Chattooga County

LANGUAGE

The Census asks questions about language use at home to locate groups of people who speak a language other than English. Their isolation or integration into a primarily English speaking community can be determined by their ability to speak English proficiently.

Language Spoken at Home, 1990-2000
1990 2000
Number Percent Number Percent
Only English 20,492 98.81% 22,968 96.34%
Spanish 161 0.78% 648 2.72%
Other Indo-European* 56 0.27% 102 0.43%
Asian Language** 19 0.09% 94 0.39%
Other 11 0.05% 29 0.12%
Total Population Age 5+ 20,739 100.00% 23,841 100.00%

Population Speaking English Less Than "Very Well" in 2000
Language Spoken at Home: Number Percent
Spanish 352 54.32%
Other Indo-European* 20 19.61%
Asian Language** 61 64.89%
Other Language 15 51.72%
Total 448 1.88%

Population Speaking English Less Than "Very Well" in 1990
Language Spoken at Home: Number Percent
Spanish 67 41.61%
Other Indo-European* 16 28.57%
Asian Language** 0 -
Other Language 11 100.00%
Total 94 0.45%

* "Other Indo-European" excludes English and Spanish. "Indo-European" is not synonymous with "European." French, German, Hindi, and Persian are all classified as Indo-European. Hungarian, on the other hand, is lumped into "Other Language."

** "Asian Language" includes languages indigenous to Asia and Pacific islands areas that are not also Indo-European languages. Chinese, Japanese, Telugu, and Hawaiian are all classified here.

Also note that ability to speak English "very well" is based on the self-assessment of those responding to Census questions, not on a test of language ability.

Source: Census 2000 analyzed by the Social Science Data Analysis Network (SSDAN).

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