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Archive 1

References

I have taken the table (and its references) directly from the article English language without verifying the sources. Joeldl (talk) 13:07, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

No redirect to Anglosphere

Previously, this was a redirect to Anglosphere. As many parties have pointed out at Talk:Anglosphere, this is inappropriate. There are two main reasons:

1. The phrase "English-speaking world" is much more common than "Anglosphere". (37,000 hits on Google Scholar to about 200.)

2. The term Anglosphere has certain ideological connotations absent in English-speaking world. In fact, the term Anglosphere is most commonly encountered in discussions centring on the ideas of the author JC Bennett, as discussed in the article Anglosphere. A search on Google Scholar will show this.

This article is currently a stub, but should grow. In the meantime, articles referring to the English-speaking world in general and not intending specific reference to the ideas of James C. Bennett and his Anglosphere Institute should link here (or, alternatively, to English language#Geographical distribution), and not to Anglosphere. Joeldl (talk) 13:07, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree entirely. Anglosphere should not be used as a synonym for English-speaking world. Anglosphere is not a common term and Wikipedia policy is to use common terms.--Doug Weller (talk) 08:35, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

2,000,000 native English-speaking Singaporeans?

Is the figure for Singapore English-speaking people correct? I doubt it. I found out a reliable source (from Singapore Department of Statistics' website) which shows a 2005 survey reporting around 880,000 people speaking most frequently English at home. IMHO the figure and its current reference should be changed. 82.54.227.3 (talk) 00:01, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree, for 2 reasons: - the source (the book) is authored by Singapore's ex-president, who apparently tried to present his country as a modern, globalised country. - I have been many times to Singapore - some younger people speak flawless English, but most people have only a working knowledge of the language, and I have been to all kinds of situations, university, business, restaurants, hotels. I would say that the degree of English penetration in Singapore is not higher than in Europe, definitely lower than in Scandinavia, for example, which has almost no native English speakers. I would be super-surprised if more half of the population (4 Mio.) are native speakers and have failed to show up on my radar. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Neumannkun (talk • contribs) 03:15, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Nigeria in Dark Blue?

Is there really a large minority of native English speakers in Nigeria? If pidgins are included, then surely Sierra Leone and several other countries should be in dark blue too (or all of them should be in light blue, or a third colour)? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.185.146.101 (talk) 10:46, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Madagascar

The country no longer have english as an official language. --Aréat (talk) 14:35, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

2nd map

I have to disagree with the removal of the 2nd map. I don't feel that it constitutes original research anymore than the light blue countries on the first map do, as none of those have any sort of citation either. I feel that the green map is accurate, especially in regards to the Scandavian nations, as every person I've met from that region says English-knowledge is standard in their home countries. --Leodmacleod (talk) 16:41, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

The light blue countries are those in which native English-speakers are not in the majority, but English is an official language of the country. These are objective criteria, easily verified for example at the website of Ethnologue. The criteria for inclusion are relatively straightforward and are clearly a reasonable sense of what "English-speaking" means. The map may contain errors; this is being discussed currently at the Wikimedia Commons discussion page for that image. However, the second map does not rely on clear, objective criteria, and does not cite a source. Contrary to the first map, there is currently no evidence that this can be remedied.
At the moment, I count two editors in favour of adding the map, and two opposed. Therefore there is no consensus for its addition. I am requesting that consensus be achieved before adding it again. Joeldl (talk) 09:03, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
In that spirit, Sweden#Language, Iceland#Language, Greenland#Languages, Bangladesh#Demographics, Demographics_of_Oman#Languages, Suriname#Languages. There's a start. Though it might be a good idea to check all those citations as well, before using them in constructing a map. I think one would have to go through country by country on this to really get it right. After all, do we really know if the map is 100% complete. However, on that point, Joeldl is right. The criteria needs to be a little stricter. Thatthat, any help on that? --Leodmacleod (talk) 18:46, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
Uhhh dudes?? I mean, wtf? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Anglospeak(800px)Countries.png
Agreed, Scandinavian countries should be considered part of the English speaking world. Currently this "English speaking world' article is pretty low quality. Approx 89% of Norwegians and Swedes speak English, 86% of Danes, 63% of Finns, and not sure about Iceland and Faroe Islands. Source is List_of_countries_by_English-speaking_population which is a much more informative article than this one, and includes a useful map http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Anglospeak-percentage-knowledge.svg, although it could be improved, e.g. Norway should be dark green.ICouldBeWrong (talk) 22:19, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

