Nebraska

Many Plains Indians of the Macro-Siouan family once roamed widely over what is now Nebraska. Place-names derived from the Siouan language include Omaha, Ogallala, Niobrara, and Keya Paha. In 1990, about 1,300 Nebraskans claimed Indian tongues as their first languages.

Nebraska English, except for a slight South Midland influence in the southwest and some Northern influence from Wisconsin and New York settlers in the Platte River Valley, is almost pure North Midland. A few words, mostly food terms like kolaches (fruit-filled pastries), are derived from the language of the large Czech population. Usual pronunciation features are on and hog with the /o/ or order, cow, and now as /kaow/ and /naow/, because with the /ah/ vowel, cot and caught as sound-alikes, and a strong final /r/. Fire sounds almost like far, and our like are; greasy is pronounced /greezy/.

In 2000, 1, 469,046 Nebraskans—92.1% of the resident population five years old or older—spoke only English at home, down from 95.2% in 1990.

The following table gives selected statistics from the 2000 census for language spoken at home by persons five years old and over. The category "Other Slavic languages" includes Czech, Slovak, and Ukrainian. The category "African languages" includes Amharic, Ibo, Twi, Yoruba, Bantu, Swahili, and Somali.