How’s your English? Ha ha.
Seriously, the second language that goes farthest in the Western world is Spanish. It’s estimated that 350 million people in the "Hispanosphere" are native speakers of Spanish, while upwards of 500 million people worldwide hablan Espanol. It ranks number two on the list of the most native speakers in the world, behind Mandarin Chinese, and it places fourth in terms of total number of speakers, after Chinese, English, and Hindi.
Mexico contains the largest population of Spanish speakers, with a little more than 100 million people, and plenty of Mexican nationals visit Las Vegas every year. Spanish is also the official language of every country in Central and South America, except the former British colony of Belize (where more than half the population speaks English), Brazil (Portuguese), along with Bolivia and Peru (co-official with Quechua and Aymara) and Paraguay (co-official with Guarani).
In addition, upwards of 50 million people in the U.S. are Hispanic or Latino by origin. Spanish has a long history in the southwestern U.S.; in New Mexico, 40% of the population speaks the language. Spanish is, of course, the second most common language spoken in Las Vegas, so you’ll be able to talk to the most people in a different language if you learn it.
Care to hazard a guess at what Las Vegas’ third most spoken language is? If you guessed Tagalog, you’re correct. If you’ve never heard of Tagalog, it’s the official language of the Philippines (though the more inclusive-- and less ethnic -- name for it now is Filipino, though you sometimes still see the outdated name Pilipino). However, other than being able to talk to other casino workers, especially dealers, knowing it probably won’t get you very far.
According to figures from the 2000 Census, Clark County ranks 25th of all the counties in the country for the most linguistic diversity, with a total of 84 languages spoken here.
From a completely non-scientific perspective, we’ve observed that an inordinate number of Israeli women work in strip clubs, so you might learn Hebrew if you frequent them; Kenyans fill out the ranks of the Las Vegas Marathon, so a little Swahili would go a long way then; New Yawkuhs, a’ cawse, speak dere own language, so dat might be a’ight (and lest we hear from sensitive Empyuh Statuhs, this writuh’s from Long Gisland, so fuh gedda bow dit); if you wind up working in the high-limit pits as, for example, a baccarat dealer, Japanese, Chinese, Thai, Malay, and Bahasa (Indonesian) would be useful; and one language that’s often overlooked, but extremely worthwhile, is sign language.
But to get the biggest bang for your second-language buck, the winner is definitely Spanish. There isn’t a close second.
