English First - Nashville

Tue Jan 13 04:29:30 UTC 2009

The 10 million figure feels approximately right to me.  China has the
largest number of "students" of English, likely surpassing the current US
population, but most of those people don't have a working command of the
language.  English classes are mandatory starting in the 3rd grade, and
optional starting in the first.
In my experience, by far the largest group of English speakers in China are
college undergraduates.

Randy
(Back in) Jilin City, China

On Tue, Jan 13, 2009 at 5:38 AM, Dave Wilton <dave at wilton.net> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Dave Wilton <dave at WILTON.NET>
> Subject:      Re: English First - Nashville
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Oops, I misread the claim as China having more English speakers than the
> US.
> My bad.
>
> The Wikipedia article says the 79 million in Nigeria are the figures for
> those that speak Nigerian Pidgin, an English-based creole, as a first or
> second language--not just as a first language. Of these, 3-5 million are
> native speakers of Nigerian Pidgin. The article that is cited as the source
> for the 79 million figure
> (http://www.njas.helsinki.fi/pdf-files/vol15num3/ihemere.pdf) gives no
> ultimate source for these figures, only saying "it is estimated."
>
> (I would be skeptical of the reliability of some of the figures cited in
> the
> Wikipedia article, especially those from Africa and other locales where
> census data is questionable. But the figures all have source citations, so
> they're probably about as good as you can get.)
>
> Also, the 10 million figure for China excludes Hong Kong, which adds
> another
> 2.5 million English speakers to the total. If you add in Hong Kong, China
> would rank 13th, between South Africa and The Netherlands. (The Netherlands
> has a whopping, and unsurprising, 73% of the population that speaks
> English,
> nearly as high as Canada's 75.7%.)
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
> Of
> Laurence Horn
> Sent: Monday, January 12, 2009 10:59 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: English First - Nashville
>
> At 12:05 PM -0500 1/12/09, Laurence Horn wrote:
> >At 3:22 PM -0800 1/11/09, Dave Wilton wrote:
> >>I too disagree. Unless you lower the standard of what qualifies as
> "speaking
> >>English" to an absurdly low level, there is no way that there are more
> than
> >>300 million English speakers in China.
> >
> >Why would that many be needed.  The claim reported by Wilson (not
> >that I'm endorsing it, or even that he is) concerns which country has
> >the most English speakers *after* the U.S., so the likely competition
> >would indeed be India, followed I assume by the U.K.
> >
> >LH
>
> Oops.  Just found this:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_English-speaking_populatio
> n
> Apparently U.K. trails Nigeria, as well as India and U.S., even as a
> first language.  I wouldn't have guessed there were 79 million
> Nigerians who speak English as a first language.  On this table,
> China comes in at 15th, with 10 million speakers of English as a
> (non-first) language, basically tied with Spain.
>
> LH
>
> >
> >>That's one third of the population.
> >>
> >>Personal observation: when I was in Beijing, we had to use an interpreter
> to
> >>communicate with wait staff in restaurants, even those that catered
> >>primarily to foreigners. (Hotel staff, on the other hand, pretty much all
> >>spoke English.) Interpreters were a must in most business meetings. I was
> in
> >>environments that would be particularly favorable to finding English
> >>speakers, but they were relatively rare. Once outside of Beijing,
> Shanghai,
> >>and Hong Kong, I'm sure the percentage of English speakers drops
> >>precipitously. Compare this to Europe where most service workers in
> >>metropolitan areas speak English quite well (even Parisian waiters, who
> >>choose not to) and where business professionals virtually all speak
> English
> >>pretty much fluently.
> >>
> >>India, on the other hand, I would be more inclined to believe, but even
> >>there, 300 million would be a lot.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>-----Original Message-----
> >>From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
> Of
> >>Benjamin Barrett
> >>Sent: Sunday, January 11, 2009 2:56 PM
> >>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> >>Subject: Re: English First - Nashville
> >>
> >>I find this difficult to believe. It would surprise me if it weren't
> >>the case that applying the same criteria to the US would find that
> >>America has the largest population of French speakers in the world.
> >>After all, we do say adieu, double entendre, prix fixe, moi?, etc. BB
> >>
> >>On Jan 11, 2009, at 11:58 AM, Wilson Gray wrote:
> >>
> >>>  Not to mention that English is the (foreign) language of choice
> >>>  world-wide. Isn't China reputed to be the largest English-speaking
> >>>  country after our own?
> >>>
> >>>  -Wilson
> >>>
> >>>  On Sun, Jan 11, 2009 at 9:00 AM, David Metevia <
> djmetevia at chartermi.net
> >>>  > wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>  From today's NYT:
> >>>>  http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/us/11english.html
> >>>>  By ROBBIE BROWN
> >>>>  Councilman Eric Crafton hopes to make Nashville the largest city in
> >>>>  the
> >>>>  United States to prohibit the government from using languages other
> >>>>  than
> >>>>  English.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>  I don't understand the concern as we will continue to be an English
> >>>>  language country as long as the majority of the population is
> >>>>  monolingual.
> >>
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--
Randy Alexander
Jilin City, China
My Manchu studies blog:
http://www.bjshengr.com/manchu

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