Newsgroups: sci.lang
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From: donh@netcom.com (Don HARLOW)
Subject: Re: Top Three Imperial Languages?
Message-ID: <donhCz7rr8.JvC@netcom.com>
Organization: Esperanto League for North America, Inc.
References: <Label1> <3a420s$pud@pipe2.pipeline.com>
Date: Sun, 13 Nov 1994 16:13:56 GMT
Lines: 57

teej@pipeline.com (Thomas Sherlock) skribis en lastatempa afisxo <3a420s$pud@pipe2.pipeline.com>:
>What would be considered the top three imperial languages today? 
> 
>I'm  using Gerard Chaliand and Jean-Pierre Rageau's criteria to define an
>imperial language, i.e. numerical importance and geographic diffusion.  In
>the third edition of their book _Strategic Atlas_ they list English(1),
>French(2) and Spanish (3) as the top three.   
> 
>However the book was originally writtten in France in 1983; the English
>translation was published in 1992 
> 
>In the _Cambridge Factfinder_, edited by David Crystal and published in
>1993 the top three mother-tongue  languages are Chinese(1000 million),
>English(350 million), and Spanish(250 million).  The top three official
>languages are English(1400 million), Chinese(1000 million), and Hindi(700
>million).   
> 
>Spanish would be the fourth official language at with 280 million speakers.
> French is listed as having 70 million native speakers and 220 million
>official language populations. 
> 
>If I were to choose the top three imperial languages from the Cambridge
>list i would say English, Spanish and Russian (native: 150 millon,
>official: 270 million).   
> 
>Could anyone confirm/correct this assumption?  Could anyone suggestion
>sources ( books, statistics, internet/w3 sites) that could confirm/correct
>this assumption?. 
> 
How are you combining the two criteria you mention above? Chinese (in its 
various forms, but primarily the putonghua) is the official language of 
only two countries (the Chinese themselves would say: one), but it _is_ spoken 
by approximately 1.2 billion people (1200 million) -- Crystal's figures are 
two censuses out of date -- and you can find Chinese-speakers, mostly native 
speakers, in as many places as you find English-speakers around the world. 
As far as Russian is concerned, I consider the official figures bruited 
about by the old Soviet government somewhat suspect; note also that if you 
are using the official-language criterion, I think that only one country 
uses Russian officially.

The three most-spoken languages are Chinese-English-Hindi, or Chinese-
Hindi/Urdu-English, depending upon whether or not you consider Hindi and 
Urdu as a single language.

Edmund Grimley-Evans elsewhere points out that Crystal's figures of how many 
people live in countries where a given language is official may have very 
little to do with how many people actually speak that language; and, 
contrariwise, a particular language may have many speakers in a country 
where it is _not_ official (English in the United States -- though I don't 
doubt that Crystal included the 230-250 million speakers in the U.S. in his 
figure for English anyway...)

-- 
Don HARLOW			donh@netcom.com
Esperanto League for N.A.       elna@netcom.com (800) 828-5944
ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/elna/elna.html         Esperanto
ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/donh/donh.html 
