Geographical distribution of English speakers was nominated for deletion. The discussion was closed on 19 June 2019 with a consensus to merge. Its contents were merged into List of countries by English-speaking population. The original page is now a redirect to this page. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected article, please see its history; for its talk page, see here. |
This article is rated List-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
This article was nominated for
deletion. Please review the prior discussions if you are considering re-nomination:
|
According to this list all of Argentina's English speakers have English as their first language, which results in Argentina becoming one of the countries with the most native English speakers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BrianKovo ( talk • contribs) 23:06, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
Excuse me if it is a dumb question. But the table here lists "Total Number of English Speakers", and the next two columns are "As First Language", and "As an Additional Language". Now, shouldn't the sum of these last two columns be equal to the third last column, which is the "Total Number of English Speakers"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.147.191.23 ( talk) 03:15, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
Almost all Japanese students learn English in middle school and high school. There must be at least one person there that speaks it as a second language. They should be added to the first chart. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.55.54.36 ( talk) 17:04, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
Japan is mentioned above. South Korea, Eritrea, and Ethiopia are also missing. English is the most widely spoken foreign language in Ethiopia. How many other languages/countries are missing? 伟思礼 ( talk) 01:27, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
Okay mates, we've been studying a lot about India, here is a Gov Institution link where you can check the ACTUAL (estimative) number of English speakers in India: http://www.languageinindia.com/may2003/annika.html
After researching a bit more and comparing several numbers, as well applying some formulas, we came up with the number 4,18% So, it is the best we can do after 2 weeks studying about it.
If the CIA numbers are right (what DOUBT a lot) the India population is 1,173,108,018 (July 2010 est.) https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/in.html
By the way, the Brazilian numbers are wrong by 10 millions there!!!
Note: In fact, nowadays there may be up to 4,67% of English speakers in India. As we need secure numbers for our project, we are making decisions based on 4,18%. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 187.59.157.14 ( talk) 21:28, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
Also, if someone want to update it, you could also include Brazil on that list:
My my... World: 914,398,325 English speakers? Never. We are still studying it. We are doing the same with Spanish and Mandarin so we can implement a project in 11 countries. We didn't finish it, but we are sure that in the world there is no more than 650 or 750 million English speakers.
Thanks,
—Preceding unsigned comment added by 187.59.159.68 ( talk) 18:51, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
The Lebanese numbers are obviously wrong. The American University of Beirut's teaching language is English and has around 7000 students. This number is already twice as high as the number that is shown in this page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.51.18.21 ( talk) 05:34, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
There are very large english speaking populations in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Kuwait, they are not on this list what happened? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.227.104.65 ( talk) 22:21, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
Wouldn't it be better if it were sorted by percent rather than total number of people?
I agree, the percentage would be useful. We could also add a column giving 'Total Population' (percentage can then easily be calculated) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.95.167.91 ( talk) 05:33, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
According to the figures in the table, China should be first instead of 19th. Bob Webster ( talk) 15:27, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
DSuser and I have drafted a complete analysis of why it would be a good or a bad idea to include the EU in lists of countries in some form (either directly in the list or as a special note outside the list). We'd kindly invite all editors who are interested in the EU and/or lists of countries to take a look at Talk:European Union/inclusion in lists of countries, read all of the arguments presented and then state their opinion on what a sensible compromise might look like. Thanks! — Nightstallion 09:15, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
This section needs an update; Philippines has a bigger population now and the Census was way back in 1995.
I just became aware of this page, after someone tried to include the unlikely statistic about India having the largest number of English speakers on the planet to the India page itself and immediately got pounced upon. I have no idea how the "sources" mentioned in the India ranking managed to generate their numbers, but one thing I am sure of is that they are not only unreliable, but grossly inaccurate. Here is the quote from one of the sources, David Crystal, author of Stories of English, a popular book about the English language. Crystal is writing (here) in the British newspaper, The Guardian:
“ | The population of India passed a billion, that's a thousand million, a couple of years ago, and is increasing at the rate of three per cent per annum. In 1997 an India Today survey suggested that about a third of the population had the ability to carry on a conversation in English. This was an amazing increase over the estimates of the 1980s, when only about four per cent or five per cent of the population were thought to use the language. | ” |
The bottom line for me is that the current state of this page is unacceptable. The page needs to be split into two pages: List of countries by population of speakers of English as a first language and b) List of countries by population of speakers of English as a second and third language. Such a division would give maximum information. (If people insist on having one page, then the statistics of India and other ESL countries, need to be revised.) I won't revert anything yet, but I want to hear from the people who have put this page together. In the meantime I will look up the academic sources on the subject. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 22:32, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
Some sources that might be more reliable:
“ | Wikipedia's India estimate of 350 million includes two categories - "English Speakers" and "English Users". The distinction between the Speakers and Users is that Users only know how to read English words while Speakers know how to read English, understand spoken English as well as form their own sentences to converse in English. The distinction becomes clear when you consider the China numbers. China has over 200~350 million users that can read English words but, as anyone can see on the streets of China, only handful of million who are English speakers. | ” |
Fowler&fowler «Talk» 10:57, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
-- I can't comment on the statistics in general, I'm sure official census data is as accurate as any other measure available .. but I would like to comment that, I understand how estimates might vary widely. Like Crystal apparently said in the newspaper article, a whole lot of indians at least speak enough english to get by in an english conversation. Even mainstream indian newscasts have a surprising number of english words, phrases, sentences mixed in, especially in the interviews and other impromptu segments. Its a complete code-switching which is very common, -- At least the ones I've seen on Mhz Channel, and radio broadcasts I've heard. From personal experience it comes across the same to me as well. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.66.253.148 ( talk) 23:28, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
That's a rather silly argument in context. A person coming to this list isn't likely looking for information about people for whom english is a primary language - there's already a list for that. This list deals with the number of people who can understand english, not with those who choose to use english day-to-day. 24.18.198.220 ( talk) 00:55, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
I've spent a lot of time in India. The problem with these statistics is, as others have mentioned above, that the level of competency varies along the full continuum. Probably only about 5% speak, read, and write English fluently and are able to carry on a conversation about philosophy or negotiate a complex contract. On the other hand, an overwhelming majority (including rural Indians who cannot read or write in any language) speak enough English to give simple directions or buy/sell a tangible object at hand. Of those I know professionally or socially who have university educations, none speak English with their parents, about half speak English with their siblings, and most speak English with their children. Times are changing and the adoption of English in India is very rapid. Mcarling ( talk) 11:47, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
I do totally agree that India is probably the second largest not the largest and that the 350 million is definitely an exaggeration but i wanted to make some points: FIrst of all it is probably impossible to figure the number of people in india who can carry on a conversation in English. English is taught in most indian schools vernacular or otherwise. Vernacular schools have a much higher level of english teaching then china or other european countries. English Users in India are definitely much better of than english users in china. Vernacular indians who migrate to countries like the US are far more adept at using English then almost any other nation. If you watch TV's or even Bollywood...the amount of english that most such media outlets use is very high. And so a larger percentage of the population has the ability to speak understand read and write english then what the official sources say. Vernacular medium schools have been closing down to make way for english medium schools. And people do speak english in Rural India. Further your example of West Bengal is a very bad one because it is a very backward state. If you want an overall look at rural or even general stats also keep in mind other states like in the south, west or even the north west. West Bengal, Bihar, Orissa, Rajasthan and Eastern UP should not be treated as the norm. Further it is impossible to get jobs these days without knowledge of English unlike in any other country. If you dont speak english then be prepared for a substantial pay cut. So often people go to english learning centers to pick up the language with speaking skills. The effect of english learning centers should not be overlooked as they are a huge part of the learning process for people who get dont get the required linguistic skills thru a more formal education system
So the second position is probably apt though it does under estimate the numbers that use english in india. With a boost in primary education (due to the millenium goals) and the growing economy eventually the largest english speaking country will probably become india but thats a few decades away. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 171.66.92.173 ( talk) 03:22, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
If you could see the Philippines, it has 45 mil English Speakers, 42 mil People who use it as a second language, but 27k native speakers? What? 45 mil-42 mil =3 mil. Please, you got the data of native speakers from 1995!
