Languages of The Bronx & Its Neighborhoods

With over half of Bronx households identifying as Latino, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Spanish, along with English, is the dominant language of our borough.

But what are we left with if we take a look at the dominant languages spoken in any given area if you exclude those two languages?

Thanks to Jill Hubley, a web developer from Brooklyn, who put together data from the 2014 United States Census Bureau’s American Community Survey and compiled a map to show just that.

The first thing one notices is that African languages dominates all corners of The Bronx thanks to the huge influx of African immigrants, particularly from Western Africa. This has also boosted the areas where French is the dominant language mostly concentrated in the South and West Bronx.

Italian is still pretty strong and dominant in many East Bronx neighborhoods like Pelham Bay, Schuylerville, Country Club, Spencer Estates, and Throggs Neck.

Also in Throggs Neck is home to Urdu, the official language of Pakistan which is also widely spoken across Western India. Even Greek is dominant in some parts of the area.

Not surprising is Hebrew and Russian dominating Riverdale side by side with Urdu as well.

Morris Park still has sections where Italian is also still dominant surrounded by what’s labeled as Indo European languages which we believe is most likely Albanian due to the large population in the general area along with Pelham Parkway.

Overall, The Bronx has about 27 languages or language groups that are dominant throughout areas of the borough but actual spoken languages is much greater than this.

All of this shouldn’t be too big of a surprise since the US Census said The Bronx is the most diverse area in the country and there is an 89.7 percent chance that any two residents, chosen at random, would be of different race or ethnicity.

What language other than English do you speak at home? Head over to the site to explore the rest of the map!