EDUCATED Americans consider themselves a cosmopolitan bunch. We follow the conflict in Ukraine between Donetsk and Kiev, and can probably point to them on a map. We enjoy bibimbap and paella, which we try to pronounce with an appropriate accent. Some of us can identify the work of Igor Stravinsky, Youssou N’Dour and Ai Weiwei. The rest of us are going to go look them up on Wikipedia now.

But we are more parochial than our grandparents’ generation, according to one indicator: the New York Times crossword puzzle.

With the permission of Will Shortz, the Times’s crossword puzzle editor, I recently downloaded all of the newspaper’s crosswords from February 1942, when the puzzle began, through the end of 2015. I created an algorithm to search all 2,092,375 pairs of clues and answers for foreign language words and place names outside the United States.

The results are imperfect, since the puzzles can be tricky and there is a lot of overlap between English and foreign words. But the broad trend is clear. The puzzle today uses one-third fewer non-English clues and answers than it did at its peak in 1966, and makes two-thirds fewer international references than its peak in 1943.

For many years, the puzzle expected educated Americans to know the German word for “with” (mit) and the Latin word for “man” (vir), for example. These words have all but disappeared from the puzzle. Solvers were expected to know details about America’s military operations, such as “Mountain battlefield” in 1943 (etna) and (misleadingly, since the answer is actually Japanese) “Forever!: Korean battle shout” in 1951 (banzai). Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, by contrast, appear in the puzzle barely more often than before the United States sent troops to each country. Since the 1990s, puzzlers were occasionally asked to recognize “Burkina ____” but over the last few years, they were given additional help, “Burkina ____ (African land)” and “Burkina ____ (Niger neighbor)” (the answer is “Faso”).

Over the generations, some foreign words have grown in frequency. For example, ethnic food in the Times crossword tracks well with broader cultural trends. Tacos were first mentioned in the puzzle in 1963 (“Mexican sandwich”). Sushi appeared in 1982 (“Sauce for sushi”: soy), dim sum in 1985 (“Chinese pasta appetizer”) and Thai food in 1993 (“Popular cuisine”: Thai). Churros were first included in the puzzle in 2011 (“Spanish pastry”).

Other words have also tracked shifts between languages. “Dit” used to be clued as French for “said”; since 1974 it refers almost exclusively to telegraphy. “Hora” shifted from Latin (hour) to Spanish (hour) to Hebrew (dance). Uber (a car service) is no longer clued as a German preposition (over or above).

Meaning of uber in the New York Times Crossword

I asked Mr. Shortz about how he chooses which foreign-language words to include.

“I try not to be too obscure,” he said. “Sometimes less common foreign words are allowed if there are English-language cognates. For example, I had ‘zoológico’ in a clue — the answer was oso, which is Spanish for bear, and the clue was ‘One in a zoológico.’ ”

I suggested the words “madar” and “pedar,” which are cognates for mother and father in Persian. Could those words appear in the puzzle? No, he said. “On the crossword blogs, those would be sharply criticized as obscurities. Besides, solvers would hate them.”

Some obscure words do get included, though. Mr. Shortz gave the example of “ucalegon,” which is Greek for a neighbor whose house is on fire. It appeared twice in the Times puzzle in the early 1960s. “You’re never going to use that word, but it’s interesting.”

Meaning of lipo in the New York Times Crossword

When Margaret Farrar was hired to start the Times crossword, two months after Pearl Harbor, the puzzle was envisioned as a sort of weekly news quiz, “with a flavor of current events and general information,” as the first puzzle page announced. The very first clue in the crossword — “Famous one-eyed general” — aligned with this mandate, referring to a British commander who fought in North Africa (Wavell).

In the puzzle’s first four years, more than 15 percent of the clues included international geographic references. Ms. Farrar chafed against the puzzle’s focus on current events, Mr. Shortz said, and reduced these references to 8 percent by the 1960s. Small but distinct shifts in the proportion can be detected with the coming of each new puzzle editor: a slight increase under Will Weng in 1969, a slight decrease with Eugene T. Maleska in 1977, and another drop when Mr. Shortz took over in 1993. International references now appear in about 5 percent of clues. Western Europe accounts for a third of these international references, a bit lower than in earlier decades.

In Ms. Farrar’s day, French was still the primary language of international diplomacy. German was the most common mother tongue in the United States after English. More Americans had studied Latin in school than any other language. Today, by contrast, six times more Americans speak Spanish than French, and nine times more speak Spanish than German by my analysis. Almost nobody knows Latin. Since 1995, enrollment in college Spanish courses has been greater than enrollment for all other languages combined.

Meaning of nada in the New York Times Crossword

In the Times crossword, however, Spanish surpassed Latin only in the early 2000s. Mr. Shortz told me that he never learned Spanish — his knowledge of the language, beyond everyday words that are common among English speakers, comes entirely from years of crosswords. “My mom insisted that French was the international language, and that I should take it,” he told me. Perhaps not coincidentally, French remains the most common foreign language in the puzzle, though its prevalence has dropped.

Waves of immigration have brought many other languages to the United States as well. According to data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, the third most widespread language spoken in homes in Texas, after English and Spanish, is Vietnamese. In Virginia, it is Korean. Across the 50 states, about 14 different languages hold the second- or third-place position.

So are we going to see Vietnamese or Korean in The New York Times crossword?

“I want the puzzle to reflect our common culture,” Mr. Shortz notes, meaning that the answers and clues should have at least entered the general conversation before they appear. After a moment’s reflection, Mr. Shortz noted that the puzzle did include a Vietnamese word last year. The clue was “Vietnamese soup” (pho).

“This is a word I did not know a few years ago, but it has now become embedded enough in American culture that I can expect American readers to know it. With Vietnamese restaurants in many cities, it has become mainstreamed,” he said. Recently, the puzzle added “Vietnamese sandwich” (banh mi).

Meaning of ito in the New York Times Crossword

One clever puzzle in 1999 made foreign words its theme: tchu tzih, ghiaccio, leumi, wai hua’ai, qoli, masern, akkulroalit, köttbullar (Mandarin orange, Italian ice, Hebrew National, Hawaiian Punch, Persian rug, German measles, Eskimo pies, Swedish meatballs). A puzzle last year included the clue “Language in which the first six counting numbers are tasi, lua, tolu, fa, lima and ono” (Samoan). A puzzle last year asked, “Bula : Fiji :: ___ : Hawaii” (Aloha). But such clues are rare. Foreign language clues and answers peaked in the 1960s and now make up less than 4 percent.

Since The Times introduced its crossword, many other aspects of American life have globalized dramatically. The international proportion of the United States economy has doubled over the past half-century. So has the percentage of foreign-born Americans. International voice calls have increased tenfold in 25 years. Sixteen million Americans use Google Translate each day. We follow world news in real-time, as it happens.

But we are more likely to encounter Uma as an actress (117 answers since 1990), and not as a Hindu goddess (five answers, none since 1953). When we turn from the New York Times news pages to the puzzle page, the rest of the world fades away.