Woods 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 8,313 96.72% 8,402 96.84%
Spanish 173 2.01% 209 2.41%
Other Indo-European* 80 0.93% 35 0.40%
Asian Language** 8 0.09% 11 0.13%
Other 21 0.24% 19 0.22%
Total Population Age 5+ 8,595 100.00% 8,676 100.00%

Population Speaking English Less Than "Very Well" in 2000
Language Spoken at Home: Number Percent
Spanish 81 38.76%
Other Indo-European* 12 34.29%
Asian Language** 0 0.00%
Other Language 0 0.00%
Total 93 1.07%

Population Speaking English Less Than "Very Well" in 1990
Language Spoken at Home: Number Percent
Spanish 51 29.48%
Other Indo-European* 16 20.00%
Asian Language** 3 37.50%
Other Language 7 33.33%
Total 77 0.90%

* "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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