat Rai Society of America is one organization representing members of several dozen different ethnolinguistic groups of eastern Nepal considered Indigenous to the region, but not Sunwar, Limbu, or Bhutanese Rai, who have their own organizations, or Yakkha, of whom there may be a small number. Almost all groups, after centuries of pressure, are shifting to Nepali, with the largest Rai language Bantawa sometimes also serving as a kind of common language. Estimates of the New York Rai community, centered in Queens, ranged from a few hundred to as many as 1,000. Besides Bantawa, of which there may be dozens of speakers, there are a significant number of Chamling speakers, some Khaling, Nachhiring, and Sampang speakers and reportedly a few speakers of Kulung and Thulung.

Ghale

घले
There are some Ghale-speaking families in Queens living among other Himalayans, but the extent of the community is not known.

Gurung

तमु क्यी
Gurung is an endangered Tibeto-Burman (Tamangic) language spoken in central Nepal by a reported 325,000 people, with additional speakers residing outside of Nepal’s borders. In New York, a community of several hundred Gurungs live in and around Jackson Heights, where the Gurung (Tamu) Society is also based. Others, like Endangered Language Alliance collaborator Narayan Gurung (a former Gurkha soldier, like some other Gurung New Yorkers) live in the Ridgewood area. Most members of this community no longer speak the Gurung language — which contains many distinct varieties based in different villages — but have switched to the national language, Nepali or, in America, English. Read more here.

Khalkha Mongolian

Халх аялгуу
Byaambakhuu Darinchuluun of the Mongolian Heritage Foundation estimates that there are some 700 Khalka Mongolian speakers in New York, primarily in this section of Jackson Heights but also in Sunnyside and Woodside. Gatherings are held around the city with speakers of other Mongolic languages including Southern Mongolian, Buryat, and Kalmyk, as well as speakers of Tuvan and Hazara.

Kheng

འཁྱེང་ཁ་།
One community member estimates that as many as 1,000 people from Bhutan are now in the city, though it is unclear whether or not this includes the Nepali-speaking Lhotsampa people who have fled Bhutan as refugees and may not be Dzongkha speakers. Besides Dzongkha, the national language, the most widely spoken language among non-Lhotsampa Bhutanese is Sharchop, but there are also a small number of speakers of Bumthang, Kurtöp, Kheng, Chocha-ngacha, and probably other languages of Bhutan. The largest concentration is in Sunnyside as well as Astoria and Elmhurst, near other Himalayans, but a small percentage are in Brooklyn and scattered individuals in the Bronx and Westchester and likely elsewhere.

Kulung

किराती-कुलुङ
A large event held by the Kirat Rai Society of America drew some 300 people in December 2019, with both a large number of Rai and a large number of Nepali New Yorkers from other ethnolinguistic groups. The Kirat Rai Society of America is one organization representing members of several dozen different ethnolinguistic groups of eastern Nepal considered Indigenous to the region, but not Sunwar, Limbu, or Bhutanese Rai, who have their own organizations, or Yakkha, of whom there may be a small number. Almost all groups, after centuries of pressure, are shifting to Nepali, with the largest Rai language Bantawa sometimes also serving as a kind of common language. Estimates of the New York Rai community, centered in Queens, ranged from a few hundred to as many as 1,000. Besides Bantawa, of which there may be dozens of speakers, there are a significant number of Chamling speakers, some Khaling, Nachhiring, and Sampang speakers and reportedly a few speakers of Kulung and Thulung.

Kuranko

Kuranko
Poet/storyteller Kewulay Kamara, working within a Manden finah (bard) tradition and speaking the Kuranko language of Sierra Leone (which he reports has high mutual intelligibility with other Manden varieties), lives in Jackson Heights. Kewulay reported only once over the years meeting another Kuranko speaker in the city, who later moved away.

Limba

Limba
At least one Limba speaker was reported to have lived at one point in Jackson Heights, staying with the Kuranko speaker (also from Sierra Leone).

