Los Angeles Almanac Logo
Home | All Almanac Topics | Population

Language Spoken at Home
Los Angeles County

Persons 5 years & Over
2021 Estimates*


Languages, Grand Park, Los Angeles

Language Totem in Grand Central Park, Los Angeles. Los Angeles Almanac Photo.


Also see:
-- Language Spoken at Home, Cities & Communities, Los Angeles County
-- Language Spoken at Home, City of Los Angeles (Most Recent Estimates)
-- Language Spoken at Home, Los Angeles County, 2010



Language Total Speakers Speak English "very well" Speak English less than "very well"
Total 9,309,771 7,151,043 2,158,728
Speak only English 4,163,545 4,163,545 ---
Latin (Romance) & Southern European Languages
Spanish 3,546,775 2,099,845 1,446,930
French (incl. Cajun) 35,579 31,459 4,120
Haitian 2,464 1,982 482
Italian 13,902 11,198 2,704
Portuguese 17,467 11,832 5,635
Greek 17,991 16,069 1,922
Language Total Speakers Speak English "very well" Speak English less than "very well"
Northern European Languages
German 5,439 4,872 567
Yiddish, Pennsylvania Dutch or other West Germanic languages (including Scandanavian) 4,969 3,938 1,031
Slavic Languages & Hungarian
Russian 56,443 32,338 24,105
Polish 4,999 4,091 908
Serbo-Croatian 5,916 4,141 1,775
Ukrainian or other Slavic languages 5,898 4,967 931
Language Total Speakers Speak English "very well" Speak English less than "very well"
Indic & Other Indo-European Languages
Armenian 189,633 107,625 82,008
Persian (incl. Farsi, Dari) 76,069 43,865 32,204
Gujarati 7,574 4,723 2,851
Hindi 23,222 19,018 4,204
Urdu 10,159 7,676 2,483
Punjabi 8,047 4,204 3,843
Bengali 10,693 5,678 5,015
Nepali, Marathi, or other Indic languages 11,450 7,790 3,660
Other Indo-European languages 13,944 11,778 2,166
Language Total Speakers Speak English "very well" Speak English less than "very well"
Asian Languages
Telugu 5,358 4,309 1,049
Tamil 5,013 4,655 358
Malayalam, Kannada, or other Dravidian languages 4,436 3,870 566
Chinese (incl. Mandarin, Cantonese) 364,321 147,967 216,354
Japanese 50,382 25,269 25,113
Korean 158,248 68,576 89,672
Hmong 633 324 309
Vietnamese 71,261 25,474 45,787
Khmer 22,346 9,175 13,171
Thai, Lao, or other Tai-Kadai languages 17,509 7,664 9,845
Other languages of Asia 15,937 7,396 8,541
Language Total Speakers Speak English "very well" Speak English less than "very well"
Pacific Islander Languages
Tagalog (incl. Filipino) 223,622 149,634 73,988
Ilocano, Samoan, Hawaiian, or other Austronesian languages 29,759 18,136 11,623
Arabic, Hebrew, African, Native North American & Other Languages
Arabic 49,817 32,142 17,675
Hebrew 20,840 16,322 4,518
Amharic, Somali, or other Afro-Asiatic languages 9,995 6,230 3,765
Yoruba, Twi, Igbo, or other languages of Western Africa 10,488 7,876 2,612
Swahili or other languages of Central, Eastern, and Southern Africa 3,609 2,939 670
Navajo 375 375 0
Other Native languages of North America 1,198 997 201
Other and unspecified languages 12,446 9,079 3,367

* 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


According to the late, renowned UCLA linguistics professor, Vyacheslav Ivanov, there were at least 224 identified languages spoken in Los Angeles County. This did not include differing dialects. Professor Ivanov estimated that publications are locally produced in about 180 of these languages. Only 92 languages were specifically identified among students of the Los Angeles Unified School District.