Telugu Fastest Growing Language In US: Think Tank Report
What is also interesting for India is that out of the top 10 fastest-growing languages in America, seven are from South Asia.
Last year there were more than 400,000 Telugu speakers in the US – nearly double the number in 2010. Out of the top 10 fastest-growing languages in America, seven are from South Asia.
The rise of Telugu was connected to the links forged between Hyderabad and the US engineering and technology industries, Prasad Kunisetty, founder of the Telugu People Foundation, a non-profit organisation in the US, was quoted as saying.
The rapid growth of IT in the mid-1990s led to a huge demand for software engineers, he said.
Many were recruited from Hyderabad, which sends students to the US in large numbers.
Down the years, Telugu-speaking Americans have continued to hire software engineers from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, the BBC said.
Notable US-based Telugu speakers include the first Indian-American Miss America Nina Davuluri and the current Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.
Of the more than 60 million people that speak a language other than English out of the total population of about 320 million, the vast majority speak Spanish.
Out of the most commonly spoken South Asian languages, Hindi is first, followed by Urdu, Gujarati and then Telugu.
-IANS