presstelegram.com
Article Published: Friday, March 11, 2005 – 11:01:01 AM PST

Tongues tied to diversity

L.A. County has some of the most exotic languages in nation.

By Jason Kosareff
Staff writer

Looking for a conversation in Efik? How about Wu? Want to chat over
coffee in the language of Ladino or Frisian?

Good luck finding conversationalists in these exotic languages spoken
by less than 80 people each in Los Angeles County.

There are 135 languages spoken in the county, which ranks first in
the nation for diversity of tongues, according to a study released
this week.

While California has 11.97 percent of the American population, the
state has a majority of the country’s Armenian, Cantonese, Mandarin,
Samoan, Spanish and Tagalog speakers, according to the study by
the U.S. English Foundation, a Washington, D.C.,-based nonpartisan
interest group. A total of 207 languages were counted in the state.

Many of the languages are spoken in the Long Beach area, including
Khmer spoken by Cambodians, Tagalog spoken by Filipinos, and dialects
of India.

Using Census data, researchers counted 321 languages spoken across
the nation.

Rex Chang of Monterey Park speaks Hakka, the 108th most common language
in the county. For the Hakka, anyone who comes from somewhere else
is a part of their culture. They are a people fond of traveling and
the name Hakka simply means “guest,’ Chang said.

The Hakka diaspora reaches around the globe, Chang said. What keeps
everyone on the same page is the language, which originates from
China’s earliest dynasties in the Yellow River region.

“I don’t know about other families, but my family still forces everyone
to learn to speak Hakka,’ Chang said.

The most obscure language in the region is Pennsylvania Dutch, with
just 20 speakers, according to the study. Other exotic languages
include Cajun with 25 speakers, Hopi with 25 speakers, Palau with 30
speakers, while Keres, Ojibwa and Melanesian round out some of the
rarest of tongues here.