Category talk:Houston
Language information[edit]
In general the highest priority non-English language for Houston is Spanish. There is a large Spanish-speaking immigrant population, mostly from Mexico and El Salvador and some from other Central American (Honduras and Guatemala) and South American countries. Some signage is in Spanish and the METRORail has announcements in Spanish and English.
The next most important are Vietnamese and Mandarin Chinese (Traditional and Simplified forms). Houston has an immigrant population from Vietnam present in certain areas, and there is a Houston Chinatown. At the Houston Public Library there are book checkout machines that have Spanish, Vietnamese, and Chinese as languages. The new Chinatown at Bellaire Boulevard and Beltway 8 is a high priority area for Chinese descriptions.
The Houston Independent School District has published some limited materials in: Arabic, Persian, Urdu, and French in addition to Spanish, Vietnamese, and Chinese. In addition Lone Star College (former North Harris County/Montgomery College) has websites in Spanish, Vietnamese, and Arabic. There is a Koreatown in Spring Branch, so media from Spring Branch may be in Korean. There is a "Little Persia", an Arabic-speaking area, and the Mahatma Gandhi District (India and Pakistan) around the same area in west Houston.
One Houston Chronicle article: "TRANSLATING A NEED / Language barriers / Immigrants see English as vital, but work, family limit time to learn." by Lori Rodriguez (Monday September 18, 2006. Page A1) illustrates the fluency levels of the immigrants: Of the Urdu speakers in Houston, 70% stated that they speak English "very well", compared to 32% of Vietnamese speakers, 42% of Spanish speakers, and 49% of Spanish speakers. The African languages speakers had 72%. For Harris County, the percentages were 37% of Vietnamese speakers, 46% of Spanish speakers, 50% of Chinese speakers, 72% of Urdu speakers, and 85% of French and French creole (Cajun/Patois) speakers. If you have a Houston Public Library card you may view a copy of the Rodriguez article on the HPL website via NewsBank.
Based on this research, Spanish, Vietnamese, and Chinese are the most important languages for Commons image descriptions!
I think I have seen some Ethiopian (Amharic is the language of Ethiopia), Japanese (Nippon Daido Japanese Market), and I think Cambodian?? institutions here and there. WhisperToMe (talk) 20:40, 6 September 2014 (UTC)
Quality images?[edit]
There are currently no quality, valued, or featured images of Houston. How can we change this? -Another Believer (talk) 15:22, 20 May 2019 (UTC)