Neighborhood

Midtown

Manhattan
In the Census-defined PUMA including Chelsea, Clinton & Midtown Business District, according to recent Census data, (in descending order) French, Mandarin, and Cantonese each have at least 1500 speakers. English, Spanish, and Korean 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:

Austrian German

Österreichisches Deutsch
While the Austrian Cultural Forum today represents a de facto cultural embassy for the Austrian government, small Austrian German-speaking communities have also existed around the city, usually among other communities speaking Germanic language varieties. One substantial community came from the Burgenland in today's eastern Austria, with many settling in Queens neighborhoods such as Ridgewood and College Point and forming the Brüderschaft der Burgenländer New York in 1937. Many mid-20th century Austrian Jewish Austrian refugees settled on the Upper West Side or in Washington Heights and frequented establishments like Eclair, a popular spot for intellectuals and artists suffused with nostalgia for Viennese cafe culture.

Brazilian Portuguese

Português Brasileiro
Brazilian immigrants to New York began arriving in significant numbers in the 1980s, establishing businesses in "Little Brazil", a section of Manhattan's West 46th Street between 5th and 6th Avenues, and settling in larger numbers in Astoria where there are numerous markets, restaurants, churches, and other establishments. Many Brazilians have also settled in the Portuguese Ironbound neighborhood in Newark, and an increasing number, primarily people from the town of Poços de Caldas in Minas Gerias, are now in Mount Vernon in Westchester, where as much as one-tenth of the population is Brazilian, according to recent estimates.

Bukhori

בוכארי
Many Bukharian Jews have a long-standing connection to the diamond business and maintain a presence in Manhattan's Diamond Strict on 47th Street. Taam Tov is a popular kosher restaurant serving Central Asian staples to a devoted following.

Burmese

မြန်မာဘာသာ
New York's Burmese community is growing fast, particularly in areas of western Queens (Elmhurst, Woodhaven, Sunnyside, and Jackson Heights), where at least 7,000 immigrants from Myanmar currently reside, according to 2015-2019 American Community Survey data—and also southern Brooklyn. Many are Christian refugees from minority groups who fled the country's military rule and decades of civil war, as well as a reported small number Rohingya Muslims facing extreme persecution. Other community members cite educational opportunities as their motivation for immigrating. The vast majority of Burmese in Myanmar are Buddhist, and there are many ethnic Burmans and other Myanmar Buddhists who gather at the Buddhist temple in Brooklyn's Prospect Heights, which has a larger facility in New Jersey. Many of the Christian groups gather at Glendale's Myanmar Baptist Church. Some have found work in Manhattan's Diamond District. Besides Burmese (including the Dawei and Intha varieties), there are speakers of several varieties of Chin, Kachin, Karen, Lahu, Mon, Pa'O, Rakhine, Shan, and Wa, and perhaps other languages.

Dari

درى
Dari, the widespread name for Persian as spoken in Afghanistan, is a lingua franca among Afghan New Yorkers (who may also speak Pashto, Uzbek, or other languages) that also connects them to Persian speakers originally from other neighborhing nations and now in New York. The Afghan community is centered in eastern Queens (Flushing, Hillcrest, Fresh Meadows), but some work or live in Midtown Manhattan, including reportedly in the multilingual mix of the Diamond District on 47th Street, and a community has also grown up in Hicksville.

Ecclesiastical Latin

Latina Ecclesiastica
By the late 4th century CE, Ecclesiastical (Church) Latin had fully replaced Greek as the liturgical language of the Catholic Church, under the Pope in Rome. Developing from but ultimately distinct from forms of spoken Latin in the late Roman Empire, the language became an important lingua franca used across Europe in formal, mostly written contexts among educated and elite Europeans, in use as late as the 18th century. Throughout, and down to the present day, it has remained the official language of the Catholic Church, although more allowance was made for the use of verancular languages in the mass and other contexts following the Second Vatican Council on 1962. The Tridentine, or Traditional Latin Mass, nonetheless continues to be celebrated at some churches in the New York area, including Gowanus' Our Lady of Peace Catholic Church and Midtown's Shrine of the Holy Innocents.

Fang

Pangwe
Fang is widely spoken across Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and neighboring countries — some individuals from that region are reported to speak the language in New York.

