The week in social media

The United States has, correctly, prided itself on creating a multi-ethnic, multilingual, multicultural society of unparalleled diversity. Though, as thousands of migrants trek through Central America and Mexico towards the US border, President Donald Trump appears determined to send out the message that America is no longer a safe harbour for the huddled masses looking to escape their homelands. Trump’s politics aside, research released last month by the Centre for Immigration Studies offered an insight into the breadth of American diversity, with almost half the residents in the five largest US cities speaking a language other than English at home. The fastest growing of these languages is Telugu. Others include Hindi, Urdu, Gujarati and Bengali. However, none of the Indian languages makes it to the top 10, with languages such as Spanish, Chinese, French and Arabic boasting more speakers. Growth in Telugu speakers in the US from 2010 to 2017. Bengali (57%), Tamil (55%), Hindi (42%), Urdu (30%), Punjabi (26%), Gujarati (22%)—seven Indian languages in top 10 fastest-growing languages Hindi speakers in the US in 2017, the most popular Indian language, followed by Urdu (507,329), Gujarati (434,264), Telugu (415,414), Bengali (350,928), Punjabi (310,650), Tamil (286,732) Hindi’s rank among the most spoken languages in the US; 230 million people speak English, followed by Spanish (41 million), Chinese (3.4 million), Tagalog (1.7 million), Vietnamese (1.5 million), Arabic (1.2 million), French (1.2 million), Korean (1.1 million)

MILLION

American residents above five years of age speak another language at home, or 21.8% of the population, up from 11% in 1980 Telugu speakers in the US, as of July 2017, says Centre for Immigration Studies, based on analysis of census data; up from 87,543 in 2000, and 222,977 in 2010