Hi. is there a way to track Romani language in 5 year ACS data (Language code 32 but not available)? thank you.
The Romani language is not given its own code in the public use microdata files for the ACS. It is not clear from the Census Bureau’s documentation how language responses of “Romani” are classified in the public use version of the ACS data. This working paper on ACS language at home redesign includes a language list, which shows that “Romany (rom)” has a code of 1540, but the public use version of the data appears to aggregate Romani with one or more other languages into a broader code. I cannot definitively say how originally reported Romani values are coded in the public use data that are used to create the IPUMS variable LANGUAGE. Based on the working paper and these Census Bureau tables on language spoken at home, I might guess it is included in the other Indic languages category (LANGUAGED code 3140 “India n.e.c.”). Note this code is part of the detailed language variable, LANGUAGED, which will be automatically included in your extract when you include LANGUAGE. You can view the LANGUAGED codes by toggling to “detailed codes” in the codes section of LANGUAGE.