Marma

Marma
The Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) region of Bangladesh is home to many Indigenous groups (collectively called the Jumma), speaking at least 12 languages and practicing a number of religions, including traditional animistic religion, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Christianity, as opposed to the Islam widespread in the rest of Bangladesh. While Bengali grows increasingly dominant as the national language, various factors have caused Indigenous people from the CHT to emigrate since the 1960s, including the construction of the Kaptai Dam, which destroyed the homes and farmland of tens of thousands, and an assimilationist political regime that favored Bengali culture and Islam. These refugees have consequently established communities in other areas of Bangladesh and overseas, and even as far as Jackson Heights, Queens, where the American Jumma Council unifies speakers of languages like Chak, Chakma, Marma, Tanchangya, and Tripuri. Fewer than 100 individuals may comprise the Jumma community in New York, most of whom arrived after 2010, practice Buddhism, and live in neighborhoods from Woodside to Jamaica. The council organizes frequent social and cultural events, with goals to solidify the community and ease transnational adapation for newcomers.

Monguor

Mongghul
Living in what is now China and linguistically tied to the Monoglian world, Monghuor speakers have also had long-term contact with forms of TIbetan. At least one native speaker of Monguor was reported to live in Queens as of 2018.

Mugu

མུ་གུམ་སྐད་
Around 120 speakers of the Tibetic language variety Mugum live in close proximity to one another in two buildings in the Woodside-Jackson Heights area, among other Tibetan/Himalayan communities, with the Mugum Welfare Association a uniting institution.

Nachhiring

किराती-नाछिरिङ
A large event held by the Kirat Rai Society of America drew some 300 people in December 2019, with both a large number of Rai and a large number of Nepali New Yorkers from other ethnolinguistic groups. The Kirat Rai Society of America is one organization representing members of several dozen different ethnolinguistic groups of eastern Nepal considered Indigenous to the region, but not Sunwar, Limbu, or Bhutanese Rai, who have their own organizations, or Yakkha, of whom there may be a small number. Almost all groups, after centuries of pressure, are shifting to Nepali, with the largest Rai language Bantawa sometimes also serving as a kind of common language. Estimates of the New York Rai community, centered in Queens, ranged from a few hundred to as many as 1,000. Besides Bantawa, of which there may be dozens of speakers, there are a significant number of Chamling speakers, some Khaling, Nachhiring, and Sampang speakers and reportedly a few speakers of Kulung and Thulung.

Nepali

नेपाली
Nepali in New York is spoken by a diverse range of individuals and communities not just from native Nepali-speaking Brahmin and Chhetri groups, but as a second (and increasingly first) language by significant numbers of ethnic minorities from Nepal's Himalayan north, middle hills, and southern reaches near India. There are also Nepali-speaking Lhotsampa refugees originally from Bhutan (primarily now resettled in the Bronx) and some Nepali speakers from India.

Newari

𑐣𑐾𑐰𑐵𑑅 𑐨𑐵𑐫𑑂‎
One community member estimates that there may be as many as 2,000 Newaris, speakers of most or all varieties from around the Kathmandu Valley, living in the New York area, principally Queens—the New York Newa Guthi is one community institution. There are also at least a few families around Queens (and some others scattered around the country) who speak the mutually unintelligible Dolakha Newari, according to one community member.

Pakistani English

Pakistani English
Pakistani English, like other South Asian English varieties, developed across three centuries of British colonial presence, with English today serving as an official language of government widely used in all settings (including many middle- and upper-clas homes) as well as an unofficial lingua franca across the country's many linguistic groups. Pakistani English in New York spans all five boroughs and many suburbs, cutting across the country's multilingual communities that collectively speak some 15 native languages in New York. Roughly 60,000 Pakistanis live in the New York metropolitan area, including major hubs outside the five boroughs in Jersey City, Edison and Woodbridge, New Jersey.

