Neighborhood

Park Hill

Staten Island
In descending order, Urdu, Albanian, Russian, Polish, "Niger-Congo languages", Sinhalese, Italian, French, Cantonese are among the most widely spoken languages across the north shore of Staten Island, with at least 1000 speakers each, according to recent Census data. Varieties of English, Spanish, Chinese, and Arabic are also widely spoken. ELA data shows no significant sites for smaller language communities in this neighborhood.
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Bassa

𖫢𖫧𖫳𖫒𖫨𖫰𖫨𖫱
The Liberian Civil Wars (1989-2004) forced over a million Liberians of all backgrounds to leave the country, fleeing poverty, disease, mass torture and genocide — often committed by children forced into military organizations. Roughly 100,000 Liberians immigrated to the U.S. at this time, with the single largest number settling in the Park Hill area of Staten Island. Known as "Little Liberia," centered around Park Hill Avenue, this large community now includes a number of active political and social organizations. Most Liberians speak both Liberian English as well as a mother tongue such as Bassa, Kissi, Kru, Krahn, Kpelle, Gio, Gola, Loma, Mano, Mandingo, and Vai.

Gio

Dan
The Liberian Civil Wars (1989-2004) forced over a million Liberians of all backgrounds to leave the country, fleeing poverty, disease, mass torture and genocide — often committed by children forced into military organizations. Roughly 100,000 Liberians immigrated to the U.S. at this time, with the single largest number settling in the Park Hill area of Staten Island. Known as "Little Liberia," centered around Park Hill Avenue, this large community now includes a number of active political and social organizations. Most Liberians speak both Liberian English as well as a mother tongue such as Bassa, Kissi, Kru, Krahn, Kpelle, Gio, Gola, Loma, Mano, Mandingo, and Vai.

Gola

Gola
The Liberian Civil Wars (1989-2004) forced over a million Liberians of all backgrounds to leave the country, fleeing poverty, disease, mass torture and genocide — often committed by children forced into military organizations. Roughly 100,000 Liberians immigrated to the U.S. at this time, with the single largest number settling in the Park Hill area of Staten Island. Known as "Little Liberia," centered around Park Hill Avenue, this large community now includes a number of active political and social organizations. Most Liberians speak both Liberian English as well as a mother tongue such as Bassa, Kissi, Kru, Krahn, Kpelle, Gio, Gola, Loma, Mano, Mandingo, and Vai.

Kissi

Kissi
The Liberian Civil Wars (1989-2004) forced over a million Liberians of all backgrounds to leave the country, fleeing poverty, disease, mass torture and genocide — often committed by children forced into military organizations. Roughly 100,000 Liberians immigrated to the U.S. at this time, with the single largest number settling in the Park Hill area of Staten Island. Known as "Little Liberia," centered around Park Hill Avenue, this large community now includes a number of active political and social organizations. Most Liberians speak both Liberian English as well as a mother tongue such as Bassa, Kissi, Kru, Krahn, Kpelle, Gio, Gola, Loma, Mano, Mandingo, and Vai.

Kpelle

Kpɛlɛwoo
The Liberian Civil Wars (1989-2004) forced over a million Liberians of all backgrounds to leave the country, fleeing poverty, disease, mass torture and genocide — often committed by children forced into military organizations. Roughly 100,000 Liberians immigrated to the U.S. at this time, with the single largest number settling in the Park Hill area of Staten Island. Known as "Little Liberia," centered around Park Hill Avenue, this large community now includes a number of active political and social organizations. Most Liberians speak both Liberian English as well as a mother tongue such as Bassa, Kissi, Kru, Krahn, Kpelle, Gio, Gola, Loma, Mano, Mandingo, and Vai.

Krahn

Krahn
The Liberian Civil Wars (1989-2004) forced over a million Liberians of all backgrounds to leave the country, fleeing poverty, disease, mass torture and genocide — often committed by children forced into military organizations. Roughly 100,000 Liberians immigrated to the U.S. at this time, with the single largest number settling in the Park Hill area of Staten Island. Known as "Little Liberia," centered around Park Hill Avenue, this large community now includes a number of active political and social organizations. Most Liberians speak both Liberian English as well as a mother tongue such as Bassa, Kissi, Kru, Krahn, Kpelle, Gio, Gola, Loma, Mano, Mandingo, and Vai.

