Ideas By Ross Perlin April 29, 2024 2:31 PM EDT Perlin is the author of Language City: The Fight to Preserve Endangered Mother Tongues in New York Nobody knows how many languages Americans speak. The most exhaustive tally by the Census Bureau a decade ago found more than 350, but the actual number is likely to be several times that. A recent linguist-run survey has found 700 languages and counting in New York alone, making it the most linguistically diverse city on record. That means around 10