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From: donh@netcom.com (Don HARLOW)
Subject: Re: ESPERANTO - SPAM SPAM SPAM, SPAM SPAM SPAM
Message-ID: <donhDA59K1.MDq@netcom.com>
Organization: Esperanto League for North America, Inc.
References: <donhD3v8EG.275@netcom.com> <3ri092$m78@hearst.cac.psu.edu> <donhDA3BD6.8n4@netcom.com> <DA4zEt.Hvo@planet.mh.dpi.qld.gov.au>
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Date: Wed, 14 Jun 1995 03:55:10 GMT
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antonyg@planet.mh.dpi.qld.gov.au (George Antony Ph 93818) skribis en lastatempa afisxo <DA4zEt.Hvo@planet.mh.dpi.qld.gov.au>:
>donh@netcom.com (Don HARLOW) writes:
>
>>Assuming 1 billion Mandarin speakers, I get almost exactly 12%. There are 
>>certain countries in northwestern Europe where you can reach and even 
>>surpass this percentage, even giving fairly strict criteria for what 
>>determines an English speaker (the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, 
>>Germany -- at least prior to reunification -- and the Flemish-speaking 
>>part of Belgium spring immediately to mind), but their total population 
>>is only a tiny fraction of the 5.3 billion people in question, and you'd 
>>have a hard time finding any other part of the world where a figure of 
>>12% is even approached from below.
>
>And you just ignore Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Malaysia and the Philippines
>where even much of below-tertiary education is in English and not only the
>elites are bilingual.  I suggest one can chalk up another couple of hundred
>million English speakers in these countries, very easily.  In the Philippines
>and Malaysia you definitely exceed the 12% threshold - I do not know enough
>about the other countries.
>
The most optimistic figure I've seen for India is 10%; other figures 
generally range from 2-5%. I would suspect that Pakistan might be 
somewhat higher, but would also doubt that Bangladesh would be. Malaysia 
may well be over 12% -- I don't know enough about the situation there to 
comment -- but, based on the English capabilities of those Filipino 
immigrants I've encountered in my part of the country (children who've 
come up through the local school system here excepted, of course), I'd be 
very skeptical of the idea that 12% of the population of the Philippines 
can speak English.

>>Another interesting recent phenomenon: some interviews I've seen, carried 
>>on in "English", are then subtitled for the viewers. The English used is 
>>not all that easily decipherable.
>
>So what ?  Any language starts to fragment as its geographical spread increases:
>this would be the case with Esperanto also if it ever became a genuine
>language used in everyday life by the people in the street.

Esperanto _has_ been used, in diaspora, in everyday life by a fair number 
of people for going on to a hundred years now. Remarkably, while there 
are some signs of _social_ diversification within the language (e.g. the 
development of a separate level of vocabulary for more pretentious forms 
of literature), in ordinary use the language has undergone remarkably 
little change, from Auckland to Zimbabwe. (Pace those who quote Ido &c as 
examples of Esperanto's dialectization, I refuse the use the term 
whenever some individual attempts to mandate a change in the language to 
suit his own personal ideas -- especially when few if any others follow 
along.)

How far English has dialectized is an interesting question, and perhaps 
overstated in some cases. E.g., it's not clear to me that the dubbing of 
the Australian film "Mad Max" for the U.S. market was absolutely 
necessary -- though it very likely _helped_ understanding a bit.

-- 
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
http://www.webcom.com/~donh