Peruvian Spanish

Español Peruano
New York City is home to a tremendous diversity of Spanish varieties, largely mutually intelligible but highly distinctive along regional, ethnic, and local lines — for this map, as among speakers themselves, national distinctions (e.g. Peruvian Spanish, Colombian Spanish) are used even though these do not completely capture the nature of the diversity. Many early Spanish-speaking New Yorkers were Galicians or Castilians living in Manhattan's Little Spain in today's Chelsea or Brooklyn Heights, connected to the port or cigar-making; others were Latin Americans, especially Cubans and Puerto Ricans, who arrived as political refugees or cigar makers in the late 19th century or else after the Spanish-American War of 1898 made those U.S. territories. The largest waves comprised Puerto Rican Spanish speakers following the Second World War and Dominican Spanish speakers starting in the 1960s and 70s, making Caribbean Spanish varieties dominant in the city. Other major communities include the Mexican, Ecuadorian, Colombian, Central American, and Peruvian Spanish speakers who have settled in various zones throughout the metropolitan area, though there are also individuals and communities from virtually every Spanish-speaking community in the world. Spanish and English also mix in the city in distinctive ways, producing in some contexts a code-switching "Spanglish" associated particularly with long-resident Puerto Rican New Yorkers, also known as Nuyoricans.

Ramaluk

ར་མ་ལུག་སྐད་
Ramaluk (ra-ma-lug skad​), literally “half-goat half-sheep” (language), is the informal term employed by Tibetans to refer to a range of different code-mixing practices, which may serve as a lingua franca for people from across the Himalaya. In New York, this most typically refers to mixing between Tibetan varieties and Nepali, as most ethnic Tibetans come to the city by way of Nepal, but as noted by Tournadre (2003), this term is also in wide use on the other side of the Nepali border to refer to code-mixing practices involving Tibetan and Chinese. The goat and sheep of the ​Ramaluk​ label signify hybridity but are variables that can stand for any language, lending even more ambiguity to the project of enumerating named language practices above and beyond the already difficult nature of enumerating languages themselves. Moreover, the “impure” nature of ​Ramaluk​ is seen as evidence of endangerment of Tibetan as it gives way to surrounding languages. Nepal-born individuals of Tibetan ancestry may claim to “only be able to speak ​Ramaluk as opposed to "pure" Tibetan.

Seke

सेके, སེ་སྐད་
At least a few hundred people from Seke-speaking families now live in the city, primarily in a few apartment buildings in the Ditmas Park area of Brooklyn near Cortelyou and Newkirk, where Baragaun speakers also live. Other Seke speakers live near Baragaun/Loke speakers or within the larger Himalayan community in Queens centered on Jackson Heights. Like other Himalayan communities, Seke speakers are well organized with an active samaj (community organization) and with large annual gatherings around July 4 and New Year’s. Seke speaker and ELA collaborator Rasmina Gurung has been working to document the language. Read more here.

Tanchangya

𑄖𑄧𑄐𑄴𑄌𑄧𑄁𑄉𑄴𑄡
The Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) region of Bangladesh is home to many Indigenous groups (collectively called the Jumma), speaking at least 12 languages and practicing a number of religions, including traditional animistic religion, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Christianity, as opposed to the Islam widespread in the rest of Bangladesh. While Bengali grows increasingly dominant as the national language, various factors have caused Indigenous people from the CHT to emigrate since the 1960s, including the construction of the Kaptai Dam, which destroyed the homes and farmland of tens of thousands, and an assimilationist political regime that favored Bengali culture and Islam. These refugees have consequently established communities in other areas of Bangladesh and overseas, and even as far as Jackson Heights, Queens, where the American Jumma Council unifies speakers of languages like Chak, Chakma, Marma, Tanchangya, and Tripuri. Fewer than 100 individuals may comprise the Jumma community in New York, most of whom arrived after 2010, practice Buddhism, and live in neighborhoods from Woodside to Jamaica. The council organizes frequent social and cultural events, with goals to solidify the community and ease transnational adapation for newcomers.

Thakali

थकाली
Approximately 100 Thakali speakers from Lower Mustang in Nepal live in close proximity to Baragaun speakers from the same area, with most in Woodside and Jackson Heights (location of the restaurant Mustang Thakali Kitchen) and a small number of others in Brooklyn and the Journal Square area of Jersey City.

Tharu

थारु
Though much smaller than the community in Chicago, the community of Tharu speakers in and around Jackson Heights is significant, possibly numbering several hundred.