I have updated some of the positions in the table. As I have indicated above, the numbers of ESL speakers in India are around 100 million. The reliable sources, Britiannica, TESOL-India, and the Census of India give numbers around 100 million. The list is of "countries," so adding the European Union doesn't make sense; you could add it at the end, but not in the middle. Similarly, the list is of "speakers" and not "users" (which often refers to people who can read the alphabet, but not much more). I have therefore removed China from position 3 and moved it below Malaysia pending some reliable statistics on ESL speakers in China, which I estimate to be no more than 3 or 4 million. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 22:58, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
The area of information sourcing, verifiability, and reliability is a difficult problem and that problem really comes to a head in list articles like this. I don't want to challenge this just now at e.g. WT:V, but I think that this article attempts to sidestep the WP:V guideline that, "Articles and posts on Wikipedia or other open wikis should never be used as third-party sources." Two possible reactions to this are "never say never" and/or WP:IAR. IMHO, in this particular case neither of those reactions is unreasonable. Still.....
Without belaboring things, let me point to one example of a problem. The current version of this article puts the U.S. population at 251,388,301 in a table column footnoted The population figures are based on List of countries by population. The wikipedia article mentioned in the footnote currently puts the U.S. population at 302,495,015. How many other figures are out of sync? I dunno. Are there any serious disconnects between the two articles? I dunno.
One possible improvement might be to adopt a scheduled synchronization policy and add "as of {last sync date}" to the footnote pointing to the source. That's easy, but doesn't feel right to me. An enhancement to this possible improvement might be to remove the tables which rely on List of countries by population to templates, and to have a bot update the templates. The tables in the templates could each have a bot-updated footnote saying something like: "The information in this table was extracted from List of countries by population as of {date & time}. See that article for the latest figures and for citations of supporting sources."
Note: see related discussion here. Perhaps these discussions should be consolidated on WT:V.
Comments? -- Boracay Bill 02:16, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
I'd like to tack on a request that we should put a column to show the percent of a country's population speaks English. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.207.32.64 ( talk) 01:10, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
The criticisms of the Eurobarometer data are exaggerated. The data are not perfectly precise, but no such data ever are. The Eurobarometer data are sourced from scientifically correct surveys with statistically significant data sets and certainly better than the SWAGs that were there before. As for children under 15, in some countries they speak English better than the adult population and in some not so well. It all washes out to within a few percentage points. If someone has a better source, please provide it. On the other hand, using 1991 census data for India is very dubious. India has changed a lot since 1991. About half the current population hadn't been born yet in 1991. India also adopted English as the language of instruction in schools nationwide in the 1990s, so the portion of literate people in India who are literate in English is asymptotically approaching 100%. 213.226.153.27 ( talk) 11:12, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
I've reverted this change. If I have it wrong, re-revert and please explain how I've got it wrong.
I'm not an expert in the subject matter here, but I've been following recent discussions about source reliability at WT:V. One wonders how the supporting source reliability stacks up in support of the assertion that India has 350M English-speakers (I'm not arguing that this assertion is untrue, I'm questioning the reliability of the source cited in support of this assertion). Also, does not the source cited in support of the assertion that the U.S. has only 251,388,301 English-speakers actually say that the U.S. has that many people who speak English at home? -- Boracay Bill 11:27, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
Should we be including Nigeria's population when they're speaking Pidgin English? Isn't that a bit misleading? -- seav 10:18, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
The figure for native speakers in Germany (272,000) is striking, especially since it doesn't include non-German NATO personnel, and it makes me think that similar proportions may be present in France, Italy, Netherlands, Japan, China and other major economies, for which we do not have comparable figures. It is possible counts are not done because of political sensitivities. Can anyone provide this data? Grant | Talk 11:25, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
To talk about other ES members:
I really do think that the estimate of France is to high, nothing bad to be said about the French but the knowledge of English with French citizens is virtually of non existance. I couldn't find a proof of what has been said on the EU website can anyone provide me with evidence. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.210.35.4 ( talk) 22:45, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
The introduction of the unranked EU entry in Wikipedia lists has been thoroughly discussed Talk:European Union/inclusion in lists of countries.
The most significant arguments for it´s inclusion in lists are:
Lear 21 ( talk) 19:08, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
Arguments a)-d) remain. The Quote of user:Jlogan is a singular provocative opinion. BTW JLogan has voted for the inclusion. The vast majority has voted AND argued for it as well. Lear 21 ( talk) 21:27, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
Not my points for sure. The raised arguments are collected and approved by at least 13 editors. I´m rather re-enacting the decision. all the best Lear 21 ( talk) 00:09, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
Rank | Country | Total | First language | As an additional language | Comment |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
— | European Union | 229,850,000 | 61,850,000 | 168,000,000 | Native speakers: Crystal (2005), p. 109, UK and Ireland total.
