How many people in Arkansas speak a language other than English at home?
Refreshed annually
In 2024, about 257,500 people age 5 and older in Arkansas spoke a language other than English at home. That's about one in 11 Arkansans. Excluding English, Spanish is the most common language spoken in Arkansas homes. About 68.4% of people speaking a non-English language spoke Spanish.
257K
people speak a language other than English at home (2024)
68.4%
Spanish's share of non-English language speakers (2020–2024)
More than half of all people in Arkansas speaking a non-English language at home spoke one of three languages: Spanish, Ilocano, Samoan, Hawaiian, or other Austronesian languages, or Vietnamese.
Spanish is the most-spoken non-English language in Arkansas homes, followed by Ilocano, Samoan, Hawaiian, or other Austronesian languages and Vietnamese.
People aged 5 or older who speak a language other than English at home, by language group (2020-2024)
The ACS asks people if they speak a language other than English at home, what that language is, and how well they speak English. In Arkansas, 257,500 people ages 5 and older speak a language other than English at home, or 8.8% of the state’s 2.91 million people in this age group, and they speak 42 languages. Spanish is the most common non-English language, with 176,100 speakers, or 68.4% of the state’s non-English speakers. This data determines bilingual election requirements under the Voting Rights Act and has also been used to allocate funds for students with lower English proficiency.
Based on data from 2024, Arkansas's residents were less likely to speak a non-English language at home than the population nationwide. While about 0.9% of the US's 5+ population lived in Arkansas, the state was home to 0.35% of the nation's non-English speakers — a sign that Arkansas had a disproportionately smaller share of non-English households.
The non-English languages most concentrated in Arkansas were Ilocano, Samoan, Hawaiian, or other Austronesian languages (1.6% of all US speakers), Thai, Lao, or other Tai-Kadai languages (1.5%), and Hmong (0.6%).
In Arkansas, no non-English language had its largest US-speaking population in the state. Ilocano, Samoan, Hawaiian, or other Austronesian languages was the language for which Arkansas accounted for the largest share of US speakers, at 1.6%.
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Ilocano, Samoan, Hawaiian, or other Austronesian languages is the language for which Arkansas makes up the largest share of US speakers
State share of national speakers by language, ages 5 and older (2024)
Population change
The US population gained 1.78 million people between 2024 and 2025.
Between 2018 and 2024, the number of people in Arkansas whose primary language at home is not English increased 18.8%. The number of people speaking Spanish — the largest of the Census Bureau's four broad language categories in Arkansas — grew 23.4% during this period.
In Arkansas, the number of people speaking Spanish at home grew 23.4% since 2018
Non-English language speakers ages 5 and older at home, by broad language group
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Methodology
USAFacts standardizes data, in areas such as time and demographics, to make it easier to understand and compare.
Page sources
USAFacts endeavors to share the most up-to-date information available. We sourced the data on this page directly from government agencies; however, the intervals at which agencies publish updated data vary.