What is that?! South Africa is not a majority English-speaking nation!83.70.248.20 (talk) 19:30, 1 November 2009 (UTC)Si Lapu Lapu

You're absolutely right. (I assume you're talking about the remaining map.) I note that the description of this map on its own page ("Countries of the world where English is an official or de facto official language, or national language, in dark blue; countries where it is an official/non-official but not primary language in light blue.") differs from the description in its caption on this page ("Countries in dark blue have a majority of native speakers. Countries in light blue have English as an official language, de jure or de facto."). The caption on this page is clearly wrong in the case of South Africa and so I believe the caption should be corrected to match the map's own description. Serenerandomness (talk) 05:57, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Bangladesh

If Malaysia, where English is not an official language, can be included, then why isn't Bangladesh? Our legal and political systems are inherited from the British, and English is widely used in the courts, in media and in education. Its the de facto second language of the country. --111.221.0.2 (talk) 19:02, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

This article and the Anglosphere article

I've started a discussion at Talk:Anglosphere. In the last few years, that article has been gradually changed to a redundant version of List of countries where English is an official language. I'm thinking of restoring the content about the Anglosphere as a sociopolitical concept (covering primarily the UK+US+CA+AU+NZ) with more prominent links to this page. Making Anglosphere a disambiguation to both this article and something like Anglosphere (sociopolitical concept) might be another option. If you have any thoughts on this, please reply at Talk:Anglosphere Plantdrew (talk) 04:02, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

"English-speaking countries in order of total speakers"

I am sorry, this is completely moronic. The section title implies "total speakers" means "English speakers"; but the list is ordered by total population. What does "speakers" mean? People who speak? As opposed to what, people with a speech impairment? So if there is a single native English speaker who lives in China (as I am sure there is), China rather than India must be at the head of this list by virtue of having the larger population. After pointing out that the ordering rationale is misguided, let me point out that it is at least as misguided to duplicate the effort at List of countries by English-speaking population, especially because both lists are sortable by column. The best would be to lose the list on this page and just link to the main article. --dab (𒁳) 16:16, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Most widely spoken

There was a sourced text about English possibly being the most widely spoken language. However, given the difficulties in defining terms the text also mentioned Chinese as a candidate. This has now been replaced by an unsourced text that simply states that English is the most widely spoken language. This is something that very much depends on definitions and uncertain estimates, and I think that the article should at least explain under what presumptions English is taken to be the no 1 language in the world. Sjö (talk) 11:47, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for taking it to the talk page. Having checked my sources (forgot to include them) and other sources on the subject you were correct to revert. Most sources do not distinguish between 'widely spoken' and 'numbers of native speakers' and 'numbers of non-native speakers'. While I stand by my assertion that English is the most widely spoken language the sources do not support my edit. And it is sources not my opinion that counts in Wikipedia (as I keep reminding other editors). Sorry for any confusion. Please revert to the previous editRobynthehode (talk) 12:34, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Sources should be collected on article talk page

I've been hunting up sources for the current update of English language, and of course one section of that article refers to this article as a main article. What sources have you been finding about the number of native speakers of English and the number of second-language speakers of English? I'll try to share some sources here as the discussion continues. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 20:07, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Is anyone up for extensively revising this article from top to bottom? Now that I have gathered sources for editing the corresponding section of the main English language article, it's possible to give this article a revision that will make it more current and cite better sources. Who else is interested in this? -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 13:17, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

Data is not correct

The data given on this page is not correct. It says 231 million people in U.S. are native english speakers. However, in pie chart it is said 64.3% of U.S. people speaks english. The current population of U.S. is 318 million. Hence only 204 million of U.S. people are native speakers. Kindly correct this.Similarly , U.K. have 16.7% speakesr. The current population of U.K. is 64.1 million. Hence total speakers would have been 10.68 not the one mentioned.61.3.93.53 (talk) 05:24, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