Non-native speakers: 2006 Eurobarometer survey. Covered EU citizens aged 15 years or more. EU is not ranked as it is not a country. |
The EU figures seem to derive from the Eurobarometer poll. It is the base of most of the European country entries in this list. Lear 21 ( talk) 16:17, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
The table correctly annotates where pidgin and creole varieties of English are included in the figures, but this makes the figures very hard to interpret. The case of Surinam is particularly misleading. The figure is attributed to Crystal (2005:109) but I am really not sure why Crystal included it. The creole in question, Sranan Tongo, has a historical connection with English but I dont think anyone, least of all its speakers, would call it a 'variety of English' or a 'dialect of English'. There is absolutely minimal mutual intelligibility with any variety of English, and English is really a foreign language in Surinam, though no doubt there are a few first language speakers and quite a lot of people will have learnt it at school (Dutch is the language of education). Counting Surinam as a country with a high proportion of English speakers is simply wrong in my view. The situation in Jamaica and Trinidad, for example (other countries where a creole is the vernacular) is more complex because in those countries, English is the language of education, and the creole speakers themselves in many cases regard themselves as speaking English, even though linguists might call that into question.
84.43.96.30 ( talk) 16:31, 7 December 2007 (UTC) MarkS
Does he really know how many people speak English in China?-- 200.138.43.245 ( talk) 01:08, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
See my discussion India's exaggerated numbers above.
“ | Wikipedia's India estimate of 350 million includes two categories - "English Speakers" and "English Users". The distinction between the Speakers and Users is that Users only know how to read English words while Speakers know how to read English, understand spoken English as well as form their own sentences to converse in English. The distinction becomes clear when you consider the China numbers. China has over 200~350 million users that can read English words but, as anyone can see on the streets of China, only handful of million who are English speakers. | ” |
Update the Philippines natives speakers.... It's so outdated...1995?....I'm a native speaker and was born in 1995....but I don't count because the poll was taken before my birthday
Thoughts?
Nigerian Pidgin may share some vocabulary with English but I think it is inaccurate to lump it together with English. Most English speakers would find it completely unintelligible. http://alt-usage-english.org/Distribution_English_speakers.shtml lists the speakers of actual English as 14 million, but as that number comes from the 1995 Encyclopedia Britannica I'm not sure it can be included, although I'm sure because it may not be copyrightable as a simple fact. I will try and find a different source for the number of English speakers in Nigeria but failing that I plan to remove the Nigerian entry completely because I feel it is inaccurate. -- Gudeldar ( talk) 01:02, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
Shouldn't supporting sources be cited for the population figures? Perhaps something like the following (data and supporting source based on List of countries by population: -- Boracay Bill ( talk) 04:59, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
Rank | Country | Total Population | Total English Speakers | As First Language | As an Additional Language | Comment |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | United States | 304,963,7971 | 262,375,1522 | 215,423,5572 | 35,964,7442 |
1. Source:
Official USA Population clock, projected to 2008-08-25 at 04:46 GMT (EST+5) |
Is a "density of English Speakers" more informative than "Percentage of Enlighs Speakers"? (On the right is anglophones, not English speakers.) Wily D 14:09, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
Like this?
I'm mostly looking for feedback on what people think is useful or isn't - I can doll one up once that's done. Wily D 03:02, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
This explains significant changes which I have boldly made in the table entry for the U.S.
The entry said that the "% of English Speakers" for the U.S. was 82.44%. That's like saying 17.6% don't speak English. That's about one of every five or six people. That's a lot. That's also counter-intuitive.
The entry gave 304,952,000 for the "Total Population" figure, but used data from a report based on the year 2000 U.S. Census for the English speakers figures. I have changed the population figure to the 281,421,906 figure reported by Census 2000, sourced that figure, and explained its use in the comment. That brings the percentage figure up to 89.33%. The Census 2000 figure for U.S. population aged five and older was 262,375,152. If that figure were used in the percentage calculation, the result would be 95.8%. -- Boracay Bill ( talk) 06:42, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
I am troubled by all these percentage columns. How are they being determined? Do we have reliable sources for these percentages? Or, are we dividing two quantities to obtain them? The latter instance will constitute original research or synthesis, I am afraid, simple though the computation might be. I have added a synthesis tag to the article. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 20:22, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
Rank | Country | % of English Speakers | Total Population | Total English Speakers | As First Language | As an Additional Language | Comment |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
43 | Hungary | 19.91% | 10,043,000 | 2,000,000 | 2,000,000 | 2006 Eurobarometer survey. | |
78= | Israel | 7,303,000 | 100,000 | 100,000 | Source: Ethnologue (2005) [2] |
(unindent) My preconceptions aside, I'm afraid you still haven't told me how you are calculating your statistics. You haven't answered my question posed in my first paragraph; this is not a problem of precision errors of the kind you might find in simple conversion of units. This has to do with using knowledge of statistical errors in all these estimates to accurately estimate percentages. I claim that by dividing two columns (if that is indeed what you are doing to compute percentages), you are not only synthesizing information, but also doing so inaccurately, since you don't have error estimates of the original numbers. If we allow what you are doing, then there would be no reason to refer to the IMF or World Bank for economic indicators like per capita income; we could compute those ourselves, given the GDP and population.
