Comment by Retric
15 hours ago
> first language?
1/3 of the global population is at all, there’s only 380 million native English speakers.
US, UK, Canada, Australia is where you find the bulk of native speakers. In say Germany or whatever they may become fluent but it’s relatively rare for German parents to be speaking English to each other in casual conversation next to an infant’s crib.
> there’s only 380 million native English speakers
Not how a lingua franca works.
There are 1.5 to 2 billion English speakers [1]. By far the largest number of people to speak a single language. Most of them are in America [2]. (If you count English learners, No. 2 is China [3].)
[1] https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/english-today/articl...
[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-speaking_world
[3] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236986651_The_stati...
CIA gives 18.8%, so about 1.5 billion. [1]
But this number is dubious as it's largely from self response. Here [2] is a list by country. So 25% of Thais, 50% of Ukrainians, 50% of Poles, and so on "speak English."
In the sense of being able to say hello, thank you, and introduce themselves that is probably true. But "my name is Bob" maketh not a common tongue. If we narrowed it down to the percent of people that could hold a basic conversation, the number would plummet precipitously, likely leaving Mandarin at the top.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_languages...
[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_English-s...
> the number would plummet precipitously, likely leaving Mandarin at the top
70% of Chinese speak Mandarin as a first language [1].
> the sense of being able to say hello, thank you, and introduce themselves that is probably true
This is English learners. If you count English learners, a third of Chinese speak English and a majority of the internet-connected world.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_China
Being fluent is a different question, you can dream in English without it being your native language.
first language = A first language (L1), native language, native tongue, or mother tongue is the first language a person has been exposed to from birth
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_language
Yes, we understand what a first language is. You should understand why that’s irrelevant to this discussion.
5 replies →
>>> 2/3 of the global population doesn’t speak English.
...
> there’s only 380 million native English speakers.
So? Having only 1/3 of the planet speak English natively is not the same as 2/3 of the planet not speaking English at all.