Chinese now third most widely spoken language in the United States

Chinese has officially overtaken Tagalog as the second most widely spoken foreign language in the United States, according to World Report, with Chinese-speakers in the country now numbering nearly three million.

Spanish is still well in the lead, however, with 38.4 million Americans speaking the language at home.

Census data reveals that the number of US residents who speak languages other than English at home has risen to 62 million people, or 21 percent of the total population.

In 2000, the number of US residents communicating in non-English at home was 47 million, 18 percent of the total population.

Amongst Chinese-speakers there remains a high level of diversity, however, with Cantonese-speakers retaining a sizable majority, albeit against an ever-increasing number of Mandarin-speaking new arrivals.

Taishanese, Hokkien, Hakka and Taiwanese are also commonly spoken, the legacy of Qing Dynasty restrictions on emigration and 19th-century Western imperialism, which brought laborers and those fleeing the Taiping Civil War in the south of China to the New World via Hong Kong and treaty ports opened along the southern coast.