As for the numbers of English speakers in China being more than those in India, how did you come up with that information? What is your source? If you are using the 300 million number from David Crystal's book (see column 19 of the table), please note that it refers to the number of English "users," (i.e. learners) not "speakers;" otherwise, China would be in the number 1 position in that table? But then Crystal has India's numbers pegged at 350 million, so we should be pushing India even higher, as indeed it was, until I intervened a put a stop to the exaggerations (see here). The page name is : "List of countries by English speaking population." For the distinction between "English Speakers," and "English Users," please see: TESOL-India (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages)], India: World's Second Largest English-Speaking Country. Their article explains the difference between the 350 million number mentioned in a previous version of this Wikipedia article and a more plausible 90 (or perhaps now 100-110) million number:
“ | Wikipedia's India estimate of 350 million includes two categories - "English Speakers" and "English Users". The distinction between the Speakers and Users is that Users only know how to read English words while Speakers know how to read English, understand spoken English as well as form their own sentences to converse in English. The distinction becomes clear when you consider the China numbers. China has over 200~350 million users that can read English words but, as anyone can see on the streets of China, only handful of million who are English speakers. | ” |
Fowler&fowler «Talk» 21:46, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
This is quite odd that everybody's talking about some Eurobarometer survey from around 2005. I've never been asked to answer any this kind survey. So I ask how many actually have answered this survey? (And, additionally also, to whom it posted to?) 82.141.73.48 ( talk) 17:13, 30 September 2011 (UTC)
Just checked the PDF, and the number of respondants seems to be little under 25,000. Current EU population is around 500 million, so it is about 1 person per 20,000 who have answered it. So the theoretical error of margin is very high, and real margin is thousands percents, because only about 0.005 percent of population is on the survey. 82.141.73.48 ( talk) 17:48, 30 September 2011 (UTC)
Here a recent paper by Yang, Jian (2006), "Learners and users of English in China", English Today, 22 (2): 3–10 (requires subscription for full article). (Note: It uses "users" in a similar way as "speakers" in the TESOL post above.) It states at the outset:
“ | "CHINA’S huge English-knowing population of 200–350 million is often cited as evidence of the language being nativized in the world’s most populous country. We may note, however, that the words user and learner are used interchangeably in reference to its speakers of English... it seems that only recent graduates from the more competitive universities can use the language in the four functions: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Learners of English in China are therefore rather different from users: most of the English-knowing population are only learners, and indeed ‘China English’ may still be in its infancy." (page 3) | ” |
It goes on first to compute an adjusted number of 70 million English users:
“ | "My suggestion is that the number of learners should be deducted from the total of English users in China. Again, estimates of students, who make up the majority of English language learners, vary a great deal, from 165 million to 230 million in schools, and from six to eleven million in college (Jin & Cortazzi, 2003; L. J. Zhang, 2003)." (page 8) | ” |
and then reduces the above estimate further by 60 million to 10 million English users, concluding with:
“ | "Given the functions that users of an institutionalized variety are able to perform (cf. Kachru, 1992), I consider that users in Expanding Circle countries should usually demonstrate a speaking proficiency level at least comparable to the following: Those who fall below this level should be considered learners. Which means, I am afraid, that many in the adjusted 70 million may not qualify as users either, most of them being in their 30s at least. As I have argued, on the whole their proficiency in English is most likely at a level lower than that of the recent graduates from high school and college. What this suggests, it seems, is that Yan’s (2004) ten million may after all be a more informed estimate of the actual regular users of English in China." (page 9) |
” |
So, what numbers were we using to compute the percentages for China? We have to be careful about not exaggerating the numbers. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 23:04, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
The number of English for an additional language spoken by Chinese is identical to the number of overseas students who studied in an English speaking countries such as USA,UK,Australia returned to the homeland China's mainland.The English knowledge among Chinese is very low actually due to the language for instruction is Chinese in China's mainland. 219.152.203.130 ( talk) 11:20, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
It's 2023 now, and we still don't have a reliable estimate of the number of English speakers in China? There has to be some source out there that has provided actual research into the question in the last decade. PersonaV ( talk) 00:05, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
A discussion has been started at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countries/Lists of countries which could affect the inclusion criteria and title of this and other lists of countries. Editors are invited to participate. Pfainuk talk 11:11, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
To discourage the silly vandalism warring, I have semi-protected this article. If it persists from registered accounts, they will be blocked and the article fully protected. -- Dweller ( talk) 11:44, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
I would strongly recommend for this article to be deleted. All it consists of is table listing people who may speak English in different countries. All the relevant information, especially the list of countries by number of native speakers, is already included in English language. The rest of the information is both trivial, contradictory and unreliable. For most European countries, the results of a survey in 2006 are given. I would like to remind everybody that unlike censuses that count speakers of language, this survey was a rather limited survey and the figures are estimates. What is more, they do not define what is meant by speaking English. Is it being fluent, being able to communicate or just knowing some English? For most languages outside Europe, Crystal (2005) is the only source. David Crystal is a brilliant academic, but what he presented in this book is also rough estimates. Apart from not being representative, I fear that the table also infringes on his copyright as it rips off a few pages in his book. There are also many countries with no sources at all, suggesting that some Wikipedia editor just made the figures up. Last but not least, what's the purpose of the article? It does not present accurate figures, it does not define its main concepts and it does not tell us anything not already included in other articles. JdeJ ( talk) 10:34, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
Why can't a survey be used as data? To be sure, the usage of these figures should be revised on the basis of what you say, but I don't think that makes the data unusable. I think this article makes a worthwhile effort to give some estimate of who speaks English in the world, and I wouldn't want to end that. Agh.niyya ( talk) 04:05, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
I believe all the above concerns are content issues that would have been better raised here first, before resorting to an AfD nomination. Now that that process is underway, it is taking all the time I currently have available. I should have more time to make some substantive improvements in a week or so (assuming the list is still here). There seems to be unanimous agreement at the AfD that the "% English speakers" column should go, so I think deleting that should come first. I'd also like to remove the total population and ranking columns, and improve the citations for the Ethnologue and Eurobarameter figures. These changes seem fairly uncontroversial to me; please speak up if you disagree. There have been various other suggestions made at the AfD discussion, but I think these need further discussion here to reach consensus – again assuming the list is not deleted first. -- Avenue ( talk) 10:41, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
Israel's numbers are odd, the first table says 100,000 for speakers total and 100,000 for first language speakers.
There is obviously a problem here, I'll try to get other numbers if I can find any.
