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Official English
Bilingual Education
English on the Job
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Bilingual Ballots
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    Statehood
Ending E.O. 13166,
   the "Multilingual    Mandate"


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Status of Language Laws in Tennessee

The state official English statute is as follows:

TENNESSEE CODE ANNOTATED,
Section 4-1-404 -English and Legal Language (1984)
English is hereby established as the official and legal language of Tennessee. All communications and publications, including ballots, produced by governmental entities in Tennessee shall be in English, and instruction in public schools and colleges of Tennessee shall be conducted in English unless the nature of the course would require otherwise.

*Languages in Tennessee

LANGUAGE NUMBER
Population 5 years and over 5,315,920
Speak only English 5,059,404
Speak a language other than English 256,516
Spanish or Spanish Creole 133,931
German 20,267
French (incl. Patois, Cajun) 17,557
Chinese 7,492
Vietnamese 6,625
Korean 6,550
Arabic 6,482
Laotian 4,496
African languages 4,480
Japanese 4,423
Other Indo-European languages 4,250
Tagalog 3,386
Italian 3,134