![For The First Time, US Census Is Mapping Indian Languages Like Bengali & Punjabi](http://media.assettype.com/homegrown%2Fimport%2Fimg%2Fbook%2Fyjrhdzpldd-1513659338.jpg?w=480&auto=format%2Ccompress&fit=max)
The United States of America plays host to people from every country and culture, and speaking every language. While the ambient culture of migrants might change after moving to a new land, language is often the tool through which they tend to retain their identity. It is more a matter of comfort than anything else to be communicating in the same language as that back home, in a new city. That been said, Indians from different states who have made the US their home still prefer to communicate in their mother tongue, a phenomenon that the US Census Bureau is mapping to increasing accuracy.
According to this report by Quartz, ‘Historically, the way the US census tracked South Asians was messy and often inaccurate—not tracking them at all or confusing them for white. But their ranks in the US have been growing.’ Several American Indians have made it to different prestigious positions in different fields in the US, but their roots lead to India and the several languages spoken here.
In India, Bengali is the dialect that is most spoken after Hindi and Telugu and Tamil are among the most popular languages in South India, according to Quartz. In the United States, however, Gujarati and Bengali are more popular than Tamil. Not including Spanish and English, Hindi makes it to the top 10 languages spoken in the US, according the Bureau’s survey. This is just another casual reminder that the US is still a multicultural melting pot, no matter how xenophobic things might seem. Mr. Trump, are you listening?
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