Neighborhood

Washington Heights

Manhattan
In the Census-defined PUMA including Washington Heights, Inwood, and Marble Hill, according to recent Census data, (in descending order) Russian, French, and Hebrew are recorded as having more than 1000 speakers. Varieties of English and Spanish are widely spoken.
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Languages with a significant site in this neighborhood, marked by a point on the map:

Biblical Hebrew

לשון הקודש‬
Biblical Hebrew is the language of most of the Hebrew Bible, later evolving into Mishnaic and Medieval Hebrew, all of which served as the basis for Modern Hebrew, whose revival in the late 1800s (after centuries of inactivity) remains a remarkable linguistic feat. The degree of similarity between Biblical and Modern Hebrew is debated, as the two share much vocabulary, but lack common syntactic patterns. As a liturgical language, Biblical Hebrew continues to be central to a traditional Jewish education and plays a major role at most Jewish institutions in New York, such as Brooklyn's Mirrer Yeshiva, Yeshiva University in Washington Heights, and at Beth Medrash Govoha in Lakewood, New Jersey.

Castilian Spanish

Castellano
Many early Spanish-speaking New Yorkers were from Spain's northern coast and likely spoke as Galician, Basque, or Asturian as a mother tongue. They came in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to Manhattan's Little Spain in what is today's Chelsea and West Village, with some remaining institutions clustered around 14th Street around 7th Avenue, notably La Nacional - Spanish Benevolent Society, a fraternal organization since 1868 and the oldest Spanish cultural institution in the US. Uptown, the Hispanic Society Museum and Library has been a gathering place especially for American admirers and scholars of all things Spanish. A notable Spanish cluster also once existed in Brooklyn Heights, connected to the nearby docks.

Dominican Spanish

Español Dominicano
The New York metropolitan area is home to what is by far the largest Dominican community outside the Dominican Republic, including hundreds of thousands of speakers of the island's distinctive variety of Caribbean Spanish. Though individuals came much earlier, the majority of Dominican New Yorkers today arrived beginning in the 1970s and 80s. Washington Heights remains a major center, though many have moved north into Inwood and the Bronx, and today every borough and many nearby suburbs have a substantial Dominican community. An earlier community in Corona, including especially of immigrants from the province of Cibao and even particular villages within it, has been expanding to Woodhaven, Cypress Hills, and East New York and increasingly now the smaller cities and suburbs of Westchester and New Jersey.

Franconian

Fränkisch
As of 2021, a speaker of the Würzburg Franconian variety reported having lived for the last 30 years in Washington Heights, once a major area for (especially Jewish) speakers of several Germanic language varieties. Würzburg is in Lower Franconia, part of Bavaria, and the language there bears similarities to Bavarian, Swabian, and other southern varieties.

Jewish Babylonian Aramaic

לשון התרגום
Jewish Babylonian Aramaic is a variant of Aramaic — the group of Semitic languages spoken for millennia, principally in what is now the Middle East — that was used approximately from the 4th to 11th century C.E. and is still studied by observant Jews today because it is the language of the Talmud, the central text of Rabbinic Judaism. Knowledge of Aramaic for Talmud studies is common among observant Jews worldwide, and nowhere more so than at renowned institutions of Jewish learning like Midwood's Mirrer Yeshiva or Washington Heights' Yeshiva University.

Western Armenian

Արեւմտահայերէն
Substantial Armenian communities, primarily speaking Western Armenian , grew up in Manhattan beginning in the early 20th century. Part of today's Murray Hill was an early Little Armenia, followed by the establishment of a community in Washington Heights. The assassination of Archbishop Leon Tourian at Holy Cross Armenian Apostolic Church in Washington Heights in 1933, tied to doctrinal and political differences and the wider Armenian national movement, was a signal polarizing event in the history of New York's Armenian community. There has also been a long-standing Armenian presence in Manhattan's Diamond District.

Western Yiddish

מערב יידיש
Early communities of German and Alsatian Jews arriving in the city in the 18th and 19th centuries, settling and working first in lower Manhattan, likely had some knowledge of the language. The last major wave of German Jews, coming in the tens of thousands as refugees to Washington Heights in the 1930s, apparently contained some as well. According to the historian Steven Lowenstein, "Among many formerly rural Jews one could hear strong accents of the local South German dialects; in the Breuer congregation the Frankfurt dialect was often noticeable. Among some members of the oldest generation, especially those born in villages in the 1880s and before, the German spoken was still heavily influenced by the now almost obsolete Western Yiddish dialects once spoken by western European Jews. Speakers of these dialects did not sound much like Yiddish speakers from eastern Europe. In fact both they and eastern European Jews would probably have denied the connection between their 'jüdisch-deutsch' and the better known eastern European Yiddish. Yet there were connections clear to all scholars of Yiddish. Many Washington Heights Jews who no longer spoke with the characteristic Jewish accent of the very old rural Jews still threw many Jewish phrases into their German."
Additional languages spoken in this neighborhood:
  • Cuban Spanish
  • German
  • Mexican Spanish
  • Mixtec
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Washington Heights

Manhattan

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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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