How many people in Delaware speak a language other than English at home?
Refreshed annually
In 2024, about 162,000 people age 5 and older in Delaware spoke a language other than English at home. That's about one in 6 Delawareans. Excluding English, Spanish is the most common language spoken in Delaware homes. About 49.5% of people speaking a non-English language spoke Spanish.
162K
people speak a language other than English at home (2024)
49.5%
Spanish's share of non-English language speakers (2024)
More than half of all people in Delaware speaking a non-English language at home spoke one of 40 languages: Spanish, Chinese (incl. Mandarin, Cantonese), or Yoruba, Twi, Igbo, or other languages of Western Africa.
Spanish is the most-spoken non-English language in Delaware homes, followed by Chinese (incl. Mandarin, Cantonese) and Yoruba, Twi, Igbo, or other languages of Western Africa.
People aged 5 or older who speak a language other than English at home, by language group (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. 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, Delaware's residents were less likely to speak a non-English language at home than the population nationwide. While about 0.31% of the US's 5+ population lived in Delaware, the state was home to 0.22% of the nation's non-English speakers — a sign that Delaware had a disproportionately smaller share of non-English households.
The non-English languages most concentrated in Delaware were Yoruba, Twi, Igbo, or other languages of Western Africa (1.0% of all US speakers), Urdu (0.8%), and Haitian (0.7%).
In Delaware, no non-English language had its largest US-speaking population in the state. Yoruba, Twi, Igbo, or other languages of Western Africa was the language for which Delaware accounted for the largest share of US speakers, at 1.0%.
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Yoruba, Twi, Igbo, or other languages of Western Africa is the language for which Delaware 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 Delaware whose primary language at home is not English increased 35.8%. The number of people speaking Spanish — the largest of the Census Bureau's four broad language categories in Delaware — grew 22.5% during this period.
In Delaware, the number of people speaking Spanish at home grew 22.5% 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.
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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.