What's a reliable source that can clear up this issue? -- WeijiBaikeBianji (Watch my talk, How I edit) 13:27, 13 February 2016 (UTC)


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West Indies (Was "Belize (and Creoles in general)")

Why is Belize treated differently (as an "official" but not "majority" language English country) than the other Carribbean counries where the primary language is an English based creole (which are all curently treated as English "majority language" countries)? It might make sense to have a 3rd group (in addition to "majority language" and "official language") for countries where the majority language is an English based creole. Or treat them all as English majority countries; my impression is that Caribbean English based Creole speakers are almost universally fluent in "standard" English, and drawing the line between Creole and "standard" can be difficult. I'm moving Belize to the majority category, but the map will need to be updated with a dark blue. I'm not opposed to the alternative; changing all of the Creoles speaking Caribbean (Jamaica, Guyana and the lesser Antilles) to "official" English countries colored light blue, but either way it should be consistent.

I'm not at all familiar with Melanesian English based Creoles, but these should be examined as well. Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu all have an English based Creole more widely spoken than standard English (although native languages predominate in these countries).Plantdrew (talk) 20:29, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

I was wondering the same thing. It seems straight out of the 19th century to claim that people in the English-speaking West Indies don't speak English as their first language just because they're on a creole continuum. What's the difference between saying that and saying that blacks in the U.S. somehow don't speak English natively just because many also speak AAVE? There may only be six countries white enough to be included by those who fancy an Anglosphere, but it is simply incorrect that, as the article says, "There are six countries with a majority of native speakers of English". I will hold off for a few weeks, but if no one responds with countervailing points, I may heavily revise this. --Steve Foerster (talk) 17:22, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
There having been no argument to the contrary, I've made this change. --Steve Foerster (talk) 16:48, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

I note that Trinidad and Tobago is not listed in the article as either a country with a majority of native speakers or one with English as an official language. I know next to nothing about Trinidad, but according to articles elsewhere, it should be on one of those two lists. I don't know which one, or I'd just go ahead and add it. (Based on what it says in the T&T article itself, it looks like it depends on how you're treating creoles these days.) 2602:306:CD2C:54C0:386D:EC9C:D4C4:7E1D (talk) 16:54, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, I have fixed this. It was an oversight, not a purposeful exclusion. --Steve Foerster (talk) 19:09, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

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Proposed merge

if the desire is to merge Anglosphere into this, I guess it might be considered. But Anglosphere is a very specific concept and this should not be merged into it. Dougweller (talk) 06:46, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Agreed for the reasons stated. I have removed the merge tag (again), as no one either here or at Anglosphere seems to be offering any reasons for a merge. If someone really thinks they should be merged, please explain why before adding the tag again. As fully discussed at Anglosphere, these are not simply synonyms. CAVincent (talk) 12:50, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
if thr to merge anglshers into this,i guess it might it might be considered but angloshere is a very specific consept — Preceding unsigned comment added by 120.88.42.248 (talk) 09:19, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

Republic of Ireland

Ireland should be classified as "Co-official as majority language" because of the Article 8 of the Constitution of Ireland (http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/cons/en/html)states:

ARTICLE 8
1 The Irish language as the national language is the first official language.
2 The English language is recognised as a second official language. --Pino (talk) 12:44, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

Nepal

I am putting a request for Nepal to be colored yellow, or unofficial on the map. Nepal has a large population that speaks English and it is used in administrative and government work.Akhila3151996 (talk) 19:59, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

Untitled

last stand of desperate colonialism, to claim parts of the world as "english-speaking" only to have "oldest [whatever] in the english-speaking world" when brexit hell breaks loose, this will get even worse let's put an end to this already — Preceding unsigned comment added by 104.153.224.166 (talk) 01:50, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

Ramanujan kaha hai?

Dr.Shalini Surya Chaturvedi Rajan k aropi kaun (talk) 19:06, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

Map Key

The key on the map states that Israel is the only country in which the majority of the population speaks English. However, the key also indicates that countries in orange identify those in which the majority of the population speaks English--at least that's how I understood it. There are quite a few countries so designated. Thus it is contradictory. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:2c3:800:4441:57d:9605:8b5f:9ce8 (talk • contribs) 18:20, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

Choice of the word 'largest'

I'm not sure this is correct English. Can one language be 'larger' than an other? Shouldn't we be saying 'most used'? E.g. in the first sentence:

Over 2 billion people speak English, making English the largest language by number of speakers, and the third largest language by number of native speakers.

