Mixteco and Language in AL

Patient Care in Any Language and How to Budget for It
By Nataly Kelly

Hundreds of Tongues

In the United States, Spanish leads a litany of non-English languages. More than 10% of U.S. residents speak Spanish at home. As of 2000, the Census Bureau found that 31 million residents spoke Spanish as the primary language in their residences. The 2005 American Community Survey revealed that Spanish speakers in Texas, California, New Mexico, and Arizona now account for more than 20% of those states' total populations. Nationwide, the Census showed that nearly one in five people spoke a language other than English in their residences — and that's just among the people who were counted.

But, while Spanish tops the language list in the United States, the remaining languages vary as much as the landscapes of the states themselves. According to LanguageTrak, Language Line's language tracking service, the company's most requested languages in April 2008 varied substantially from one state to another. Mixteco was second in Alabama, Turkish was second in Idaho, Polish was second in Arkansas, Burmese was second in Indiana, Hmong was second in Alaska, and Bosnian was second in North Dakota.

For telephone interpreting, the notion of "less common" languages is relative. The 2007 Cyracom Language Index indicated that Somali ranked second in Kentucky, Burmese was fourth in North Carolina, and Nuer — a Sudanese language — came in fourth in Nebraska. In urban Washington D.C., Amharic was third, while Navajo was fourth in the Phoenix-Mesa area. Among the most needed languages nationwide, the Burmese language Karen moved from number 106 to 45 in a single year.The variability spawns a major challenge — accurately forecasting language needs to ensure proper coverage and staffing. To help overcome this barrier, Language Services Associates carries out a customer-specific analysis to help forecast language needs. For example, the company can generate a client-specific map to indicate the fastest-growing languages in the areas where the customer has offices.