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From: donh@netcom.com (Don HARLOW)
Subject: Re: English as the European language (not) (Re: Languages in the EC)
Message-ID: <donhD3wA4B.CIL@netcom.com>
Organization: Esperanto League for North America, Inc.
References: <3ha0n3INNmq5@SUNED.ZOO.CS.YALE.EDU> <MATTHEW.95Feb10133047@baloo.cpd.ntc.nokia.com> <792547038snz@storcomp.demon.co.uk>
Date: Sun, 12 Feb 1995 16:07:23 GMT
Lines: 42
Sender: donh@netcom15.netcom.com

philip@storcomp.demon.co.uk skribis en lastatempa afisxo <792547038snz@storcomp.demon.co.uk>:
>In article <MATTHEW.95Feb10133047@baloo.cpd.ntc.nokia.com>
>           matthew@cpd.ntc.nokia.com "Matthew Faupel" writes:
>> It is true that the educated globe-trotting elite do indeed speak English.
>> 300 years ago though they spoke French and 500 years ago they spoke Latin.
>> 2000 years ago it was Greek.  In each case it was the language of the
>> (culturally or geographically) dominant nation of the time.  There's nothing
>> that is guaranteeing English's position of dominance in perpetuity.
>
>Agreed. In 200 years time everyone might be speaking Chinese. Or computer
>translation will have been perfected by then.
>
>OTOH, an estimated 1500 million people speak English now. It's quite 
>possible that some time in the next century this might increase until
>it includes 1/2 the world's population. Then English might have so much
>momentum behind it as to be unstoppable. After all, the Latin alphabet's
>dominance is likely to continue forever (or at least as long as people
>read), because most people already use it and it would be too much 
>hassle to change to something else.
>
The figure you quote is one hundred million higher than the one quoted 
by Crystal -- his was obtained by adding together the populations of all 
countries where English is official, including some seven hundred million 
people in India (he also included the USA, where English is _not_ [yet] 
official). A more accurate figure is probably the one given in the 
World Almanac and Book of Facts -- a bit over five hundred million, 
of whom about two thirds are native speakers.

The rate of growth of the % of people who speak English is not 
particularly encouraging. The spread of English (which is observable) 
has not been great enough to offset the lower birth-rate in English-
speaking countries, and in fact there appears to have been a slight 
_decline_ in the past century, though the percentage of those who use 
it as a second rather than first language is considerably greater now 
than it was then.


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