Tripuri

ককবরক‎
The Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) region of Bangladesh is home to many Indigenous groups (collectively called the Jumma), speaking at least 12 languages and practicing a number of religions, including traditional animistic religion, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Christianity, as opposed to the Islam widespread in the rest of Bangladesh. While Bengali grows increasingly dominant as the national language, various factors have caused Indigenous people from the CHT to emigrate since the 1960s, including the construction of the Kaptai Dam, which destroyed the homes and farmland of tens of thousands, and an assimilationist political regime that favored Bengali culture and Islam. These refugees have consequently established communities in other areas of Bangladesh and overseas, and even as far as Jackson Heights, Queens, where the American Jumma Council unifies speakers of languages like Chak, Chakma, Marma, Tanchangya, and Tripuri. Fewer than 100 individuals may comprise the Jumma community in New York, most of whom arrived after 2010, practice Buddhism, and live in neighborhoods from Woodside to Jamaica. The council organizes frequent social and cultural events, with goals to solidify the community and ease transnational adapation for newcomers.

Tsum

བཙུམ་སྐད་
Over the past 20 years, roughly 50-60 people from Tsum, a valley on the southwest border of Tibet (with Nepal), have moved to the Sunnyside and Jackson Heights neighborhoods of Queens. They speak the Tibetic language variety Tsum and are working to maintain their distinct community within the Himalayan mosaic of New York.

Urdu

اردو
Joining earlier South Asian Muslim communities in the city, Urdu speakers from Pakistan and India began arriving in New York in large numbers in the 1960s, with the community doubling in size in the 1990s alone. Though there are significant clusters of Urdu speakers today in every borough, the largest and most visible community is Brooklyn's Little Pakistan in Kensington and Midwood, roughly centered along Coney Island Avenue from Avenue H to Foster Avenue. As the national language, Urdu is a lingua franca, but many are speakers of Pashto, Punjabi, Balochi, Sindhi, Saraiki, and Pothwari as well as smaller languages including Wakhi, Burushashki, Balti. After 9/11, the community faced significant pressure from the Immigration and Naturalization Service, with many deported and others leaving voluntarily. Many have also moved south towards Bensonhurst, Bath Beach, and Coney Island. Other significant Pakistani communities, including many mosques and community organizations, can be found in Astoria, Jackson Heights, Jamaica, Concord, and Parkchester.

Uruguayan Spanish

Español Uruguayo
New York City is home to a tremendous diversity of Spanish varieties, largely mutually intelligible but highly distinctive along regional, ethnic, and local lines — for this map, as among speakers themselves, national distinctions (e.g. Peruvian Spanish, Colombian Spanish) are used even though these do not completely capture the nature of the diversity. Many early Spanish-speaking New Yorkers were Galicians or Castilians living in Manhattan's Little Spain in today's Chelsea or Brooklyn Heights, connected to the port or cigar-making; others were Latin Americans, especially Cubans and Puerto Ricans, who arrived as political refugees or cigar makers in the late 19th century or else after the Spanish-American War of 1898 made those U.S. territories. The largest waves comprised Puerto Rican Spanish speakers following the Second World War and Dominican Spanish speakers starting in the 1960s and 70s, making Caribbean Spanish varieties dominant in the city. Other major communities include the Mexican, Ecuadorian, Colombian, Central American, and Peruvian Spanish speakers who have settled in various zones throughout the metropolitan area, though there are also individuals and communities from virtually every Spanish-speaking community in the world. Spanish and English also mix in the city in distinctive ways, producing in some contexts a code-switching "Spanglish" associated particularly with long-resident Puerto Rican New Yorkers, also known as Nuyoricans.

