So how can I find which languages are spoken in my local community?

More specific searches could use the name of the language/diaspora community paired with the city

This is helpful if there’s an idea of who might be in the area, but there are no details otherwise available. For example, “Syrians in New York”, or “Nepalese in Chicago”. This should be searched in Google AND on Facebook. Many people are making public Facebook groups like this now, so that they can connect with each other. Finding a group in a specific city could give clues of the size of the community, some local connecting places, events, and perhaps a few key contacts. Using discretion as to how to reach out would be key. 

Search maps and Facebook for ethnic restaurants, markets, cafés, or cultural clubs

Search “Moroccan Food”, “Ethiopian restaurant”, “Persian Cultural Center”, or just “Cultural Center”, or “Burmese Market”. If the goal is to learn about and reach out to other cultures in the community, one great way of starting to build relationships is to become regulars at these very restaurants, markets, cafés, shops, etc.

Database survey

For the USA and Canada, PeopleGroups.info, a collaborative work under the International Mission Board (IMB) is a good place to start. https://www.peoplegroups.info/. This database relies on US and Canadian census data, specifically the studies called “5-Year US ACS Foreign Born and Language Spoken at Home” and the “Canada Census Language Most Often Spoken at Home and Foreign Born”. 

In some countries you can access census data online at many different levels. As suggested it might not always paint the whole picture but it gives a good start. The reason for gathering such data is to enable the planning of national and local services and so data is often available at local government level either on public websites or by asking. Some websites make finding some of the information fairly easy, others can be bewildering to navigate.

Beware however, that simply asking people in the street that you don’t know what language(s) they speak might not always get the answers you expect. Some may see it as suspicious, intrusive, or even racist. Some people have been made to feel ashamed of their heritage and so might not tell you if they speak a minority language and simply tell you only the most prestigious language they speak. They might also assume you don’t want that much detail or have always been told that their language is ‘just’ a dialect.