ASL most widely used language in the United States

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someonwoutthere

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So many websites have different ranking.
Does anone know the truth?
 
Does it matter?? I am not going to talk to 5 billion people in ASL at once. All that would make me smile is one person with whom I can converse in ASL with. I'm not going to go around thinking, where does ASL rank in USA with other languages.
 
withdraw the course since youare looking for a shortcut way of finishing your paper.
 
Nice people here, huh? Jeez.. Help a guy out. He clearly tried to find the answer but every place he went had a different number. He isn't looking for a "shortcut"

Anyway, there is no real answer. The United States census, as far as I know, doesn't ask about Deafness or ASL-- and even if it did, the number would still be inaccurate because many Deaf people don't understand what the census is or the importance of it, so they don't submit the form.

I've heard lots of statistics but I can say with 95% confidence that ASL is definitely in the top 3. It's English, Spanish, and ASL.
 
warpedpink said:
Anyway, there is no real answer. The United States census, as far as I know, doesn't ask Deafness or ASL-- and even if it did, the number would still be inaccurate because many Deaf people don't understand what the census is or the importance of it, so they don't submit the form.

I've heard lots of statistics but I can say with 95% confidence that ASL is definitely in the top 3. It's English, Spanish, and ASL.
Click to expand...

That's what I've always been told - English, Spanish, and ASL are the top 3 most widely used languages in the United States. Though, I've never seen an exact number or anything; just some guesses which vary greatly from one person to another.
 
Oh dudes.

I've heard recently that ASL is 4th popular languages in the U.S.

1) English
2) Spanish
3) French
4) ASL
 
I seriously doubt ASL is the 3rd or 4th widely used language in the United States. When you say "widely used" I see it as a language that one is fluent in on a daily basis rather than some college kid who happened to take a couple of courses in ASL which isn't different from those who took a couple of Spanish courses in college. Doesn't really count at all. ASL is more likely to fall between 7th to 10th widely used langauge in the U.S. I based that on a 14 page analysis I did several years back covering the population of sign language users (culturally deaf population at around 900,000, which I think is a somewhat overly generous figure which I think should be closer to 700,000).


1) English - 216 million
2) Spanish - 32.2 million
3) Chinese - 1.6 million
4) Tagalog - 1.4 million
5) French 1.3 million
6) Vietnamese - 1.1 million
6) German - 1.1 million
7) Korean - 1.0 million
8) Russian - 831,000
9) Italian - 800,000
10) Arabic - 678,000
11) Portuguese - 663,000
12) Polish - 602,000
13) Hindi - 465,000
14) Japanese - 461,000

Source: Language Map Data Center
 
I think the figures used to say that ASL is 4th largest language in use in the US was actually from a source that based the estimate on court cases in the US and the number of interpreters/translators used in that capacity. ASL was the 4th largest of languages requesting interpreters/translators in courtroom at the time of the study used to make that assessment (source).

In terms of language in use, though, there's little agreement because the census doesn't capture ASL, unfortunately. So, in the past estimators mistakenly tried to conflate ASL users with deaf people in general, assuming that all used ASL . Recent research, though, has pulled back on the number of ASL users in the US, placing the # at about 500,000 (max). So you could compare that # with the 2000 census figures for spoken languages, which would place ASL at ~ 13th:

English – 215 million
Spanish – 28 million
Chinese languages – 2.0 million + (mostly Cantonese speakers, with a growing group of Mandarin speakers)
French – 1.6 million
German – 1.4 million (High German) + German dialects like Hutterite German, Texas German, Pennsylvania German, Plautdietsch
Tagalog – 1.2 million + (Most Filipinos may also know other Philippine languages, e.g. Ilokano, Pangasinan, Bikol languages, and Visayan languages)
Vietnamese – 1.01 million
Italian – 1.01 million
Korean – 890,000
Russian – 710,000
Polish – 670,000
Arabic – 610,000
Portuguese – 560,000
Japanese – 480,000
French Creole – 450,000 (mostly Louisiana Creole French – 334,500)
Greek – 370,000
Hindi – 320,000
Persian – 310,000
Urdu – 260,000
Gujarati – 240,000
Armenian – 217,000
 
So that would put the ASL usage numbers on par with Reba's language......:lol:
 
GrendelQ said:
I think the figures used to say that ASL is 4th largest language in use in the US was actually from a source that based the estimate on court cases in the US and the number of interpreters/translators used in that capacity. ASL was the 4th largest of languages requesting interpreters/translators in courtroom at the time of the study used to make that assessment (source).

In terms of language in use, though, there's little agreement because the census doesn't capture ASL, unfortunately. So, in the past estimators mistakenly tried to conflate ASL users with deaf people in general, assuming that all used ASL . Recent research, though, has pulled back on the number of ASL users in the US, placing the # at about 500,000 (max). So you could compare that # with the 2000 census figures for spoken languages, which would place ASL at ~ 13th:

English – 215 million
Spanish – 28 million
Chinese languages – 2.0 million + (mostly Cantonese speakers, with a growing group of Mandarin speakers)
French – 1.6 million
German – 1.4 million (High German) + German dialects like Hutterite German, Texas German, Pennsylvania German, Plautdietsch
Tagalog – 1.2 million + (Most Filipinos may also know other Philippine languages, e.g. Ilokano, Pangasinan, Bikol languages, and Visayan languages)
Vietnamese – 1.01 million
Italian – 1.01 million
Korean – 890,000
Russian – 710,000
Polish – 670,000
Arabic – 610,000
Portuguese – 560,000
Japanese – 480,000
French Creole – 450,000 (mostly Louisiana Creole French – 334,500)
Greek – 370,000
Hindi – 320,000
Persian – 310,000
Urdu – 260,000
Gujarati – 240,000
Armenian – 217,000
Click to expand...

We're not too far off of each other on the ranking by a difference of 200,000 people and we're agreement that saying ASL is a 3rd or 4th widely used language does not even sound right and more like an exaggeration.
 
kokonut said:
We're not too far off of each other on the ranking by a difference of 200,000 people and we're agreement that saying ASL is a 3rd or 4th widely used language does not even sound right and more like an exaggeration.
Click to expand...

We must be drawing from the same Gallaudet sources :)

I wish there was more information about ASL users available.
 
There's a slight argument I would say, regarding the methodology to generate those US ASL figures, if one takes a moment to think of it. With most languages listed, people self-identify with a corresponding language and base this answer to the census/polling origination. The individual doesn't need to be verified by a source, they can (generally speaking) personally assest if they are capable of declaring it as their official language. This would incur for many of those examples, anyone speaking of Spanish, Chinese, German, etc. languages.

However, as with ASL isn't there generally an unspoken sub-requirement in that you are accepted into the community before an individual can declare oneself officially a part of it? These participants of the Deaf community tend to judge the individuals.
Sort of like the college example given, taking a couple of college classes in Spanish doesn't automatically constitute an official "declaration" of sorts that you are now a native speaker of the language, you personally have to assest this yourself. Except this time for ASL, it is done for you.

The issue is for ASL, I'm trying to convey, that it seems to be the other way around - they [the community] generally are to accept the individual before they can officially declare themselves apart of the pool. In this effect, that would actually lower some amounts of people in that group - impacting mostly hearing that declare their language(s) with ASL. On the flip side, in effect, it could also increase the likelihood of people who associate with it because they are deaf, although not fully fluent in the language thereby generating extras than necessary.
 
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