Hola! Buenas Dias! New Census Bureau figures obtained by 1200 WOAI news show fully 36% of Texans, more than one third of all 27 million plus residents of the state, do not speak English when they are at home with their families, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.
That's up from 20% of Texans who didn't speak English at home in 1990.
Texas has the second largest percentage of residents who prefer to speak another language other than English, right behind California, with 44%.
Of Texas school age children (aged 5-17) who don't speak English at home, 85% were born in the United States. Even among adults 18 and older, more than one-third of those who speak a foreign language at home are U.S.-born. In fact, 27.5 million U.S. citizens who were born in this country prefer to speak a language other than English.
The concentration of people who prefer to speak a language other than English, according to the report, is in the country's urban areas. In Houston, for example, 49% of residents, nearly half, speak another language, and in Laredo the figure in 92%.
But when you get out into rural America, English still rules. Just 8% of Americans who live in designated rural areas speak a language other than English at home.
While Spanish is obviously the number one language other than English being spoken today in U.S. homes, the languages that are rapidly gaining are an indication of the changing face of American immigration.
Telugu, which is native to India, has seen its speakers in the U.S. grow by 86% since 2010. Other large percentage increases are among speakers of Arabic (up 42%), Hindi, also native to India (up 42%) Urdu, the official national language of Pakistan, (up 30%), and Chinese (up 23%)
PHOTO: GETTY