Neighborhood

West Village

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.
De-select
Languages with a significant site in this neighborhood, marked by a point on the map:

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.

Finnish

Suomi
Finnish immigration to the U.S. hit a peak between 1910 and 1925, forming a strong community within the wider Scandinavian matrix of Sunset Park, near port and dock areas of Brooklyn. This "Finntown" grew around the 8th Avenue Alku and Alku Toinen, two co-ops built by Finnish socialists in 1916. Known as the first non-profit housing cooperatives in the U.S., these experiments inspired dozens of other (Finnish and non-Finnish) cooperative houses, restaurants, stores, and garages around Sunset Park. By the 1970s, most Sunset Park Finns had moved out to Long Island, New Jersey, and Connecticut, but a Finnish church remains in Greenwich Village, and there are scattered speakers throughout the New York area. In the early 20th century, another major community, now gone, was in Harlem, concentrated east of Lenox Avenue in the 120s.

Galician

Galego
Natives of Galicia, from northwestern Spain, first arrived in New York as the largest wave of Spaniards in the late 19th century. "Pequeña España" (Little Spain) consequently grew along the Hudson River from Christopher Street to 23rd Street, and became home to over 15,000 Spanish immigrants. This multicultural Spanish community established La Nacional in 1868, whose primary goal was to promote friendship amongst Spaniards in New York, but also many specifically Galician institutions. Spain's languages (including Galician) could be heard spoken across Chelsea and the West Village for decades, with many refugees from the Spanish Civil War joining the community in the 1930s. Galician-owned restaurants and businesses opened to sell familiar foods and housewares to the community, like Casa Moneo, which drew in the growing community of Caribbean Spanish speakers, selling chorizo, gallon cans of olive oil, and other staples. In addition to working along the Brooklyn waterfront, many Galicians have since moved out of Manhattan's Little Spain to Queens (home to Casa Galicia) and the Ironbound District of Newark, New Jersey, where institutions like the Centro Ourensano (a social club for those from Ourense, an area in Galicia) and Casa d'Paco keep Galician cuisine and traditions alive.

Kalderash Romani

Kalderashitska
Many of the earliest Roma communities in New York formed on the Lower East Side/East Village among other immigrant communities from Southern and Eastern Europe, and for some the city was a seasonal base. Following the Second World War and the 1956 revolution in Hungary came a Hungarian Roma community, including many musicians. There is no community center, according to Roma scholar Ian Hancock, but some Pentecostal churches have large Romani American congregations and a Romani-owned restaurant in the Bowery was at one point a gathering place. Later, many came to be most concentrated in Greenwich Village, with fortune telling as a major source of income. There are also reports of a Lovari community in Newark.

Kumeyaay

Kumiai
Rick Chavolla, board chair of the American Indian Community House, is Kumeyaay from California and living in the West Village as of 2018. As of that year, the American Indian Community House, which has represented New York's Native community for decades, reported members belonging to 72 different Native North American tribes.

Piedmontese

Piemontèis
In addition to speakers in the Northern Italian mix of Greenwich Village, one person reports that a tight-knit community of people from Piedmont in Northwest Italy lived in the west 40s, especially on West 44th street between 9th and 10th avenues roughly from the 1890s before gradually dispersing in the late 40's and 1950s.
Additional languages spoken in this neighborhood:
  • Catalan
  • French
  • Lenape (Munsee)
SearchExploreDataCensusInfo

© Mapbox © OpenStreetMap Improve this map

Data

Search
Local community data
View in map
County
Language
Endonym
World Region
Country
Global Speakers
Language Family
Video
Audio
Location
Size
Status
Filter
Filter
Filter
Filter
Filter
Filter
​
​
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

Rows per page:

20 rows

1-20 of 1303

1-20 of 1303
Press space bar to start a drag. When dragging you can use the arrow keys to move the item around and escape to cancel. Some screen readers may require you to be in focus mode or to use your pass through key

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.