Newsgroups: alt.politics.ec,sci.lang
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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: <donhD499IL.ICI@netcom.com>
Organization: Esperanto League for North America, Inc.
References: <3ha0n3INNmq5@SUNED.ZOO.CS.YALE.EDU> <792815519snz@storcomp.demon.co.uk> <donhD44Ev2.Dsz@netcom.com> <793073556snz@storcomp.demon.co.uk>
Date: Sun, 19 Feb 1995 16:23:09 GMT
Lines: 42
Sender: donh@netcom3.netcom.com

philip@storcomp.demon.co.uk skribis en lastatempa afisxo <793073556snz@storcomp.demon.co.uk>:

>I have no idea what the actual number of English-speakers is. Does anyone
>have any figures, broken down by country, preferably with an explanation
>of what criteria they used to determine whta level of ability in English
>was included? Do such figures exist?
>
>My own back-of-envelope calculation:
>
>native speakers    350 M
>non-native speakers, 10% of 5500M = 550 M
>total = 900 M
>
On native speakers, I think we are fairly close (though don't count 
the full 250 million people in the United States -- in my neighborhood, 
at least, a very large minority are non-native speakers, and there are 
a few who couldn't order a glass of water in English).

On non-native speakers:

(a) Where do you get the 5500M? Seems to me that you should first 
    subtract the 350M native speakers. Or are we assuming that the 
    total global population is, as of this moment, 5850M?

(b) Where do you get the 10%?

(c) What are _your_ criteria for what constitutes an English speaker? 
    If it has to do with the number of people who've studied English 
    in school at one time or another, your figure may be fairly close 
    or even understated. If it has to do with the number of people 
    who can translate simple written English sentences into their own 
    languages, it may also be close. If it has to do with the number 
    of people who can carry on even a simple conversation in English, 
    I suspect that it's a bit exaggerated.



-- 
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 