I propose:

Over 2 billion people speak English, making it the most used language by number of speakers, and the third most used language by number of native speakers.

Happy to make this edit if people agree.

Billtubbs (talk) 21:21, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

Australia doesn’t have 25 million English speakers

Trust me I was born and live here. As a first language, only 70% of Aussies speak it. As a second/third language, 90% speak it. Australia only has 26 million people. So over 25 million people here can speak English. Also we have no official language just like the U.S and Mexico. English is just the de facto. — Preceding unsigned comment added by OliverDeBriz (talk • contribs) 04:54, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

request for semi-protection

Just to record that I have added a request for this page to be made semi-protected due to the high level of vandalism by non-registered users recently. Adam Dent (talk) 14:16, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

Map is seriously a problem

Right now, the classification "Not official and minority language" is white on white background, so showing as not land at all. My editing skills are insufficient to fix this, but it really needs to be fixed. CAVincent (talk) 20:35, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

MAP - suggest more detail - unofficial widespread English

While the map of Anglophone countries is pretty inclusive, it is not complete.

In many countries (for instance Israel, Myanmar and most of Western Europe), English -- while it is neither the native language nor official language -- is nevertheless spoken by a very large minority of the population (in some cases, probably, a bi-lingual majority), and has enormous national importance: cultural, political, commercial, technological, and in education and media -- and largely shapes their relations with the rest of the world.

~ Penlite (talk) 22:59, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
I'm somewhat confused by all the Germanic countries that are coloured in orange: "Not official and majority language". My initial assumption was that we were talking about languages that they speak natively, which obviously isn't the case for over 50% of the population of, say, Germany. So we must be including second languages too, but what level does someone need to have to "speak English"? Is this being tracked systematically for all the countries on the map (so all of them) and are the same criteria being applied to each?
I suppose the difficulty here is that the descriptions need to be inclusive but selective enough such that countries like the USA (obviously an English speaking country) that have a highish proportion of Spanish speakers (and others) are included as core Anglophone countries, while countries like India (where English is native for a portion of the population, learnt by many more, but is more consciously of colonial origin) gets a reasonable description that fits it also. This difference is important and cannot not be reflected by this map, because while Germany may have a majority of L2 speakers, there is no German English, while India has only a minority of L2 speakers, but Indian English is a totally legit dialect.
Additionally, I think it would be nice if grey countries (i.e. those that aren't coloured in) were included in the legend. Anditres (talk) 18:22, 27 February 2022 (UTC)
It is in fact, kind of, if you open the file on Commons you'll additionally see "Tan: NA". I suppose tan is grey and NA no data available. Anything else would be surprising too, as knowledge of English is clearly more widespread in Poland today than in say Russia. And yes, putting a country like Germany in the same category as the Nordics, or the Netherlands (where English is basically SL) provokes a chuckle. The whole thing isn't sourced anyhow, "own work". It doesn't even have a date! Someone please remove it. -188.108.202.173 (talk) 11:17, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

Moving the word British Language to first of the list of countries

On the section of a list of Varieties of English, I'm surprised that American English comes first instead of British English, now given that the United Kingdom is the birth place of the English Language, I would like to place British English first on the list and I would also like to place Australian English second because both the United Kingdom and Australia are Commonwealth countries. 82.19.124.151 (talk) 17:09, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

