A wide variety of languages are spoken in Miami . Precisely, Miami has the third largest Spanish-speaking population in the Western Hemisphere outside Latin America after New York and San Jose, California. There is a high percentage of Spanish-speaking population.
In May 1993, the Council of Dade County (Miami region) decided to authorize Spanish as an official language in the administration.
As of 2008, speakers of Spanish as their first language accounted for 69.4% of the inhabitants, while English is spoken by 25.45%; Haitian Creole by 5.20%; and French made up 0.76% of the population.41 Other languages spoken throughout the city include Portuguese, with 0.41%; German, 0.18%; Italian, 0.16%, Arabic, with 0.15%; Chinese, 0.11%; and Greek with 0.08% of the population. Miami also has one of the highest percentages of the U.S. population whose residents speak a language other than English at home (74.54%).
Cubans, Venezuelans, Colombians, Ecuadorians, Peruvians, Mexicans, among others, make up a unique Latin variety that is observed in few cities in the United States.