According to a report by the Census Bureau released on April 27, 2010, the percentage of the population speaking a language other than English at home has increased 140% since 1980. (http://www.census.gov/prod/2010pubs/acs-12.pdf)
Chicago, always known for its cultural and linguistic diversity, has been surpassed by New York and Los Angeles, cities now having greater concentrations of foreign-language speakers than Chicago.
The number of people aged 5 and older throughout the nation who spoke a language other than English at home has increased at a pace four times greater than the country's population, which grew at 34 percent. The largest group of English-only speakers in the U.S. is the age group of 41 to 64, indicating the aging of the uniquely English speaking population.
Spanish speakers made up the largest increase nationwide, with 23.4 million more speakers in 2007 than in 1980. However, percentage-wise, Vietnamese increased faster at 511 percent, for a total of 1 million speakers of the language in the U.S.
Of the 281 million people age 5 and older in the United States in 2007, there were 55.4 million persons - or 20 percent - who reported speaking a language other than English at home. After English and Spanish, Chinese was the next most prevalent language spoken in American households. The languages found to be in decline over the period being studied were Italian, Yiddish, German, Polish and Greek.
Chicago still has the most Polish speakers of any other city in the U.S. Aside from the two huge immigration poles of New York and Los Angeles, Illinois is clearly the most diverse State in Middle America, with 21.8 percent of state residents speaking a language other than English.
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