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- The share of English-only speakers in Utah is down slightly, while the figures for Spanish and Portuguese speakers edged up.
- Spanish speakers rank as the second-largest language bloc after English speakers, but Portuguese speakers surpassed German speakers for the third spot.
- The new U.S. Census Bureau estimates show that English proficiency is improving among those who speak foreign languages.
SALT LAKE CITY — The share of people who speak only English at home in Utah has dipped slightly while the number who speak Spanish at home has edged up, according to new U.S. Census Bureau estimates.
Spanish speakers still rank second behind English speakers in sheer numbers, according to detailed language figures for the five-year 2017-2021 period, which were released this week and serve as a barometer of the state's demographics. But Portuguese speakers have displaced German speakers in the third spot relative to the 2009-2013 period, the last time detailed estimates on languages spoken were released.
According to the new numbers for people at least 5 years old, those who speak only English at home accounted for 84.6% of the state's population, down from 85.7% in the period ending 2013. In the United States as a whole, 78.3% of people spoke only English at home, according to the new estimates.
Those who speak a language other than English at home accounted for 15.4% of Utah's total, up from 14.3% in the prior period. Spanish speakers, then and now, accounted for about two-thirds of the foreign-language speakers, or approximately 10.4% of the overall population of people 5 years and older as of 2021.
Those speaking Portuguese, the language of Brazil and Portugal, trail far behind Spanish speakers but now sit in the third spot. They accounted for 3% of those speaking a foreign language in the period ending in 2021 but just 0.46% of Utah's overall population. Those speaking German, formerly the third-largest bloc after English- and Spanish-language speakers, now sit in the fifth spot, after English-, Spanish-, Portuguese- and Chinese-language speakers.
Here are additional highlights from the new numbers:
- While the share of people speaking foreign languages may represent a slightly larger share of Utah's population, their English-speaking abilities are improving. In the period ending 2013, 36.4% of those speaking a foreign language said they spoke English "less than 'very well'" — a figure that fell to 30.4% in the period ending 2021. Among Spanish speakers, the figure declined from 39.6% to 32.3%.
- The raw number of people reporting that they spoke Spanish at home jumped 26.2% in the two periods, from 245,945 to 310,300.
- The number of people who said they speak just English at home increased 15.4%, from 2.19 million to 2.53 million.
- The number of people speaking Portuguese jumped 93.1%, though the initial base was relatively small, from 7,150 to 13,810.
- Those speaking the Navajo language declined from 8,193 to 7,401 in the two time periods. Southeastern Utah is home to part of the Navajo Nation.
The numbers released Tuesday parallel language trends in estimates for Utah released by the Census Bureau in late 2023.