KimiNewt (
talk) 00:31, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
I agree, English is taught in Israeli schools, and I can find figures mentioning 100% of the pupils study it at some point. The figure only mentions native speakers, so there are clearly many more people who speak it as a second language. I've looked for a better source to cite but couldn't find one, I just deleted the 100,000 total speakers figure, it is very misleading. Fdskjs ( talk) 10:42, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
I have changed the percentage on the New Zealand figures. 91.2 percent while high by world standards will seem strangely low to anyone who has any experience with the country. The census counts will reveal why. There were 4,027,947 responses to the census. 3,673,679 gave English as a response, 81,936 had no English but another language. The balance of 272,382 were; no language (too young) 75,195, no response 196,221, response unidentifiable 588, response outside scope 378 (no idea what this would entail, perhaps someone responding "I speak for the trees" and similar). Hence it is more accurate to express the English speaking per cent without including the figures for these 272,382, which inspite of what was said in the info box was not done. This gives 97.8% English-speaking, 2.2% non-English-speaking (3,673,679 and 81,936 divided by 3,755,565)
I have further removed the native English speakers number as it is patently ridiculous. It is the number of English monoglots and would exclude for example a native speaker who learns Malay as an adult. There is no way to extrapolate the number of native English speakers from the census data, it is best to go with the estimate quoted in the info box until and unless a more accurate measure w=can be found. Thecrystalcicero ( talk) 03:20, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
Would there be any objections to my removing the '<' from in front of the native figures speaker for Japan. It switches the sorting from numerical (0,1,2,3,4...9,10,11...99,100,101) to quasi-alphabetic (1,10,100, 101, 102, ...) -- Neil ( talk) 12:40, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
How about removing those numbers entirely? If nobody objects, that is. The citation used doesn't mention languages at all. It looks like that number might be an estimate derived from the citation, which seems like OR to me. Grayfell ( talk) 04:12, 5 May 2011 (UTC)
I removed it. I suspect the total number of English speakers globally used that number for its calculations, so maybe I should probably adjust that as well. It seems pretty silly, however, since many of the other countries are gross estimates that totally fail to account for ANY native speakers at all, and giving exact numbers falsely implies a level of authority and accuracy that this page simply doesn't have. Grayfell ( talk) 08:10, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
There probably should be some numbers for Japan in the 'List in order of total speakers', since passing English as a second language is a requirement to graduate high school there. 86.5.130.239 ( talk) 17:45, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
Almost all learn as first language english so its possible that in Serbia, english can be speaken well over 50% of population —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.116.163.86 ( talk) 17:36, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
in both lists Jamaica is listed at 2.6 million people, or basically the entire population. At the same time, Trinidad and Tobbago are listed at 1.1ish million people, or about one in 4. The remaining 3 of the 4 speak creole. Jamaican Patois is about as mutually intelligible with english as the various Trinidad/Tobbago creoles and english dialect. One of the two figures should change - either 2 million less Jamaicans, or 4 million more Trinbagonians. The same is true of Nigerian Pidgin -- it is less intelligible than the Trinbagonian creoles and dialects, especially when heard rather than written, yet it is counted. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.66.253.148 ( talk) 23:43, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
The Total Sum of the speakers of the table is 914,398,325. It isn´t 1,186 million. It´s false. Maybe the figure is possible but it´s neccesary the sources.-- Migang2g ( talk) 06:48, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
Some people wondered about the high percentage of 87% English speakers in the Netherlands. On page 70 of the document from which that percentage was taken, the last heading of the table reads "Population 15+". This suggests that the surveys did not include subjects under the age of 15. So applying this percentage to the total population is incorrect. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Simonbr ( talk • contribs) 08:33, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
I find some of these statistics highly problematic. English is a compulsory subject in all schools in South Korea and in Israel. Of course, not everybody who studies a language learns it fluently, but I can't believe that the blank box given for Korea and the infinitesimal figure given for Israel are accurate. Frankly, I've never met an Israeli who couldn't speak passable English - and I've met quite a few Israelis, believe me.
Fiji is another dubious case. English is the main language of instruction in most schools. Nearly all Fijian citizens have studied English, and most have studied IN English; though not all are completely fluent, the number is almost certainly a lot higher than the figures here would indicate.
I would speculate that the table uses inconsistent methods to measure language competence. 123.100.93.105 ( talk) 00:26, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
Many countries missing----
The caribbean coast of Central America in Costa Rica (Limon province),Nicaragua (Costa Atlantica) and Guatemala (Livingstone) people speak english (a creole). Also in Colombia (San Andres Island). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.90.71.40 ( talk) 09:26, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
How are English-speaking immigrants addressed (if at all)? For example, in the table it appears that Spain has no people that speak English as a first language. However, judging by the British migration to Spain article, I'd guess that there must be more than half a million residents that speak English as a first language. -- Frumpo ( talk) 22:28, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
I question why Finland's percentage English speakers is as low as 63%. All Finns are taught English to a similar high level as other Nordic countries. I will look for some sources. LibStar ( talk) 07:17, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
This page claims that there are 201,000,000 people in Sweden and that 94,000,000 speak English, however the total population of Sweden is only 10,302,984 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pavlo87 ( talk • contribs) 18:53, 25 December 2019 (UTC) The EU data comes from a survey that asked "Which languages do you speak well enough in order to be able to have a conversation, excluding your mother tongue?" Believing to be able to have a 'conversation' does not mean you are an English-speaker. Ideportal ( talk) 21:23, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
The table is updated but the image needs updating for Norway, currently it's gray (no data). I don't know how to edit the SVG. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.9.233.15 ( talk) 01:58, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
In the section "List in order of native speakers", reads: Hong Kong if ranked separately.
However, it isn't actually ranked at all, because China is missing from that list.
82.141.93.47 (
talk) 05:54, 25 September 2011 (UTC)
And just noticed Dominican Republic either is ranked six places too low, or has too big figure. Someone probably cleverly updated the figure without updatting the ranking positions. 82.141.93.47 ( talk) 05:58, 25 September 2011 (UTC)
According to Philippines, population was under 90 million in 2007 census, here the year is said to be 2000, population is as 97 million... Where that 92.58% comes? 3.4 million is about 3 percent, if you add 63.71 result is around 67%, if you add 75 result is around 78%. And then you have 46,373 + 3,427 equals 89,8 million. Exactly what? If that 89,8 figure is actually right (which any percent is not proving) then additional speakers would be around 86,4 million. The populations and percents from different years go "nicely" together here. At best, it's quite a mess. 85.217.35.24 ( talk) 08:27, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
Joe Bernstein, not a registered Wikipedian. 173.250.162.183 ( talk) 22:52, 24 December 2013 (UTC)
The chart appears to be unable to distinguish significant digits. If you sort by "% English Speakers," it lists everything that starts with a certain numeral in order, regardless of where the decimal point lies. For example, Sri Lanka (9.9%) and Tanzania (9.89%) are listed near the top twenty, between Guyana (90.55%) and Sweden (89%). I'm not so good with wiki chartmaking, so I'm not sure how this would be fixed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.85.236.176 ( talk) 18:56, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
Fluent? Conversationalist? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.43.27.98 ( talk) 01:16, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
Throughout this article, and especially in the chart, a multitude of references point to "Crystal (2005)." The only problem? There is no "Crystal (2005)" in the resources section of the article, or anywhere else here. There's nothing that indicates what book "Crystal (2005)" is meant to be. There's a Crystal book from 1995 listed, but not one from 2005. So someone who wishes to consult "Crystal (2005)" as a primary source has nowhere to go. Totally annoying! Moncrief ( talk) 21:07, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
The information from the
"List in order of native speakers" is already found within the above
"List in order of total speakers"
The only thing required to highlight that information is to sort the main list by the "As first language" column which makes the second list redundant except for the lack of coherence between the lists that make wikipedia look unprofessional.
Seeing that there is much discussion about India being the #1 English speaking country, I cannot escape the impression that the USA population being a major part in the english wikipedia community is the sole reason behind the second redundant list and the pie chart displaying the USA as the biggest part. There should not be any place for such a nationalist biased perspective if english wikipedia ever wants to be taken seriously. It is not the first time I've seen this.