Venezuelan Spanish

Español Venezolano
New York City is home to a tremendous diversity of Spanish varieties, largely mutually intelligible but highly distinctive along regional, ethnic, and local lines — for this map, as among speakers themselves, national distinctions (e.g. Peruvian Spanish, Colombian Spanish) are used even though these do not completely capture the nature of the diversity. Many early Spanish-speaking New Yorkers were Galicians or Castilians living in Manhattan's Little Spain in today's Chelsea or Brooklyn Heights, connected to the port or cigar-making; others were Latin Americans, especially Cubans and Puerto Ricans, who arrived as political refugees or cigar makers in the late 19th century or else after the Spanish-American War of 1898 made those U.S. territories. The largest waves comprised Puerto Rican Spanish speakers following the Second World War and Dominican Spanish speakers starting in the 1960s and 70s, making Caribbean Spanish varieties dominant in the city. Other major communities include the Mexican, Ecuadorian, Colombian, Central American, and Peruvian Spanish speakers who have settled in various zones throughout the metropolitan area, though there are also individuals and communities from virtually every Spanish-speaking community in the world. Spanish and English also mix in the city in distinctive ways, producing in some contexts a code-switching "Spanglish" associated particularly with long-resident Puerto Rican New Yorkers, also known as Nuyoricans.

Walung

ཧ་ལུང་སྐད​་
The New York Walung community has an estimated 250 people, according to a community source, mostly living in Jackson Heights and Maspeth. Walung is a distinct Tibetic language variety, but younger members may be more likely to speak Tibetan, Nepali, and/or English. The Walung Community of North America is a community institution.

Zapotec

Diidxazá
The Indigenous Zapotec community in and around Los Angeles is larger than the one in and around New York, but there are speakers of Zapotecan languages (a diverse group from Oaxaca in Mexico) living in and around Latino areas of New York and New Jersey. Important clusters include former residents of San Sebastián Teitipac now in the Bronx, who have been hoping to pass on their language with a dedicated school; a community in Corona, Queens from San Pablo Güilá, which has a distinctive variety of the language; a community from San Agustín Yatareni in Poughkeepsie; and farmworkers in and around Bridgeton in southern New Jersey.

Ü-Tsang Tibetan

དབུས་གཙང་སྐད་
Tibetan-speaking New Yorkers have come from across the culturally and religiously Tibetan world, including many refugees who immigrate via India and Nepal. There are some institutions more oriented towards Westerners with an interest in Tibet, such as Tibet House in Manhattan, but most Tibetans have settled in the Queens neighborhoods of Astoria, Sunnyside, Woodside, Jackson Heights, Elmhurst, and Corona, with smaller numbers in Brooklyn, the Bronx, and others now branching out elsewhere — with important religious centers also upstate in Woodstock and Walden. (ELA recognizes that the Chinese government's rule in Tibet is disputed.)
Additional languages spoken in this neighborhood:
  • Argentine Spanish
  • Aromanian
  • Bahing
  • Bantawa
  • Bishnupriya Manipuri
  • Burmese
  • Colombian Spanish
  • Dzongkha
  • Ecuadorian Spanish
  • Garo
  • Greek
  • Gurung
  • Gyalsumdo
  • Hyolmo
  • Indian English
  • Khaling
  • Kham Magar
  • Kham Tibetan
  • Korean
  • Kyirong
  • Limbu
  • Loke
  • Magar
  • Manang
  • Meitei
  • Mexican Spanish
  • Nar-Phu
  • Northern Thai
  • Nubri
  • Peruvian Quechua
  • Pontic Greek
  • Sampang
  • Sharchop
  • Sherpa
  • Sunwar
  • Sylheti
  • Tamang
  • Thai
  • Tibetan
  • Tokpe Gola
  • Tö Tibetan
  • Walung
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Jackson Heights

Queens

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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
AbruzzeseAbbruzzésə

Southern Europe

  • Italy flag
    Italy
Indo-European
Astoria

Small

Residential
AbruzzeseAbbruzzésə

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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An urban language map

Welcome to Languages of New York City, a free and interactive digital map of the world’s most linguistically diverse metropolitan area.

All data, unless otherwise specified, is from the Endangered Language Alliance (ELA), based on information from communities, speakers, and other sources.

The map is a work in progress and a partial snapshot, focused on significant sites for Indigenous, minority, and endangered languages. Larger languages are represented selectively. To protect the privacy of speakers, some locations are slightly altered. Social media users, note that LANGUAGEMAP.NYC works best in a separate browser. We apologize that the map may not be fully accessible to all users, including the visually impaired.

This map was created by the Mapping Linguistic Diversity team, with core support from the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies and the Endangered Language Alliance. Please send feedback!

By continuing I acknowledge that I have read and accept the above information.