That also doesn't completely surprise me. New York was kinda the nexus for Bangladeshi (as well as Indian Bengali) immigration for a long time, but as the Bengali population has grown in other cities as well, I think people feel more comfortable joining the sizeable communities elsewhere, like LA. Also, tons of blue collar workers find the rent in New York too high and have moved to cheaper cities, like Philly and Detroit.
Overall though, I'm still guessing that New York has the largest Bengali population in America. It may just be that other immigrants groups are grower faster than the Bengali population.
I work for a software company, and one of our customers in New York City uses our software to offer services to their clients in Bengali, but not Hindi.
The only one I missed. I did try Hebrew. Should have kept going with that train of thought. Great quiz though!
Side note- I grew up in Jersey across the water from Manhattan. I worked at a restaurant in high school and if you wanted your food, it really helped if you knew how to speak the line cook's language. We had cooks from Egypt, Peru, China, and the Dominican Republic, so it was fun learning a little bit of each, and in return, helping them navigate the English language.
I got yiddish at the last second because I'm not entirely convinced it's a separate language - it seems more like a German dialect to me.
However, the difference between a language and a dialect is political, and I understand why, politically, yiddish speakers would want it to be considered a language.
By that same logic you could say Dutch and Danish and German are just dialects of each other, which they're obviously not! Yiddish is definitely a different language.
I don't think there's such a thing as "definitely" when you're talking about something as arbitrary as the difference between a dialect and a language, but good for being totally free of doubt!
Is it a dialect or a language? Its point of departure from (High) German is much, much later than Dutch, let alone than Danish really which is quite distant from the other three.
Still, Maltese is recognized as a language and split from Arabic about the same time as Yiddish from German. And Afrikaans is recognized as one despite a mere couple of hundred years.
It comes down to the old question: are you a lumper or a splitter? Do you look for similarities or differences?
Yiddish is 100% it's own language it sounds like German because it Yiddish it does have German words in it, but that is because Yiddish was created by combining Hebrew and German.
Yiddish is still it's own language and was by Ashkenazi Jewish people regards of if they lived in Germany or not.
It is the same with Ladino which is a combination of Spanish and Hebrew. It was spoken by Sephardi Jewish people whether they lived in Spain or not.
Yiddish and Ladino are not dialects. They are their own languages.
It's fine to have an opinion about Yiddish being its own language, but I hope you do realise that this opinion is more rooted in politics than linguistics. Shikari is entirely correct.
All I can say is that, as a German, I understand almost every word of written Yiddish. I don't necessarily understand all of it when it's spoken, but that's also true of Bavarian, which nobody argues is its own language.
On this topic, I would definitely stay away from the word "definitely".
Yiddish got also like 20% Polish and other Slavic words in it. The effect of the most of Ashkenazi Jews living within the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth for about 500 years before the WW2. Even when the Russian Empire acquired most of the PLC at the end of the 18th century, Jews got specifically forbidden from moving from the former PLC lands into the Russia proper.
What is by linguists considered a dialect and what a language is not as much about politics as some people think.
Some may say Afrikaans could be considered a dialect of Dutch but it has a completely distinctc grammar, therefore it's merits being classified as a separate language. Dialects of the same language usually have minimal differences in grammar and differ mainly in vocabulary.
Serbo-Croatian is usually considered one language despite being spoken in multiple countries that claim their own variety to be distinct, yet the various regional languages of Italy are often considered languages rather than dialects because they're distinct enough despite being related languages spoken in one country.
There may some degree of arbitrariness in deciding all of that, or even has to be, like in at least 90% of other nouns used in human languages- because each element of reality has its unique properties but we have to simplify some things for the sake of communication being possible.
dutch speaking population were forced to leave NY due to poverty and the split of the dutch colony in the US., nowadays most Americans of dutch descent live in Michigan , Minnesota or Montana
I have a similar quiz on Toronto. Its based on the 2016 census so it hasn't been update in awhile. https://www.jetpunk.com/user-quizzes/42254/first-language-of-toronto-residents
I assume the reason that Yiddish is on the list and that Hebrew isn't is the revival of Hebrew. It had died out as an everyday language in the Levant. It was revived in Europe and Israel starting at the end of the 19th century. By that time many of the Yiddish speakers would have already been in NYC.
Tagalog makes perfect sense! Why didn't I think of it? I'm surprised there're currently no Indian languages on the list and I would have thought Turkish would have been there.
I got Russian simply because I knew there were a lot of dance companies/studios and Russian dance teachers are very common in companies. Can confirm, my teacher is one of them.
That's because Mandarin isn't the language most Chinese and Chinese-Americans speak in New York. Most people speak Cantonese, Min, or Hokkien. It's only recently that Mandarin speakers have started to move to New York. Also, it's spelled "Mandarin", not "Manderin".
There's a large Filipino immigrant community in most of the top 10 largest US metro areas. While it is true that most Filipino Americans live in either California or Hawaii, there's also sizable populations of Filipinos in New York, Chicago, and the DC metro area among others.
Overall though, I'm still guessing that New York has the largest Bengali population in America. It may just be that other immigrants groups are grower faster than the Bengali population.
Side note- I grew up in Jersey across the water from Manhattan. I worked at a restaurant in high school and if you wanted your food, it really helped if you knew how to speak the line cook's language. We had cooks from Egypt, Peru, China, and the Dominican Republic, so it was fun learning a little bit of each, and in return, helping them navigate the English language.
However, the difference between a language and a dialect is political, and I understand why, politically, yiddish speakers would want it to be considered a language.
Anyway, I did end up getting the answer!
Still, Maltese is recognized as a language and split from Arabic about the same time as Yiddish from German. And Afrikaans is recognized as one despite a mere couple of hundred years.
It comes down to the old question: are you a lumper or a splitter? Do you look for similarities or differences?
Yiddish is still it's own language and was by Ashkenazi Jewish people regards of if they lived in Germany or not.
It is the same with Ladino which is a combination of Spanish and Hebrew. It was spoken by Sephardi Jewish people whether they lived in Spain or not.
Yiddish and Ladino are not dialects. They are their own languages.
All I can say is that, as a German, I understand almost every word of written Yiddish. I don't necessarily understand all of it when it's spoken, but that's also true of Bavarian, which nobody argues is its own language.
On this topic, I would definitely stay away from the word "definitely".
Some may say Afrikaans could be considered a dialect of Dutch but it has a completely distinctc grammar, therefore it's merits being classified as a separate language. Dialects of the same language usually have minimal differences in grammar and differ mainly in vocabulary.
Serbo-Croatian is usually considered one language despite being spoken in multiple countries that claim their own variety to be distinct, yet the various regional languages of Italy are often considered languages rather than dialects because they're distinct enough despite being related languages spoken in one country.
There may some degree of arbitrariness in deciding all of that, or even has to be, like in at least 90% of other nouns used in human languages- because each element of reality has its unique properties but we have to simplify some things for the sake of communication being possible.
I have no excuse for forgetting Korean and Polish, but I would never have remembered Tagalog.