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Language Spoken at Home
& Ability to Speak English
City of Los Angeles

2021 Census Estimates*
Persons 5 years & Over


Also see:
-- City of Los Angeles Languages & Ability to Speak English - 2010 Census
-- City of Los Angeles Languages & Ability to Speak English - 2000 Census



Language Total Speakers Speak English "very well" Speak English less than "very well"
Total 3,650,704 2,732,492 918,212
Speak only English 1,577,123 1,577,123 ---
Latin (Romance) & Southern European Languages
Spanish 1,462,335 789,869 672,466
French (incl. Cajun) 19,800 17,554 2,246
Haitian 1,579 1,141 438
Italian 7,595 6,639 956
Portuguese 5,248 3,988 1,260
Greek 9,960 8,952 1,008
Northern European Languages
German 2,536 2,347 189
Yiddish, Pennsylvania Dutch or other West Germanic languages (including Scandanavian) 1,752 1,514 238
Language Total Speakers Speak English "very well" Speak English less than "very well"
Slavic Languages & Hungarian
Russian 39,649 24,072 15,577
Polish 2,050 1,815 235
Serbo-Croatian 4,115 2,943 1,172
Ukrainian or other Slavic languages 2,868 2,324 544
Indic & Other Indo-European Languages
Armenian 88,217 48,481 39,736
Persian (incl. Farsi, Dari) 47,561 25,962 21,599
Gujarati 2,681 1,302 1,379
Hindi 9,284 7,724 1,560
Urdu 4,199 3,277 922
Punjabi 4,115 2,493 1,622
Bengali 6,520 3,265 3,255
Nepali, Marathi, or other Indic languages 4,283 2,897 1,386
Other Indo-European languages 7,472 6,271 1,201
Language Total Speakers Speak English "very well" Speak English less than "very well"
Asian Languages
Telugu 2,648 2,504 144
Tamil 1,036 898 138
Malayalam, Kannada, or other Dravidian languages 1,369 1,075 294
Chinese (incl. Mandarin, Cantonese) 56,257 30,027 26,230
Japanese 17,908 9,242 8,666
Korean 82,778 34,020 48,758
Hmong 147 37 110
Vietnamese 16,699 6,400 10,299
Khmer 2,133 1,112 1,021
Thai, Lao, or other Tai-Kadai languages 7,255 2,665 4,590
Other languages of Asia 6,003 2,848 3,155
Language Total Speakers Speak English "very well" Speak English less than "very well"
Pacific Islander Languages
Tagalog (incl. Filipino) 84,882 56,974 27,908
Ilocano, Samoan, Hawaiian, or other Austronesian languages 8,624 5,758 2,866
Arabic, Hebrew, African, Native North American & Other Languages
Arabic 14,724 9,101 5,623
Hebrew 17,796 14,048 3,748
Amharic, Somali, or other Afro-Asiatic languages 4,414 2,863 1,551
Yoruba, Twi, Igbo, or other languages of Western Africa 4,587 3,343 1,244
Swahili or other languages of Central, Eastern, and Southern Africa 1,892 1,485 407
Navajo 268 268 0
Other Native languages of North America 511 421 90
Other and unspecified languages 7,831 5,450 2,381

* Annual estimate from data and surveys collected over a one-year period by the U.S. Census American Community Survey for 2021.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau


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