Italian language in the United States

Italian speakers in the US
Year	Speakers
1910	1,365,110
1920	1,624,998
1930	1,808,289
1940	1,561,100
1960	1,277,585
1970	1,025,994
1980	1,618,344
1990	1,308,648
2000	1,008,370
2010	807,010
^a Foreign-born population only

Italian speakers by states in 2000
State	Italian speakers	% of all Italian speakers
New York	294,271	29%
New Jersey	116,365	12%
California	84,190	8%
Pennsylvania	70,434	7%
Florida	67,257	6%
Massachusetts	59,811	6%
Illinois	51,975	5%
Connecticut	50,891	5%

The Italian language has been a widely spoken language in the United States of America for more than one hundred years, due to large-scale immigration beginning in the late 19th century. Today it is the eighth most spoken language in the country.

The first Italian Americans began to immigrate en masse began around 1880. The first Italian immigrants, mainly from Sicily and other parts of Southern Italy, were largely men, and many planned to return to the Italy after making money in the US, so the speaker population of Italian was not always constant or continuous. Between 1890 and 1900, 655,888 Italians went to the United States, and more than 2 million between 1900 and 1910, though around 40% of these eventually returned to Italy. All told, between 1820 and 1978, some 5.3 million Italians went to the United States. Like many ethnic groups, such as the Germans in Little Germany, French Canadians in Little Canadas, and Chinese in Chinatowns, who emigrated to the Americas, the Italians often lived in ethnic enclaves, often known as Little Italies, especially in New York City, St. Louis, Chicago, Boston, and Philadelphia, and continued to speak their original languages.

During World War Two, use of Italian languages in the U.S. was discouraged. In addition, many Italian-Americans were interned, property was confiscated, and Italian-language periodicals were closed.

Today, though 15,638,348 American citizens report themselves as Italian Americans, only 1,008,371 of these report speaking an Italian language at home (0.384% of the national population). But Italian is the 3rd foreign language spoken at home in US and it represents the 2nd largest ethnic market in the US behind only the Hispanic market. Cities with Italian and Sicilian speaking communities include Buffalo, Chicago, Miami, New York City, Philadelphia, and St. Louis. Assimilation has played a large role in the decreasing amount of Italian speakers today. Of those who speak Italian at home in the United States, 361,245 are over the age of 65, and only 68,030 are below the age of 17.

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Wikipedia