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How Much of the World Speaks English?

16/12/2012

The normally high standard of discussion on Debating Europe's "Should Esperanto be the Language of Europe?" has slipped a bit lately but this question was worth an answer anyway so here's an infographic of it.

References (cited in Wikipedia December 16th 2012)

1. Curtis, Andy. Color, Race, And English Language Teaching: Shades of Meaning. 2006, page 192.

2. "English Language". Columbia University Press. 2005. Retrieved 26 March 2007.

3. 20,000 ESL Teaching Jobs Oxford Seminars. Retrieved 17 April 2012

4. "U.S. Census Bureau – World POPClock Projection". July 2012–July 2013 data. The number on this page is automatically updated daily.

2 Comments

Elhana

23/12/2012 19:24:48

It's not very interesting chart; the proportion to the part of world population which speaks a foreign (not native and not state) language would give a more realistic view.

Also, its competitor in absolute numbers, Mandarin, scores only 10%, which is also unimpressive.

Penny Vos link

24/12/2012 02:31:29

Thanks for your comment, Elhana
I made the graphic because someone who had access to the Wikipedia published statistics on which it is based, still managed to come to the completely erroneous conclusion that all the world speaks English.
It seems that black-and-white numbers were not striking enough to compete with her personal experiences of widespread English-use. Those who speak nothing but English quite often disregard those who don't and then find it difficult to believe that they are as many as they are.
It's the same kind of error that people make in drawing a face. Most people put the eyes much too close to the top of the head, instead of half way down, they don't notice how large the forehead is because it is not interesting to them.
We can be so interested in the millions of people who do speak English that we overlook the billions who don't.

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How Much of the World Speaks English?

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