Languages of New York City
Languages of New York City is a free and interactive digital map of the world’s most linguistically diverse metropolitan area.
Since 2010, the Endangered Language Alliance, motivated by worldwide language endangerment, has worked with speakers of over 100 distinct endangered and minority languages, including Lenape, an Indigenous language whose traditional territories include what is now New York City.
This map includes over 700 languages and dialects confirmed to nearly 1200 significant sites, including neighborhoods, community institutions, restaurants, and other locations where there is, or was, at least one speaker. In terms of geographic diversity, approximately 38% of the languages shown are from Asia, 24% from Africa, 19% from Europe, 16% from the Americas, and the rest from Oceania and the Pacific.
This map is committed to representing in particular the smaller, minority, and Indigenous languages that are primarily oral and have neither public visibility nor official support. By design, the larger languages are underrepesented — so the maximum number of sites allowed for any given language is currently 7. Likewise, many of the city’s varieties of American English, too pervasive to locate precisely, have been left out.
To see the map on your desktop or mobile device, go to https://languagemap.nyc/. For more information about the map, see https://languagemap.nyc/Info/About.