So I say we merge the second list into the first, correcting the incoherences that exist among them in the process. Example of such conflicts include Nigeria, NZ and SA not being in the same positions as in the second list, there shouldn't be contradictory information and a merger would prevent that from happening again.
If there's anything wrong with this merger idea please tell me, if on the contrary you support it, please help me, I have never dealt with cited content removal before. Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sinekonata ( talk • contribs) 17:26, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
The single-digit English percentage figure for the Turks and Caicos islands is very, very wrong. It is the official language and is used by everyone except for migrants from Haiti and the DR. I don't know of any official figures or source to get a figure but it cannot be much different from the Bahamas in the 80% - 90% range. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.174.95.21 ( talk) 21:45, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
See title. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.102.212.216 ( talk) 12:47, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
They are respectively an oversea department and an oversea territory of France. They do not belong in those lists any more than Hawaii or South East England. Khaur ( talk) 10:39, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
Since the second list can be obtained by sorting the first one according to the right column, its only added value (IMO) is that lines are thinner and therefore slightly more readable. It it sufficient to warrant its presence? Khaur ( talk) 10:39, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
I have deleted the useless Ranking column, all the numbers would have to be changed every time a country is added or changes its status. Ranking can still be found by using the sort function.
Also, I have added Argentina. 24.108.61.172 ( talk) 06:21, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
An IP has removed the European Union from the chart, with the comment that it is not a country. While that is certainly true, I feel the entry itself made it clear that it wasn't a country, and having the EU in the table is extremely useful for comparative purposes. I'd like to re-add it. Any thoughts? Grayfell ( talk) 01:38, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
Link [30] seems to be a spam? What is the meaning of "Languages spoknfsjkNvkjfsnvnsflknvkler en"? A cat on the keyboard?
Please update it, thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sleepsort ( talk • contribs) 13:04, 7 December 2013 (UTC)
The number of english speakers in Ghana seemed low to me, so I wanted to check the source, but reference [18] was broken, http://lingweb.eva.mpg.de/apics/images/0/00/SurveyGhana.pdf. I looked at the wikipedia page for Ghana and there it says that 90% of the population speaks English, with a reference that works, reference [94] on that page, "2010 Population and Housing Census". Maybe this should be updated? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.240.84.63 ( talk) 14:51, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
Euromonitor International is a private market-intelligence company. Its data is not peer-reviewed, therefore not scholarly or reliable. Its estimate that 49% of Pakistanis in 2009 spoke English at an intermediate level of proficiency doesn't correlate with UNICEF's adult literacy rate for Pakistan (averaged for 2008–2012), which is 54.2%. It doesn't correlate with the Pakistani government's own statistics for 2011, according to which some 80% of its citizens do not finish high school (see this report, page 13). By contrast, India, with an 8 percentage point higher literacy rate, a 26 percentage point higher primary school enrolment and a century longer history of British colonial presence has only 20% English speakers (and that I believe is a very optimistic number). Something is not adding up here. I suggest that we not use the Euromonitor report for our statistics. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 12:22, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
CIA Factbook
CIA Pakistan Factbook says the following and implies that English speakers are less than 8% total -
Punjabi 48%, Sindhi 12%, Saraiki (a Punjabi variant) 10%, Pashto (alternate name, Pashtu) 8%, Urdu (official) 8%, Balochi 3%, Hindko 2%, Brahui 1%, English (official; lingua franca of Pakistani elite and most government ministries), Burushaski, and other 8% — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.248.41.78 ( talk) 22:40, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
As only educated ones in Pakistan are speaking in English with almost none speaks it as first language, data is seriously manipulated. AbhishekDwi ( talk) 14:10, 24 February 2017 (UTC)
If it's that much problematic, why not just remove it from the list? I agree, Pakistan has a strong english population not only be they teach it in school, but also because it's the national goverment mandated language. All forms, signs and various adverstising is supposed to have English, with teaching starting from grade 1. But because 'english' fluency is not defined, there will be various rates. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.153.183.127 ( talk) 20:53, 29 September 2019 (UTC)
If we are to remove every country that is inaccurate, how much will be left? Already, half the countries in the world are not listed, and I know that zero native speakers for Spain is way off, and more speakers than humans for U.S. Virgin Islands is absurd. I am in favor of deleting the page, as it would take dozens of people to get it to an acceptable quality, and to keep it that way. 伟思礼 ( talk) 21:11, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
English-speaking_world#English-speaking_countries_in_order_of_total_speakers: 125m English-speakers in India.
List of countries by English-speaking population: 250m English-speakers in India.
Both claim to be from the 2001 census and to include English-speakers but not English-users.
Is one of them wrong or am I missing some crucial distinction?
