Newsgroups: alt.politics.ec,sci.lang,soc.culture.esperanto,soc.culture.europe
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!news.mathworks.com!news.kei.com!simtel!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!bunyip.cc.uq.oz.au!planet.mh.dpi.qld.gov.au!antonyg
From: antonyg@planet.mh.dpi.qld.gov.au (George Antony Ph 93818)
Subject: Re: ESPERANTO - SPAM SPAM SPAM, SPAM SPAM SPAM
Message-ID: <DA4zEt.Hvo@planet.mh.dpi.qld.gov.au>
Organization: Qld Department of Primary Industries
X-Newsreader: NN version 6.5.0 #2 (NOV)
References: <donhD3v8EG.275@netcom.com> <3r70s7$16b2@hearst.cac.psu.edu> <DUNCAN.95Jun12174601@lightning.eee.strath.ac.uk> <3ri092$m78@hearst.cac.psu.edu> <donhDA3BD6.8n4@netcom.com>
Distribution: inet
Date: Wed, 14 Jun 1995 00:16:05 GMT
Lines: 29

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.

>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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
                       The opinion of George Antony 
    NOT the opinion of the Queensland Department of Primary Industries
