Telugu Ranked 3rd in US, but Telugu people are not happy

Washington, OCT 10: A survey conducted in the US revealed that Telugu is the third most spoken Indian language in the country but many Telugu people have criticised the report and are unhappy and they claim the Telugu language is more popular than other languages because of the high population of Telugu people in the country.

Hindi and Gujarati occupy the top 2 places in the list of most spoken Indian languages according to the American Community Survey. Telugu comes a close 3rd, Bengali and Tamil follow Telugu.

Many Telugu people claim that the report released is false because they claim that survey was conducted in 2016 but it was officially released in September 2017. As per the survey, 3,65,566 people at over the age of five speak Telugu in the US which is about 0.12% of the US population over five.

The American Community Survey also found Telugu as the 20th most spoken language in the US. The total number of speakers of all Indic and Dravidian languages is 35,51,455, of which Telugus are 3,65,566.

Many Telugu people in the US said that the numbers do not reflect the correct picture of the real situation. They argue that there must be an aberration in the census figures resulting from various factors such as people misreporting their language or simply not returning the census form.

They claimed that out of total H1-B Visas issued to Indians every year more than 50 % are allocated to Telugu people so the number must be more.