District of Columbia
Languages
Dialectically, the Washington, D.C., area is extremely heterogeneous. In 2000, 83.2% of all District of Columbia residents five years of age or older spoke only English at home, down from 87% in 1990.
The following table gives selected statistics from the 2000 census for language spoken at home by persons five years old and over. The category "African languages" includes Amharic, Ibo, Twi, Yoruba, Bantu, Swahili, and Somali.
| LANGUAGE | NUMBER | PERCENT |
| Population 5 years and over | 539,658 | 100.0 |
| Speak only English | 449,241 | 83.2 |
| Speak a language other than English | 90,417 | 16.8 |
| Speak a language other than English | 90,417 | 16.8 |
| Spanish or Spanish Creole | 49,461 | 9.2 |
| French (incl. Patois, Cajun) | 9,085 | 1.7 |
| African languages | 5,181 | 1.0 |
| Chinese | 2,913 | 0.5 |
| German | 2,695 | 0.5 |
| Arabic | 2,097 | 0.4 |
| Italian | 1,723 | 0.3 |
| Vietnamese | 1,610 | 0.3 |
| Tagalog | 1,356 | 0.3 |
| Russian | 1,110 | 0.2 |
| Portuguese or Portuguese Creole | 1,013 | 0.2 |