Balaenoptera musculus ( talk) 15:35, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
hey, the map shows that iran has 0% english-speaking population, but the table shows that 42% of the iranian population speak english, please fix the map. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 5.29.14.173 ( talk) 15:16, 15 May 2014 (UTC)
According to the list, English speaking people in Ghana made up about 20% of population, but in the article Ghana, it says that about 67.1% of population speaks English. This last one being the official position according to the government, as seen here: http://www.statsghana.gov.gh/docfiles/2010phc/Census2010_Summary_report_of_final_results.pdf -- Goose friend ( talk) 05:58, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
I think the article has improved a great deal over time with more countries being added, and, in most cases, reliable sources have been added to back up the numbers. At the moment, the sources are listed in the 'Comments' column, and the numbers (% English speakers, Total English speakers, etc.) are listed just as bare numbers. The reason for this may be that the table is then easily sorted by clicking on each of the column headers and it's also quite easy to copy the numbers to a spreadsheet. However, often it is not clear how the numbers are calculated and what reference is the basis for a given number, in particular when more than one reference is given in the Comments column. So, in this relation I think it's interesting to compare with the Spanish language article, see this section. Notice that almost every number is referenced. Copying the clean number to a spreadsheet is probably difficult though, and the sorting mechanism of the table seems to be half broken. When this is said, I am actually leaning towards the way the numbers in the Spanish table are sourced. I won't change the English language table for now though (it's a huge task anyway), just wanted to point to the Spanish language article to illustrate how a similar table is arranged. -- 2.110.114.86 ( talk) 20:15, 13 August 2014 (UTC)
Is this a joke? The list of countries in order of native speakers has Austria on 77th place with 16 (!) native speakers. I have more native speakers than that in my immediate circle of friends here in Vienna. Unfortunately I don't know how many there really are but it's more than 100000 in Vienna alone, I'm sure. I will delete this line since it's so obviously and absurdly wrong and not sourced either. I will try to find a source for how many there really are. 84.114.17.61 ( talk) 08:25, 16 August 2014 (UTC)
It was meant to read 16 million of course. But the list is still kind of a joke, what on earth is the point of noting here that Tokelau has 40 English speakers? Such a figure is subject to substantial fluctuation on a weekly basis, and the number is cited without a year, let alone any kind of reference. I will remove all unreferenced entries for the time being. -- dab (𒁳) 17:10, 6 December 2014 (UTC)
As part of updating the article English language, I have been checking and rechecking statistics on English language use around the world since December 2014. I'll be updating this article too as I type out citations to the sources I have checked. I invite all of you to comment on updates I make to this article. -- WeijiBaikeBianji ( talk, how I edit) 16:22, 19 March 2015 (UTC)
Why is Puerto Rico included on the chart? It is not a sovereign, independent nation-state, nor anything close. It's a territory of the United States. If Puerto Rico is included, logical consistency would demand that Washington DC be included as well, as their status within the US is comparable (e.g. they both elect a single, non-voting at-large representative to Congress). 107.3.44.127 ( talk) 15:02, 26 August 2015 (UTC)
I agree, Puerto Rico shouldn't be on this list as it isn't a UN member state. If it doesn't hold any status in the UN, it shouldn't be on this list. So for that matter, the French & British territories/overseas departments, the other US territories, Hong Kong & Macau. Or if we're including territories of the US, we may as well include DC. I tried removing the US territories, but they keep getting reverted back even though having them on is inaccurate. 108.12.206.218 ( talk) 23:41, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
There have been a number of attempts to update the numbers for India, without bothering to cite sources. Are there more up to date sources on this? Serendi pod ous 21:18, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
The entry on Demographics of Nauru states that only 60% of the population speaks English, not 100%. Demographics of Marshall Islands also seems to contradict the 100% figure. DanTrent ( talk) 21:19, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
I have seen that adding PC-protection has reduced pure vandalism from users (that is, adding silly stuff to or blanking sections of the page) - now I've noticed that IPs are mainly changing the numbers without providing evidence in the way of sources. Let's see what happens; if this keeps going on, it might necessitate increasing the protection level to semi. <<< SOME GADGET GEEK >>> ( talk) 23:42, 21 February 2016 (UTC)
I was just looking at two of the figures in the list:
The Chinese percentage is out by a factor of 10. The Chinese figure is being calculated by adding together the 100 million people who have learned elementary English in order to pursue a university education with the ten million who speak the language. The Brazilian percentage would probably be double if you added the 6% of the population that speak rudimentary English. The issues with the statistics for China and India have been discussed above, but I think this page is rather misleading in applying different criteria for English usage by country. This will always be an issue with this kind of compilation, but here the disparity in criteria used appears rather starkly when we conclude that there's 10x more English speakers in China than there actually are but not using the same criteria for another large country, Brazil.
We probably ought to collectively decide what level of competency is required for use in the calculation of the "percentage of English speakers" column otherwise we'll lead any reader who takes a few minutes with a calculator to run the statistics to bang their head on the desk and shout "WTF?" at their computer screen. How do we do this without violating no original research? — Tom Morris ( talk) 19:52, 20 March 2016 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 2 external links on List of countries by English-speaking population. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at {{
Sourcecheck}}
).
This message was posted before February 2018.
After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than
regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors
have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the
RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{
source check}}
(last update: 18 January 2022).
Cheers.— cyberbot II Talk to my owner:Online 10:33, 16 April 2016 (UTC)
[8] Only around 6% of Hongkongers speak English well, HKU study shows; a reliable source? D_T_ G ( P L) 10:23, 27 September 2016 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 6 external links on List of countries by English-speaking population. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
{{
dead link}}
tag to
http://www.censo.cl/contenido/sintesis_resultados_censo_2012.pdf{{
dead link}}
tag to
http://www.statssa.gov.za/Census2011/Products/Census_2011_Census_in_brief.pdfWhen you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at {{
Sourcecheck}}
).
This message was posted before February 2018.
After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than
regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors
have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the
RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{
source check}}
(last update: 18 January 2022).
Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 00:17, 2 December 2016 (UTC)
The table goes funny when sorting it like that — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.172.136.165 ( talk) 19:34, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 6 external links on List of countries by English-speaking population. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
This message was posted before February 2018.
After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than
regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors
have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the
RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{
source check}}
(last update: 18 January 2022).
Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 01:25, 21 May 2017 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 3 external links on List of countries by English-speaking population. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
{{
dead link}}
tag to
http://www.statssa.gov.za/Census2011/Products/Census_2011_Census_in_brief.pdfWhen you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
This message was posted before February 2018.
After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than
regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors
have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the
RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{
source check}}
(last update: 18 January 2022).
Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 19:54, 4 June 2017 (UTC)
Hello all, The Nauru Statistics read Percentage English Speakers 96.26 Eligible Pop: 10,300 Total English Speakers: 800 As First Language: 9500 I think the person who entered the numbers didn't realize what the "As First Language" box meant. It should be a fraction of the Total English Speakers box. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.254.1.152 ( talk) 07:39, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on List of countries by English-speaking population. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
This message was posted before February 2018.
After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than
regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors
have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the
RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{
source check}}
(last update: 18 January 2022).
Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 04:35, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
I cannot find yet the official results on abs.gov.au for the 2016 Census, but a third party has compiled numbers here: http://profile.id.com.au/australia/speaks-english?BMID=50&StartYear=2016 There has been an increase in the population, a decrease in the percentage of 'native' English speakers, and increase in 'non-native' speakers who report proficiency in English. So overall the number of English speakers has increased to 21,089,025. 60.240.207.146 ( talk) 00:14, 30 December 2017 (UTC)
The numbers for the Marshall Islands are contradictory. A population of 59000 cannot have 60000 English speakers. -- Danski454 ( talk) 21:33, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
The description of the map file
commons:File:Percentage of English speakers by country as of 2014.png lists the sources as:
" EF English Proficiency Index - A comprehensive ranking of countries by English skills", World Factbook CIA. Both of these sources have got nothing to do with the number of English language speakers in a country: EF lists the proficiency of English speakers not the number of speakers; CIA-WFB lists the population of countries, nothing about language. Its clear these aren't the map's sources and that the map is unreliable.