Gujarati

ગુજરાતી
Gujarati speakers, representing a global diaspora with roots in the northwest Indian state of Gujarat, maintain major communities throughout the metropolitan area, most visibly in and around Jersey City's Journal Square and elsewhere in New Jersey, but also in Queens neighborhoods where speakers of other Indian languages also live. Southeast Queens, around Auburndale and Laurelton, notably hosts a community of a few hundred Gujarati-speaking Dawoodi Bohra, following a religious tradition within the Ismaili branch of Shia Islam. The Gujarati Samaj, a non-profit cultural organization since 1974, unifies the community with festivities on Diwali, International Yoga Day, and Gujarat Independence Day, celebrated annually on May 1st.

Gulf Arabic

خليجي
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.

Karen

ကညီကျိာ်
New York's Burmese community is growing fast, particularly in areas of western Queens (Elmhurst, Woodhaven, Sunnyside, and Jackson Heights), where at least 7,000 immigrants from Myanmar currently reside, according to 2015-2019 American Community Survey data—and also southern Brooklyn. Many are Christian refugees from minority groups who fled the country's military rule and decades of civil war, as well as a reported small number Rohingya Muslims facing extreme persecution. Other community members cite educational opportunities as their motivation for immigrating. The vast majority of Burmese in Myanmar are Buddhist, and there are many ethnic Burmans and other Myanmar Buddhists who gather at the Buddhist temple in Brooklyn's Prospect Heights, which has a larger facility in New Jersey. Many of the Christian groups gather at Glendale's Myanmar Baptist Church. Some have found work in Manhattan's Diamond District. Besides Burmese (including the Dawei and Intha varieties), there are speakers of several varieties of Chin, Kachin, Karen, Lahu, Mon, Pa'O, Rakhine, Shan, and Wa, and perhaps other languages.

Ndebele

IsiNdebele
Several thousand South African New Yorkers live in neighborhoods across the city — besides South African English, there are at least small numbers of speakers of Afrikaans, Xhosa, Zulu, Northern Sotho (also spoken in Lesotho), Ndebele (also spoken in Zimbabwe), Swati (also spoken in Eswatini), and Tswana (also spoken in Botswana). All are official languages of South Africa today, testifying to an extraordinary multilingualism also embodied by comedian and New York resident Trevor Noah, who reportedly speaks (a distinctly South African-inflected) English, Afrikaans, Southern Sotho, Tsonga, Tswana, Xhosa, and Zulu.

Scottish Gaelic

Gàidhlig
Scots, the language spoken in the Scottish lowlands close to northern varieties of English, was the primary language of the first wave of Scottish New Yorkers, who played a prominent role in the city's early history and organized the Scots Society (1744) and the St. Andrew's Society (1756). Starting in the late 18th century, more highlanders, often Scottish Gaelic-speaking Catholics, started arriving in the city fleeing poverty and the Jacobite rebellions. Scottish immigration continued to increase during the first half of the 19th century, with a wide range of professions, institutions, and taverns associated with the community. The industrial suburb of Kearney, New Jersey became and remains a significant site for Scots in the New York area and is reportedly where the first soccer games in the U.S. were played — the Scots American Club there remains active. In the city, the New York Caledonian Club has been a pillar of the community since 1856, with cultural events like fiddle workshops, whiskey tastings, ceilidhs (folk dance gatherings), and language classes in (now highly endangered) Scottish Gaelic. Tartan Week, a celebration of Scottish culture, is celebrated annually in April. Today speakers of Scots live scattered around the metro area, while there are individual Scottish Gaelic speakers in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and the suburbs, according to one.

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.

Yiddish

יידיש
Since its formation in the wake of the Second World War, the Diamond District has had a notable concentration of Yiddish-speaking workers and dealers, many today Hasidim, some with connections to the Yiddish-speaking diamond dealers of Antwerp. Other nearby Midtown job centers, especially the Garment Center, Broadway, and Tin Pan Alley, have also employed substantial numbers of Yiddish speakers who in turn left their mark on these fields.

Zaza

Dımli
Zaza is a Northwest Iranic language, spoken in the east of modern Turkey by Kurdish and Alevi communities, with approximately 2 to 3 million speakers speaking distinct Northern and Southern varieties. Due to language policies in effect for over 50 years, both the number of Zaza speakers and the degree to which they use the language have been in sharp decline. Diaspora and refugee communities now exist throughout Europe, especially Germany, and there are now a small number of speakers in New York and New Jersey, including a few (like Endangered Language Alliance collaborator Zere Atmaca) who have worked as carriage drivers in Central Park. Read more here.
Additional languages spoken in this neighborhood:
  • Alsatian
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Data

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Language
Endonym
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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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An urban language map

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