Kru

Kru
The Liberian Civil Wars (1989-2004) forced over a million Liberians of all backgrounds to leave the country, fleeing poverty, disease, mass torture and genocide — often committed by children forced into military organizations. Roughly 100,000 Liberians immigrated to the U.S. at this time, with the single largest number settling in the Park Hill area of Staten Island. Known as "Little Liberia," centered around Park Hill Avenue, this large community now includes a number of active political and social organizations. Most Liberians speak both Liberian English as well as a mother tongue such as Bassa, Kissi, Kru, Krahn, Kpelle, Gio, Gola, Loma, Mano, Mandingo, and Vai.

Liberian English

Liberian English
The Liberian Civil Wars (1989-2004) forced over a million Liberians of all backgrounds to leave the country, fleeing poverty, disease, mass torture and genocide — often committed by children forced into military organizations. Roughly 100,000 Liberians immigrated to the U.S. at this time, with the single largest number settling in the Park Hill area of Staten Island. Known as "Little Liberia," centered around Park Hill Avenue, this large community now includes a number of active political and social organizations. Most Liberians speak both Liberian English as well as a mother tongue such as Bassa, Kissi, Kru, Krahn, Kpelle, Gio, Gola, Loma, Mano, Mandingo, and Vai.

Loma

Löömàgòòi
The Liberian Civil Wars (1989-2004) forced over a million Liberians of all backgrounds to leave the country, fleeing poverty, disease, mass torture and genocide — often committed by children forced into military organizations. Roughly 100,000 Liberians immigrated to the U.S. at this time, with the single largest number settling in the Park Hill area of Staten Island. Known as "Little Liberia," centered around Park Hill Avenue, this large community now includes a number of active political and social organizations. Most Liberians speak both Liberian English as well as a mother tongue such as Bassa, Kissi, Kru, Krahn, Kpelle, Gio, Gola, Loma, Mano, Mandingo, and Vai.

Mandingo

Mandingo
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.

Mano

Mano
The Liberian Civil Wars (1989-2004) forced over a million Liberians of all backgrounds to leave the country, fleeing poverty, disease, mass torture and genocide — often committed by children forced into military organizations. Roughly 100,000 Liberians immigrated to the U.S. at this time, with the single largest number settling in the Park Hill area of Staten Island. Known as "Little Liberia," centered around Park Hill Avenue, this large community now includes a number of active political and social organizations. Most Liberians speak both Liberian English as well as a mother tongue such as Bassa, Kissi, Kru, Krahn, Kpelle, Gio, Gola, Loma, Mano, Mandingo, and Vai.

Mende

Mɛnde yia
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.

Sierra Leone Creole

Krio
Krio is an English-based creole widely spoken across Sierra Leone by people with many different other native languages. Today the language may be used among in the city's growing Sierra Leonean community, several thousand strong, many of whose members came following the civil war of the 1990s and settled in the Bronx, Staten Island, an elsewhere.

Temne

KʌThemnɛ
Temne, one of Sierra Leone's most widely spoken languages, is one of the principal languages spoken by Sierra Leonean New Yorkers, including many who fled the country during its recent civil war. Sierra Leoneans now live throughout the metropolitan area, with concentrations in Staten Island, the Bronx, and Queens.

Twi

Twi
New York is home to a large and growing Ghanaian community centered on "Little Accra" in the Bronx stretching from the Grand Concourse up to Tracey Towers, with Ghanaian English and Twi serving as widely-known lingua francas. Ashanti, Akuapem (Twi), and Fante are all considered mutually intelligible varieties of Akan. Ghanaian New Yorkers from Accra, or who spent significant time in Accra, may be Ga speakers, and in the Bronx community there are also speakers of smaller languages such as Dagaare and Dagbani. The first wave of Ghanaians came to the city after the coup in 1966, with some working with the Black Star Line (Ghana Shipping Company) as seamen, and a large number arriving starting in the 1980s. There are now smaller communities in Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, New Jersey, and Westchester. Those from northern Ghana may be part of the Yankasa Association, based in the Bronx. Records indicate that many of the enslaved Africans brought to New York in the 17th and 18th centuries may have been speakers of Akan varieties.

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.

Vai

ꕙꔤ
The Liberian Civil Wars (1989-2004) forced over a million Liberians of all backgrounds to leave the country, fleeing poverty, disease, mass torture and genocide — often committed by children forced into military organizations. Roughly 100,000 Liberians immigrated to the U.S. at this time, with the single largest number settling in the Park Hill area of Staten Island. Known as "Little Liberia," centered around Park Hill Avenue, this large community now includes a number of active political and social organizations. Most Liberians speak both Liberian English as well as a mother tongue such as Bassa, Kissi, Kru, Krahn, Kpelle, Gio, Gola, Loma, Mano, Mandingo, and Vai.
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