Did you know that in 1980 Italian was the second most spoken second language in US households after Spanish? Might be a little surprising to those of us who were born in the past two decades! While that is not the case now (Chinese holds the #2 spot now), it is interesting to observe how bilingual households have evolved over time in America. Bilingualism can tell us about the diverse makeup of America, but it is also a topic that interests us at Brainscape for what it reveals about language learning and memory. There are differences in the development of monolingual and bilingual infants, cognitive benefits from knowing multiple languages, as well as differences in creativity between mono- and bilinguals.

BestCollegesOnline.com put together an infographic on Bilingualism Across the U.S.. If there were one chart I wish they had included, it would be the proportion of bilingual households in America over time. That being said, enjoy!