In the Nineteenth Century, Mark Twain made the
following remarl to some Victorian Englishman (maybe
it was Charles Dickens) who dissed American English:
"I'm afraid you don't understand. The English
language is a joint-stock company, and Americans own
most of the shares!"
---
--- Timothy Finan <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Group, here is an interesting chart showing the
> distribution of
> English speakers world-wide. I looked it up due to
> an assertion by a
> hungarian friend in Australia who claims that the
> american variety of
> english is not the dominant one. Since I didnīt
> know I searched
> Google and found these figures:
>
>
> The following table was compiled from information in
> the
> Encyclopaedia Britannica Book of the Year 1995:
>
> Number of Speakers
> Country
>
>
> English English English English
> Mother (Lingua Bilingual Creole
> Tongue Franca)
>
>
>
> 224,900,000 253,410,000
> United States
> 56,830,000
> United Kingdom
> 17,700,000 696,000
> Canada
> 15,188,000 17,300,000
> Australia
> 3,620,000
> South Africa
> 3,340,000
> Ireland
> 3,205,000 150,000
> New Zealand
> 1,190,000 36,000
> Trinidad and
> Tobago
> 310,000 30,000,000
> India
> 240,000
> Zimbabwe
> 132,000 1,890,000
> Hong Kong
> 106,000 160,000
> Belize
> 100,000 6,000,000 220,000
> Malaysia
> 100,000
> Spain
> 87,000
> Jersey
> 85,000
> Virgin Islands
> 80,000
> France
> 70,000
> Isle of Man
> 70,000
> Japan
> 64,000
> Guernsey
> 64,000
> Israel
> 62,000
> Bermuda
> 54,000 144,000
> Guam
> 32,000
> Sweden
> 28,000 114,000
> St. Lucia
> 27,000 237,000
> Barbados
> 26,000
> Gibraltar
> 23,000
> Norway
> 19,000
> Puerto Rico
> 18,000
> Denmark
> 15,000
> Netherlands
>
> Antilles
> 10,000 1,820,000
> Sri Lanka
> 10,000 99,000
> Brunei
> 8,000
> Malta
> 6,000
> Aruba
> 4,000
> Luxembourg
> 3,000 19,000
> Dominica
> 2,200 41,900
> Northern Mariana
> Islands
> 2,000 54,000
> American Samoa
> 2,000
> Macau
> 2,000
> Mauritius
> 2,000
> Monaco
> 2,000
> Seychelles
> 1,000
> Andorra
> 1,000 85,000
> Western Samoa
> 800 10,100
> Nauru
> 500
> Micronesia
> 63,000
> Antigua and
> Barbuda
> 200,000
> Bahamas
> 3,100,000
> Bangladesh
> 580,000
> Botswana
> 40,000
> Colombia
> 66,000
> Costa Rica
> 160,000
> Fiji
> 2,000
> French Guiana
> 92,000
> Grenada
> 572,000
> Guyana
> 11,000
> Honduras
> 2,350,000
> Jamaica
> 2,100,000
> Kenya
> 480,000 2,100,000
> Liberia
> 490,000
> Malawi
> 130,000
> Namibia
> 42,000
> Nicaragua
> 14,000,000 33,000,000
> Nigeria
> 15,000,000
> Pakistan
> 362,000
> Panama
> 60,000
> Papua New Guinea
> 36,000,000
> Philippines
> 700,000 4,400,000
> Sierra Leone
> 1,097,000
> Singapore
> 42,000
> St. Kitts and
> Nevis
> 109,000
> St. Vincent and
> the
>
> Grenadines
> 800,000
> Tanzania
> 280,000
> Tunisia
> 180,000
> Uganda
> 800,000
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
New Yahoo! Photos - easier uploading and sharing.
http://photos.yahoo.com/
|
