"Anglophone"

[Lyle Campbell]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Hi,

A terminological question:  What about "anglophone"?

I ask because I find myself reacting against the term when I see it in
contexts where I would expect something like "English speakers", as for
example in something like, "
 there where X number of anglophones in New
Zealand in the 1850s", meaning presumably "English speakers" and used so
as not to confuse Maori speakers in the number.  I see the term, I
believe, mostly in writings from English Anglicists, and I wonder how
general usages are such as, for example, "
 among the anglophone
dialects of the British Isles 
", where, if the goal is to include only
English and exclude Welsh, Irish, Scots Gaelic, and so on, I would
expect to see just "among English dialects 
" or "among dialects of
English speakers" or some such thing.   The term feels too much like a
French loan that would only be useful in writing about French topics
where English speakers might come to be mentioned, but even in that
context I personally would probably avoid it. 

My question then is, what is the reaction of others?  Are there
conventions or information that I am missing? 

Lyle