Seeing this I think the map should be removed from the article. Gotitbro ( talk) 10:13, 2 November 2018 (UTC)
Why on this list there are not many countries such like United Arab Emirates. Dubai has much more pagewatchers than Ghana it would be interesing see where United Arab Emirates are on this list. Dawid2009 ( talk) 09:32, 22 December 2018 (UTC)
It says Iraq has 11 million English speakers! Actually Iraqis speak either Arabic or Kurdish and there are other minor languages as well. The correct figure is probably less than 0.1% of the population.-- Kiatdd ( talk) 20:19, 14 November 2019 (UTC)
Kenya cencus were done recently and population is actually more than figures given Sk gitau ( talk) 16:19, 23 December 2019 (UTC)
I am very impressed! It is very good as what i was saying. This could help me move to a different country! Thanks! LuigiIsSuppreme989 ( talk) 19:09, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
Where is South Korea on this list? 2601:681:4302:D540:5DF1:97C6:CCCF:4BF7 ( talk) 09:56, 5 August 2021 (UTC)
this was supposed to be merged Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Geographical distribution of English speakers, there was a discussion with @ Interstellarity, Cthomas3, Newshunter12, Hzh, Coolabahapple, and FrankCesco26:, @ Subtropical-man: did the merge, but then undid it. Irtapil ( talk) 21:26, 21 September 2021 (UTC)
Additional research may be needed — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rivastons ( talk • contribs) 17:40, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
Indonesia is missing from the list. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2604:3D09:AB8A:E400:61D0:A083:8D3D:3CFD ( talk) 17:45, 5 November 2021 (UTC)
Please review yo statistics regarding english speakers in uganda.. i think we deserve a solid 80% or even more 197.239.5.154 ( talk) 19:46, 24 December 2021 (UTC)
Hi 2402:3A80:99E:19DF:0:6B:8900:E301 ( talk) 03:27, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
1. The map doesn't just contain the second language speakers, but also the foreign language speakers. 2. Austria 60-90%. Impossible. This number either comes from only Wienna and Graz, or mixed up with Australia. You can't even order in a restaurant in that country. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.104.167.198 ( talk) 10:36, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
the map featured at the top is terrible someone has to update it, it is coloured according to the old unreliable statistics we used to have on the page. Lets take a look at the problems. Nepal is coloured as if it as 60% english speakers, same as Pakistan. Iran is coloured as if it has 60% english speakers but there arent even any statistics for iran. — Preceding unsigned comment added by PreserveOurHistory ( talk • contribs) 09:32, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
As discussed on reddit there are several problems with the article. I removed the map after errors have been spotted and I couldn't find the source data for many countries. -- mfb ( talk) 15:02, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
The data for many of the countries is absolute bullcrap. I've been to Fiji and didn't meet anyone who didn't speak English, yet you're saying that only 19% of Fiji speaks English? Also, the majority of the population of most EU countries can speak English. I've been told that at least 60% of Poles can speak English and more than 80% of Germans can too. I even found a source that says almost 50% of Ukraine can speak English. I also have strong doubts about the stats for South Africa, almost everyone there can speak English. Please review this. Thiscouldbeauser ( talk) 05:04, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
no way india and soith africa should have almost the same color as china and russia. the whole map doesn't make sense. 213.55.220.134 ( talk) 16:34, 31 December 2022 (UTC)
The whole article is just a mess. Weird and unexplained numbers, unclear definitions of speakers and languages, unreliable sources or none at all (eg. the source cited is "Uganda Bureau of Statistics, yet there is no link to verify that). The article is not helpful at all and will leave the reader confused. I suggest the entire article is either deleted or completely rewritten.
If it were to be rewritten, there would need to be a definition for an English-speakers, as well as what varieties are included. Numbers and statistics would only be taken from reliable sources, preferably from governmental sources such as censuses. Additionally, citations are circular (see the statistics on Pakistan; one book cited actually reads "According to Wikipedia..."). Rather than having the mess of total speakers, native speakers, additional speakers and %, it should instead just have the percentage of each country's population that speaks English, both natively and as a second language. In this instance the Eurobarometer sources would make more sense and getting accurate sources would be helpful, as many countries just state how many of the adult population has proficiency in x language. Then the specification of the statistic as a sidenote (eg. percentage of people aged 15-64 who...).
Then there could be a separate section on the countries with the most native/total language speakers. This is done in many religion articles. This would leave out unnecessary information, no need to show that 2 people in y country speak English as their first language. They could be from a separate source than the one of the %, as long as it's consistent with itself and reliable. For the map, it is very confusing and contradictory, and is probably best just taken out of the article, considering the differences in sources and their years. Finlandestonia ( talk) 22:51, 13 January 2023 (UTC)
I just converted the following text in the article to a comment:
Before mistakenly correcting the percentage again, please note that there are fewer people aged 5 years or more in any country than there are people in that country, because some people are toddlers or infants. In other words, no, the numbers will not automatically add up. 63.71% is what the cited source, text above Figure 7 Archived 26 December 2013 at the Wayback Machine, a report from the 2000 census, really says. This multiplied by the 2010 census's total population over 5 produces the number in the chart. The 2010 number comes from Philippines in Figures, 2013, Chapter 5, Demography Archived 26 December 2013 at the Wayback Machine, table 5.1 or 5.6
I made this change for two reasons. Firstly, instructions for editors belong on the article's Talk page or in a comment, not in the body of the article itself as this was. Secondly, the author of this comment is deriving a number by combining a percentage from one source with a population figure from another source, which violates WP:SYNTH, specifically:
Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any source.
Stephen Hui ( talk) 06:30, 31 January 2023 (UTC)
Whaaaaattt????? 12qwas ( talk) 06:23, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
For some reason the page has been vandalized twice with like 80% of the countries removed for no reason. Don't know if it's racism or ignorance or just someone trying to be funny but please don't. Danielbunchie ( talk) 14:59, 18 August 2023 (UTC)
Where is Japan? Surakmath ( talk) 18:35, 29 December 2023 (UTC)
The figures are probably wrong for The Gambia. Juffermans state that 71% of the urban population speaks English ( https://orbilu.uni.lu/bitstream/10993/6601/1/Juffermans%202007%20If%20I%20don't%20learn%20English%20I'm%20going%20to%20suffer.pdf). Also schools are in English, except for Islamic Schools. Juffermans and McGlynn also state that "English is the official language in The Gambia and is widely spoken by young people, particularly in the urban areas" ( https://orbilu.uni.lu/bitstream/10993/6177/1/JUFFERMANS%20&%20McGLYNN%202009%20A%20sociolinguistic%20profile%20of%20The%20Gambia%20SS.pdf).