While I can understand your point on British English (though I disagree), you seem to forget that Canada is also a Commonwealth country, has a larger population, and was both settled earlier and federated before Australia. In addition, the US was also settled earlier, and became independent long before Canada and Australia. (The Commonwealth didn't exist then either, which was the major reason the US had to fight for full independence). So really, there are two main options that will take nationalism completely out of the picture: the size of the English-speaking population, as it is currently, and has been for a long time, or alphabetical order. Also, please restore the previous order while this is under discussion. BilCat (talk) 21:41, 14 September 2022 (UTC)
The United Kingdom is not the birthplace of the English language, given that English long predates the UK. (Wikipedia tells me that the UK began in 1801, so I guess the US is technically older.) No one natively speaks English as it originally existed, American English is as much derived from Early Modern English as British English is, and none of the contemporary national varieties of English are "older" in any meaningful sense. Listing in order of the number of speakers is fine. I guess if a different unsatisfactory order is desired, we could go from north to south. CAVincent (talk) 03:52, 15 September 2022 (UTC)
I think this information might suggests otherwise, English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England.[1][2][3] It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the island of Great Britain. And Great Britain is the island of the Country of the United Kingdom, So technically CAVincent, You're wrong. 82.19.124.151 (talk) 09:42, 15 September 2022 (UTC) 82.19.124.151 (talk) 09:42, 15 September 2022 (UTC)
Or there is a option of which country used the English Language first which we know is Great Britain and which came second and which came third, 82.19.124.151 (talk) 10:02, 15 September 2022 (UTC)
Anyway, that wouldn't be easy either, as your response has already illustrated. Again, either keeping the original order by population, or going alphabetically, seems best. Not everyone is going to be happy no matter which we choose, so we need to pick one. BilCat (talk) 20:32, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ The Routes of English.
  2. ^ Crystal 2003a, p. 6.
  3. ^ Wardhaugh 2010, p. 55.

Proposed merge from Anglosphere

No rationale added by proposer, so speedily dismissed as requested. (non-admin closure) BilCat (talk) 21:13, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Proposed merge

Speedy close was correct, but I thought I would throw in two cents in case it comes up again, and also to confirm a consensus. The Anglosphere is not just "countries where people speak English", and is an entirely different concept from English-speaking world. The articles are distinct subjects. CAVincent (talk) 01:23, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

Indeed the Anglosphere article says: While the nations included in different sources vary, the Anglosphere is usually not considered to include all countries where English is an official language, so it is not synonymous with anglophone, though the nations that are commonly included were all once part of the British Empire. Kaihsu (talk) 11:28, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

Potential confusion of the number of first language speakers ?

The United States and India have the most total English speakers, with 283 million and 125 million, respectively. There are also 108 million in Pakistan, 79 million in Nigeria, and 64 million in the Philippines.[1] When those who speak English as a second language are included, estimates of the number of Anglophones vary greatly, from 470 million to more than 2 billion.

  1. ^ "English Speakers By Country". WorldAtlas. 2018-05-14. Retrieved 2021-12-06.

Am I the only one that got the impression that the first sentence, immediately followed by the second one, suggests that (US), India, Pak., Ni., Phi. have that many first language speakers ? If you're attentive, you'll realize that there is indeed the word «total» in the fist phrase, and that the math for that minimum of 470 M doesn't work out under the abovementioned assumption, but Wikipedia can probably do better than that ?

(The source is IMHO much clearer about it (of course it's easier, when one can go into more detail)) :

There are 125,344,736 English speakers in India, making India the country with the second largest number of English speakers. However, about 220,000 people speak English as the first language while the rest take it as a second language.

BlueTemplar (talk) 19:01, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

Main image: "not the most used language" should be rephrased?

In the main image, should the claim "not the most used language" be changed to something like "not the first-language of the majority"?

Take Singapore for example, where according to the 2020 census, English is the most-used language for 48% of the population. This is not the majority of the population and presumably that's why the country is labelled as "States where English is an official or administrative language, but not the most used language". The issue is that English is the most-used language in Singapore, because all the other main languages in Singapore are used by even less people: Chinese languages (Mandarin + Chinese dialects) at 38%; Malay at 9%; and Indian languages at 3%.

At the same time, it wouldn't be correct to move Singapore to the other category either ("States where English is the native language of the majority"), because while 48% is the highest of all languages used in the country, it is still not the majority of the population. Bennv123 (talk) 01:05, 19 September 2023 (UTC)

Delayed response, but noting that the change seems good. Thanks. CAVincent (talk) 05:15, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

Percentages

Why no [or too few] percentages of English-speaker category totals? I came to this article looking for population figures normalized to the totals. Do1029ug3 (talk) 15:48, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

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