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Farm workers in North Alabama. (The Huntsville Times file)

The answer isn't in the large cities, but rather toward Russellville and Phil Campbell, in a small northwest county named in honor of Benjamin Franklin.

In general, Alabama is home to relatively few families who speak anything other than English.

But parts of Alabama have been changing.

And Franklin County is leading the way.

Here are the top 10:

In half of the counties in Alabama, less than 3 percent of residents speak a language besides English when at home. In some counties, especially in the Black Belt, percentages run close to zero.

Yet in Franklin County, that number climbs to 12.9 percent, tops in the state. That’s up from 7.7 percent for Franklin County in 2000.

Similar growth can be found in DeKalb, Marshall and Blount counties. The percentages of non-English speakers came close to doubling in each since 2000. And in each case, Spanish accounts for nearly all the growth.

Much of that is related to agricultural jobs. As of the farm census of 2007, Marshall, DeKalb and Blount were among the top four producers of chickens, behind Cullman County. Each of the four counties had an inventory of well over 10 million birds. Franklin and Coffee were close behind.

Meanwhile, three counties -- Lee, Shelby and Madison -- see little connection to agriculture. And each sees a wider array of languages, as the areas draw new residents from all over the globe.

Here's a look at where foreign-born residents came from in the state's most multi-lingual counties:

Despite a few pockets, Alabama remains largely isolated in terms of worldwide migration.

Alabama did see the nation's largest percentage growth in Hispanic residents, many migrating from Latin American, between the 2000 and 2010 Census.

While the percentage jump is great, the effect is minimal. Alabama started with few and now has 230,000 residents over the age of 5 who speak something besides English at home. For contrast, Arizona has 1.6 million people who speak something else at home. Florida has 4.9 million.

In fact, only four states have a smaller percentage than Alabama. Those are Kentucky, Montana, Mississippi and lastly West Virginia.

Alabama places fifth from lowest, tied with North Dakota.

Here's how the rest of the country compares.

Statewide, about 167,000 residents were born in another country. Well over half -- 55 percent -- are from Latin America.

Over a quarter come from Asia. Another 11 percent from Europe. A small percent are from Africa, Oceania or Canada.

According to Census figures, about a third of foreign-born residents are naturalized citizens.

Citizenship rates vary greatly among the leading counties. In Franklin, DeKalb, Morgan and Marshall over 80 percent of foreign-born residents are not citizens. In Madison County, nearly half of the foreign-born residents are naturalized citizens.

Here's where the foreign-born residents of those top 10 counties came from:

For the curious, there is little variation among the other large cities in Alabama.

In Jefferson County, 6 percent of residents speak something other than English at home. It’s 5 percent in Mobile County. Montgomery and Tuscaloosa fall somewhere in between.

Across the state, most of those residents also speak English.

Just 2.4 percent of Alabamians say they speak English “less than very well.” That's compared to 1 in 5 residents in California.

Here are the figures for the rest of the state: