Talk:List of countries by English-speaking population/Archive 1

Data Overall Poor
The original data on this page was quite poor, overall. I checked the reference page from which it came and found that references were commonly from 20 years ago and in some cases over 40 years ago (India which some apparently think has more than 300 million speakers and was recorded there as having 10 million). I would not take this page too seriously at the moment getting it in shape will take some work.

None of the figures for the Caribbean countries are correct. Hairouna 05:01, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

USA
If somebody has time they might want to recheck this whole page -- even the very easy to get USA numbers originally posted were not very accurate. Firstly it should be pointed out that to my best guess these numbers are referring to the 2000 census of population over 5. If that is so then the first language speakers (answered "speak english in the home")at least are close to correct, but the information on those who speak english as a second language is off by many millions. Will change.

Hongkong
Where is Hong Kong? Answer: China. Should it be separately listed? --Van helsing 07:38, 6 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm not taking any position here on whether it should be separately listed, but we do mention the number of speakers in Hong Kong in China's source note. The uncertainty around the China figure is so large that Hong Kong makes no real difference. -- Avenue 01:27, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

India
If the added comment: ''25-30% of the population speak English as a second language for work or education purposes. English is actually understood by around 50% of the population.'' to India is true, then it will have a great impact on the currently stated number (11,021,610) of English speaking people in India. 300 million (25% of 1,192,225,812) would be more likely. At the moment the number and comment are contradicting, any reliable source for either of them? --Van helsing 13:42, 7 April 2006 (UTC)


 * That comment is long gone from the article. Our current figures are based on the 1991 Census. -- Avenue 01:29, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

India
There can't be NO first language English Speakers in India, if they've counted to the nearest ten people. Even if it's only a couple of hundred hippies that never found their way home and thier offspring.A Geek Tragedy 19:41, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
 * This has been addressed, using 1991 Census figures. -- Avenue 01:30, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

English speaking in China
Since passing College English Test is required for a bachelor's degree, I don't think China has such a tiny English speaking population.--Skyfiler 20:43, 5 May 2006 (UTC)


 * You're not alone. In a speech in Beijing last year, Gordon Brown said that "It is estimated that over 300 million Chinese people currently speak English." Can anyone track down a better source for this estimate?  -- Avenue 12:30, 5 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I've added a more dated estimate of 200-300 million users to the list for now. -- Avenue 12:35, 6 June 2006 (UTC)


 * As a Chinese, I don't think there are so many English speakers in China. There are maybe 200-300 million of English users (read/write) or learners. But I bet only a tiny fraction of them can "speak" fluent English. Sinolonghai 22:41, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Where is Europe?
Nobody in Europe outside of United Kingdom and Ireland speaks English as second language???

What is it? Some political correctness? Anglophobia? Reversed racism, that only third world people can be mentioned as speaking English? Anyway, this kind of information is utterly untrue. Warbola 14:55, 6 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I found a Eurobarometer report that gives percentages of non-native English speakers in each EU country, and I'm adding them to the list. -- Avenue 14:21, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Finished! -- Avenue 01:49, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Great work Avenue ! (on whole the article by-the-way). Thanks --Van helsing 11:07, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
 * The most interesting part is that more people in the UK and Ireland speak english as a first language than across the entire EU ... I guess Manx is more populated than I imagined. WilyD 13:00, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Good point. The Eurobarometer figure is only for people aged 15 or more, so that explains at least part of the difference. It might be better to use the total of the native speaker figures for the UK and Ireland (plus any other EU countries, once we have figures for them), so that the table doesn't contradict itself. -- Avenue 00:02, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Before I do what I said above, I'm looking for decent figures for Ireland. I don't trust the current ones - they seem at least 300,000 too high, allowing for roughly 200,000 deaf people, 100,000 Irish residents from non-English-speaking countries, and another 100,000 or so under 2 years of age. I'm not clear whether the 80,000 figure is meant to include native Shelta speakers as well as Irish either. Does anyone have sourced figures we can use? -- Avenue 02:09, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Apparently I put the 80,000 in on 6 April 2006. The 80,000 came from the Irish language article which stated (back then): “80,000 people has been quoted as the number of people in the Gaeltacht who use the language as their first, daily language.” Those people will probably say: English is my second language. Which doesn’t make it necessarily true of course, maybe only closer to it, but still a guess.
 * The 4 mil. plus, comes from the Ireland population --Van helsing 08:33, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
 * PS. Everything before that edit was a straight (sourced) copy from Ethnologue


 * I've put in Crystal's figures for Ireland. They're a bit lower than what we had before, but seem reasonable to me. By the way, the 200,000 figure I gave for Irish deaf people above seems to be far too high; I think it included hard of hearing people as well. -- Avenue 03:51, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Alternative figures
I know this is a bit dated (1996), but it's interesting to compare the figures in Table 1 in this article with those in our list. Most of them are much higher than what we have. -- Avenue 12:42, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Cook Islands
I doubt there are only 683 English-speakers in the Cook Islands. Until 2003, it was the country's only official language, and there's a population of about 18,000. Where did the figure of 683 come from? Aridd 13:36, 7 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Like many of the figures here, it comes from Ethnologue. They got the Cook Islands figure from a 1966 UN report, so the figure is very out of date (again, like many of the figures here). English is widely spoken in the Cooks, especially on Rarotonga, so the true figure would be much higher. -- Avenue 15:34, 7 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I've used Crystal's figures, which total 4,000 English speakers. This still seems surprisingly low to me, but I'm no expert. -- Avenue 12:07, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

The same is true for Seychelles and Mauritius (and for many other countries). The figures used are really out of date. RajivShah 11:33, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

I hope
I hope this is supposed to be citizens who speak English as their native tongue, because if not, the data is completely useless. Joffeloff 21:18, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Many people speak English, better than you and I do, yet English is not their "native tongue". I am sad to say, but your reasoning is flawed. --Ezeu 03:04, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
 * What do you mean? I meant that if this list is supposed to portray all people that speak english, both second language and native tongue, it's factually crippled. What did you think I meant? That native speakers of English are 'superior' to locals? That's not what I meant. I was discussing this Wikipedia article, not the subject matter it itself is discussing. Joffeloff 12:24, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure from your comment how you think the article should be improved. Do we need to make it clearer that non-native speakers are included? Or are you suggesting that we need to warn people about the quality of the data on second language speakers? -- Avenue 12:57, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm saying that the list should clarify what sort of English speakers it is discussing. Joffeloff 13:21, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I have expanded the introduction to explain this more fully, and added a caution about the quality of second language data as well. -- Avenue 04:41, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

As a Foreign language
Is there some academic reason for choosing this term? A Canadian Francophone who speaks English isn't speaking it as a foreign language. It's a second language, sure, but not foreign. WilyD 12:45, 22 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Good point. And some people object to second language because it easily be someone's third or fourth. Is "non-native" too clumsy? -- Avenue 15:02, 22 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Okay, I see that. I hear ESL classes are now oft refered to as English as an Additional Language classes - I'll see what else I can dig up. WilyD 15:48, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

This page should be removed
it is quite misleading. school children may actually believe some of the nonsense on it.
 * Thanks for your insight - please feel to nominate it for deletion if you want. WilyD 02:27, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Australia
According to this article less than 80% of Australians speak English. That has to be incorrect. 62.31.55.223 13:07, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Looks like someone needs to find data for second language english speakers in Australia. In general, the most problematic ones are the ones without sources - i.e. Britain is woefully out of date, but at least it's labelled as such.  Some are the best available - i.e. Canada, where the short census is Gender + What language do you speak. WilyD 13:15, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I've dug up the 2001 Census figures, and added them to the article. -- Avenue 14:43, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

English creoles
What should we do about countries where an English creole is spoken? I understand there can be a huge range of speech patterns within a country, from people who would not be intelligible to most native English speakers through to people who can speak with hardly an accent. So counting who speaks "English" could be very subjective. I'm tempted to use figures that include all English creole speakers (where available) but discuss this issue above the table, and have a note on each row it affects. (This is the approach taken by Crystal 2005 - see our article for the reference.) -- Avenue 12:27, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

The Philippines
According to the 1995 Britannica Encyclopedia, there are more English speakers in the Philippines than in India. Even though the data seem to be old, it would be impossible that Indian english-speakers would balloon into the figure shown at present. The same idea also goes for China. Isn't it that China is virtually an English illiterate nation? I also doubt that only 20.000 Filipinos use English as a primary language. If that figure was for Spanish, it would have been more believable.--Fifteencounts 12:51, 26 August 2006 (UTC)


 * How about telling us what the Britannica figures are? If you have another source for the number of native speakers of English in the Philippines, we could use that instead of Crystal's figure. I agree that the figures for both India and China are problematic. We should probably give a range of estimates for both. -- Avenue 10:29, 14 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Filipinos, apart perhaps from those 20,000 stated, do not speak nor understand English as a primary language. If that were the case, one wouldn't have to be forced to speak slower, use simpler words, and use only the five Tagalog vowel sounds in one's speech when conversing with even educated Filipinos. Not to say that it is wrong not to be well-versed in English (just look at Europe or Japan), only that this dear country of ours should stop priding itself over delusions that it is an English-speaking country in the truest sense--and the 3rd-largest in the world, at that. 210.213.184.10 04:51, 26 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I disagree with your statements that Filipinos do not speak nor understand English as a primary language. don't speak, yes maybe, but don't understand?--well, Filipinos are bombarded by English words and phrases even before birth. By the time they reach kindergarten, Filipinos are drilled on the American pronunciation of English words...and this anglicization continues to adulthood. Refer to Philippine English. Also the figure in the list needs to be updated, the present population of the country is more than 85 million.

Hey, I found the Britannica Statistics. I'm quoting figures from the 1995 Britannica Book of the Year: Events of 1994 Encyclopedia, Comparative National Statistics section, pages 778-782. India's English speaking population stands at 30,310,000. For the Philippines, it stands at 36,000,000, just behind United States' 224,900,000 and UK's 56,830,000. Anyway, can anyone clarify the difference between English speakers and English users? Isn't it that this table is for speakers and not for mere users?--Fifteencounts 02:04, 3 December 2006 (UTC)


 * The table is about people who know how to speak English. It does not refer to people who speak English always.--23prootie 23:32, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

National Language
Can someone explain what this means? Specifically, how English is a national language of India, but not Canada, for example? WilyD 18:47, 12 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Good question. The national and official language columns were added without any explanation by 212.102.225.147 (aka Van helsing?) back in March, when they switched to Ethnologue figures. I'd be happy to drop them, since the official language information is duplicated at List of countries where English is an official language and they seem a bit tangential. -- Avenue 10:51, 14 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Our national language article states that English is a national language of Canada. Perhaps the national language column really means "National language but not an official language", since there seems to be no overlap between the two columns. -- Avenue 11:53, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, this is why I'm unclear. English and French are both official languages of Canada, stuck into the constitution with glue or something.  It's also a national language in the sense that most Canadians speak english (and the majority as their first language).  If both were *'d I would've guessed national meant Widely spoken and official meant somehow government sanctioned - but trying to reconcile India (where english is an official language, not spoken by the majority and listed as a national language) and Canada (where english is an official language, spoken by the majority and listed as an official language) has thus far proved impossible for me.  The national language article specifically says nations, not countries for that so that doesn't help much either. WilyD 13:19, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

First language/Second language
To make the table less controversial, how about removing the first and second language sections. I mean, is there a way in which we could precisely determine these figures?23prootie 06:42, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Typically, it's exactly word for word from the census. Which means it's "as reliable" as whether they speak english at all. WilyD 13:38, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

China
Are there really that many speakers? Does those figure correspond to the population of Hong Kong?--Jondel 06:42, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Unless this was a study based on who can say "Hello" in English, China does not come remotely close to that number. It should be ranked near bottom.  Hong Kong should be a separate entry with a near 40% rate even at a high level.  Benjwong 05:40, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

India's Totals
The number of english speakers as a first language and english speakers as a second language does not add up to equal the number of english speakers.

(first language)178,000 + (second language)350,000 = 350,000

or something like that. Is this data accurate? 67.176.141.168
 * Actually, the total (350.000.000) and first language (178.600) are sourced, making the as an additional language a simple calculation but a bit WP:OR (349.821.400). Maybe we should leave that one empty. --Van helsing 11:05, 26 October 2006 (UTC)


 * It actually has 350,000,000+178,598=350,000,000. Which given that the first figure is (presumably) rounded is (sort of) true. There's some merit to the OR thing though. People can do the sum themselves after all. A Geek Tragedy 14:08, 4 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't see what's OR about it. According to WP:OR: "Editors may make straightforward mathematical calculations or logical deductions based on fully attributed data that neither change the significance of the data nor require additional assumptions beyond what is in the source." Subtraction is pretty straightforward. Having said that, I don't object to leaving the additional language cell for India empty, on the basis that the fact that it and the total speakers figure are identical after rounding would probably confuse some readers, and it's easy enough for readers to do the calculation themselves. -- Avenue 07:52, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
 * This edit after this one indeed confused me a bit. Let’s go for the empty additional language cell than. As you showed, simple calculation is okay. --Van helsing 11:13, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, simple calculation is okay, but we also need to round the result to the same precision as the least accurate of the inputs, i.e. 350,000,000 - 178,598 = 350,000,000 (349 821 400 to the nearest 10 million or so), as A Geek Tragedy said above (and as WilyD implied in his reversion of your earlier edit). I don't know of a guideline specifically addressing this point, but the seventh bullet point under MOS:NUM shares the same spirit. -- Avenue 12:28, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Understand all points, but am in a bit of a deadlock on what the best way of putting the information forward is:
 * 1. Rounding to the least precise input value gives a counterintuitive summation (350,000,000-178,598=350,000,000)
 * 2. Accurate summation gives an impression of precision that doen’t exist (350,000,000-178,598=349,821,402)
 * 3. Leaving the additional language field empty because the reader can do it themselves is… well, why don’t we do it for them, if they can simply do it themselves?
 * What’s the best way to go here? --Van helsing 12:59, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Option (2) misleads about the accuracy of the result, so that's the worst option. Option (1) will confuse some readers, and might lead to extra work educating them or reverting hair-trigger edits, but it is the most informative. Option (3) is less informative than (1), but it's pretty easy for the reader to do the same calculation themselves if they want. I'd lean towards option (1), but I don't really mind option (3) if others prefer that.
 * I have gone with option (3) in the past, for Canada and New Zealand, due to their figures not covering all native speakers. This is a slightly different situation, although after reading the sources again, I've noticed Crystal gives the 350 million figure as only a lower bound on the total number of speakers in India (so maybe it's not that different after all). I'll indicate this in the table. -- Avenue 00:16, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Agree, thanks. --Van helsing 08:15, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Liberia?
English is Liberia's official language (and they have their own dialect, Liberian English), yet this table states that just under 70,000 people in Liberia speak English when it is a country with over 3.2 million people; thus, something is definitely wrong here. This table is clearly wrong in regards to Liberia's stats. --172.131.131.220 11:32, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Please feel free to find a more up to date or reliable source for Liberia - but do note it is common for an official language not to be spoken by very much of the population. WilyD 15:16, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Nigeria & Israel
—Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.112.134.90 (talk • contribs)
 * The number of English speakers in Nigeria is in the tens of millions, not only one million.
 * At least one quarter of Israel can speak English well.
 * We could add that info when we have a source; do you have one? --Van helsing 09:52, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Trinadad and Tobago
The list shows only a few thousand English speakers but its the offical language and "virtually everyone speaks English" as referenced from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinidad_and_Tobago --bartj 19:39, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Official and National languages in India and US
India and United states does not have English as national language. India has English as an official language as apparent from here. US doesn't even recognize English as an official language at federal level. English is just the de facto official language of US as evident here. Gnanapiti 19:53, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
 * National in this context does not mean official - I'm not even sure it means anything WilyD 20:33, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
 * If that is the case, I suggest removing "National language" column from this article. Placing English in the "national language" column changes the whole meaning of status of a language. Constituition of India doesn't recognize any language as "national language", which can be seen here. English is just the de facto official language in US and by no means a national language, as here.Gnanapiti 21:28, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I would have no problem with removal of the National Language column, or even both columns. They're unsourced, unclear and as far as I can tell unuseful. WilyD 21:33, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree completely. Let's get rid of both columns. We already link to List of countries where English is an official language in the See also section, so the information in that column is just a click away if any readers want it. -- Avenue 23:27, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
 * The two columns are a leftover of the original source used for this article: ethnologue.com, note the ”Language use” entry for each country: National or Official. We could use ethnologue as source if we would want to keep the columns, or remove the columns (with which I would not have a problem at all). --Van helsing 08:29, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Whatever happened to this discussion? National language and Official language columns carry no meanings at all and look strange in an otherwise decent article.Gnanapiti 04:42, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Well… I would say that the discussion goes in the direction of a consensus (build in 3 days) to remove the columns, pretty quick actually for wiki standards :) --Van helsing 12:06, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Population, CIA Factbook ?
I wish to add total population, and use CIA Factbook ( https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/ ) as source. What do you think on it ? Unregistered but somewhat active user.

Argentina discrepancy
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)

Discrepancy?
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)

Where is Japan?
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)

Countries missing
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)


 * Angola 伟思礼 (talk) 00:57, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

Here are some Numbers for India:
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.
 * Read it entirely. You'll find it is around 4%.

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!!!
 * The final number of English speakers in India may be of 49.035.915.

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:
 * Population number is: 190.732.694 ( http://www.ibge.gov.br/english/presidencia/noticias/noticia_visualiza.php?id_noticia=1766&id_pagina=1 )
 * English speakers: 5,29%
 * Total English speakers in Brazil: 10.089.759

--

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)

Lebanon?
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)

Where are the middle east countries?
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)

By Percent?
Wouldn't it be better if it were sorted by percent rather than total number of people?
 * I agree, but I also think that density of english-speaking population would also be useful. The question as to whether the density or the percentage is better was posed on the bottom of this talk page.  I think that both should be implemented even if a new article must be created to do so.—User:r1ngu  —Preceding undated comment was added at 01:57, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Total population?
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)

EU in lists
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)

UPDATE!
This section needs an update; Philippines has a bigger population now and the Census was way back in 1995.

India's Exaggerated (Tripled) Numbers
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."
 * I fail to see how this would be possible ow this would be possible. Since most English speakers in India have learned the language and not picked it up, even if 100% of Indian children and teenagers were going to school in the 1990s (and we know that was hardly the case) and all were learning English, it wouldn't account for a jump from 5% of the population in the 80s to 33% in the 90s.
 * In reality the statistic is even more startling: according to the 2001 Census of India, only 64.8% of the population was literate in any language. This means that in excess of 50% of the literate population was able to use English.
 * While we are on the subject of numbers from the last Census of India (2001), some other numbers don't jibe with Crystal or India Today's numbers: The 2001 Census reports that a full 31.6% of the workers in India are cultivators, and another 26.5% are agricultural laborers, another 4.2% household industry workers, and finally the remaining 37.2%, "other workers." Since the cultivators and agricultural laborers live in rural India (which is not the bastion of English speakers) and account for 60% of the population, is it being suggested that the remaining 37.2 "other workers" and their families all speak English?  Given that the "other workers" include, for example, the vast number of merchants and laborers of small-town India, which unlike their counterparts in big cities, don't speak English in great numbers, it is even more surprising.
 * Besides David Crystal is loose with his other statistics. If the population of India were increasing at the rate of 3% per annum, we would be seeing major famines.  The population of India never touched the 3% per year mark during the entire 20th century.  Here are the statistics of the rate of population growth for the 20th century from the Census of India official website.  (The rates are decadal, so you (more or less) have to divide by 10 to get the yearly rate of growth).  As you can see, around the time Crystal was writing his book, the rate was more like 2%.  That may not seem like much of a difference, but when there are a billion people, a difference of 1% is 10 million per year.  If Crystal is so off-base for his population rate numbers, why should we believe his English speakers numbers?
 * The only source that seems half-way reliable, is the Siemens report, which gave the numbers to be 64.6 million (English as a second language speakers) and 25.4 million (English as a third language speakers).

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&amp;fowler  «Talk»  22:32, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Some sources that might be more reliable:
 * From the Census of India's eCensusIndia, Issue 10, 2003, pp 8-10, (Feature: Languages of West Bengal in Census and Surveys, Bilingualism and Trilingualism).  In the state of West Bengal, where the literacy rate is 4% points higher than the Indian national average, the total number of English as second language (or third language) speakers (based on the 1991 Census figures) were 8% of the population.  The total population was approximately 67 million and of these approximately 5,600,000 spoke English as a second or third language.   The Government of India census statistics are very rigorous.  (India has had a long tradition of both superb statistical institutions, like the Indian Statistical Institute, and superb statisticians like P. C. Mahalanobis and C. R. Rao, who while not necessarily involved in census statistics, nonetheless set a standard of rigor for such statistics.) If those statistics give a number of 8% for the state of West Bengal, where the numbers are higher than the national average, why are we believing a rag like India Today which stands exactly halfway between Time Magazine and People's Magazine, in reliability and rigor (and Time itself is no paragon).   Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  01:39, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
 * The TESOL-India (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages)] site India: World's Second Largest English-Speaking Country specifically addresses this article and explains the difference between the 350 million number mentioned on this Wikpidedia page and the more plausible 100 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&amp;fowler  «Talk»  10:57, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
 * From "India." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 15 Aug. 2007  India: The lingua francas:  "English, a remnant of British colonial rule, is the most widely used lingua franca. It is, however, claimed as the mother tongue by only a small number of Indians and is spoken fluently by less than 5 percent of the population."

-- 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)


 * Yeah this page can get very ridiculous. I remember it saying that Pakistan had 52% before like wtf who is making these changes PreserveOurHistory (talk) 09:30, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Needs an update
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!

Have started the update
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&amp;fowler «Talk»  22:58, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Some questions:
 * As far as I am aware, Nigerian Pidgin English, is not a dialect of English. Does someone have numbers for speakers of Nigerian Standard English?  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  12:53, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Information sourcing, verifiability, reliability
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 like the idea of a bot updated footnote. Haven't read the discussion on WT:V and WP:V.  Will do so when I can find some time.  Thanks for initiating this discussion.  Regards,   Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  05:08, 11 September 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)

Reliability of supporting sources for recent changes
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)
 * You did right to revert. Please see my post above here.  The previous statistics for India and China were not accurate (as I explain there).   Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  05:02, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Nigeria's Pidgin English
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)
 * How different is it from standard English, considering the other groups we call "English speakers"? Wily D 13:11, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
 * As far as I am aware (and I'm sure I could find a reliable reference for this) Nigerian Pidgin is not a dialect of standard English.  The numbers of speakers of Nigerian Standard English is less than 500 thousand, but I haven't been able to find a good source for it yet.  See my query about it above.   Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  05:12, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Does anybody really believe that there are more native speakers of English in Nigeria than there are in Ireland? "English as a first language, however, remains an exclusive preserve of a small minority of the country's urban elite, and is not spoken at all in some rural areas." The numbers are also suspiciously round. RandomCritic 19:45, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
 * The comment in the table for Nigeria does say, "Figures are for speakers of Nigerian Pidgin.", a source for the figures is cited in the comment (per WP:V), the cited supporting source does support the figures and does appear to be a reliable source. There may or may not be a valid argument to be made on either side of the question, "Should speakers of Nigerian Pidgin should be considered part of Nigeria's English-speaking population?" -- Boracay Bill 00:36, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
 * First of all, that note is _not_ present in the "List in order of native speakers", which simply and without comment claims that there are four million native speakers of English in Nigeria. This is not true.  Second, the source cited is quite clear in referring to Nigerian Pidgin, as used by its native speakers, as a creole -- that is, an independent language wholly distinct from English, with its own grammar and vocabulary, as distinct from English as Kreyol is from French.  The argument not only "may or may not be... made" that the speakers of NP should not be enumerated among English speakers, but is correct and should prevail. RandomCritic 18:08, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
 * This article is on my watchlist and I do keep an eye on it (hence this exchange), but I don't consider myself a primary contributer to it. Nevertheless, following WP:BB, I have removed the Rank column from the first table, made the table sortable by column, and removedthe second table entirely. I have also added a footnote to the table with a disclaimer about Nigerian pidgin. If there is strong feeling among watchers of this page that I have been too bold here, please revert the change and add a note to the second table that the data presented there comes from the source identified in the first table. -- Boracay Bill 02:11, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I have reverted your edit. Ordering them according to rank, but (simply) not mentioning the rank, doesn't make much sense to me; in addition, it creates the potential for more trouble down the road, if people (for reasons unbeknownst) decide to change ranks or introduce new countries in the table.  This page has been riven in the past by edits motivated both by nationalism and by "one book expertise,"  (i.e. based on someone reading one book, and then footnoting it everywhere.)   It needs more constraints (like the rank column), not less.  Similarly, the native speakers table is important.  In addition to providing information, it serves as a touchstone for some healthy skepticism with regards the first list.   Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  11:09, 24 September 2007 (UTC)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fowler&fowler (talk • contribs)

Native speakers in Germany & other non-ES nations
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)
 * I suspect that what we actually have for Germany is the number of citizens of predominantly English-speaking countries (the UK, Ireland, Canada, the US, Australia, New Zealand) registered in Germany, and that we are extrapolating from that the number of native English speakers. Since other countries aren't as obsessive about keeping track of who lives in them as Germany is, we're unlikely to have those statistics for other countries. —Angr 15:10, 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)

Unranked EU entry
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:
 * a) Country like characteristics: Common market, common policies, common institutions, bodies, agencies, common EU legislation, a single budget financing projects in all member states. Its own budget to fund common programmes such as the European Union's programmes in agriculture, research and education. A common fund for trans-country infrastructure projects and for regional development. Election every 5 years and a European parliament as well as a EU court of justice, common currency Euro, EU-Day (holiday), EU-Licenseplate, EU-Anthem, EU-Citizenship, Schengen agreement, one representation of all 27 member states in WTO, Permanent G8 participant, Permanent UN observer. Common Policy Examples in the city of Berlin: The EU is financing infrastructure, education, social projects etc. In official press conferences and gatherings the national flag stands next to the EU flag.
 * b) already ranked in several other media and statistics like CIA WorldFactBook, IMF data sheet, Wikipedia List of countries by GDP (PPP) etc.
 * c) The significant degree of integrated policies leads to the necessity of the inclusion for comparative reasons. Because of the sui generis status, the 27 member states will remain as single entry and the EU becomes unranked.
 * d) Note that the inclusion of the EU is granted to its advanced sui generis status and can not advocate the inclusion of Opec, Nato, African Union, UN, Commonwealth, Arab League, Mercosur, NAFTA, ASEAN and others. The degree of a state-like-entity and its characteristics make this a singular case.

Lear 21 (talk) 19:08, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
 * The result of the the discussion you linked to was inconclusive. Please stop adding the EU to this list. This particular comment there is very telling: Perhaps if Lear would like to vandalise the pages again it might get people back. Otherwise there is no conclusion that can be drawn, except we disagree. - BillCJ (talk) 19:41, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
 * How about giving a nod to the EU like so in the lead in text:


 * 🇪🇺 The European Union is a sui generis supranational and intergovernmental political body. The entity is composed of 27 member states. The total english speaking population of the territories of the 27 member states is 229,850,000 including 61,850,000 native speakers and 168,000,000 non 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.
 * Zebulin (talk) 23:57, 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)
 * I don't know what to say. This is the first time I've seen a no-consensus discussion with no outcome used to enforce a POV. It's obvious all you will do is revert war to get your way, and I've no inclination to endure an RFC or ARBCOM against you right now. I'll drop it here for now, but in no way I am conceeding to any of your points. - BillCJ (talk) 23:19, 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)
 * I've commented at Talk:European Union/inclusion in lists of countries. Additionally, I'll remark that there's a similar discussion going on at Talk:List of countries and outlying territories by total area which mentions the CIA World Fact Book: Preliminary statement on EU entry, which gives the Factbook's rationale for including an EU entry in their list of countries. I'm not saying that this article should (or should not) necessarily follow their rationale, but it's something to consider.
 * Also, I'm a bit confused by


 * I don't have access to Crystal (2005) and cannot check page 109 of that (though "UK and Ireland total" does make me wonder about it). I have checked Eurobarometer survey, and I can't find a figure in there for the number of First-language English speakers (I probably missed finding a figure which is in there somewhere). It does say that 38% of EUers listed English as a non-mother-tongue language known well enough to have a conversation. The CIA Factbook puts the EU population at 490,426,060, and original research computations based on that suggest that about (490,426,060 * 0.38 =) 186,361,903 EUers speak English in addition to a non-English mother tongue. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 01:17, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

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 inclusion of pidgin and creole varieties complicates the issue
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

Gordon Brown
Does he really know how many people speak English in China?--200.138.43.245 (talk) 01:08, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Of course not. Some speech writer who hurriedly grabbed a sentence from David Crystal's outdated (and highly inaccurate) book.

See my discussion India's exaggerated numbers above.
 * This issue (and specifically this Wikipedia article) has been addressed by the organization, TESOL-India (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages)] site India: World's Second Largest English-Speaking Country. Their web site explains the difference between the 350 million number mentioned on this Wikpidedia page and the more plausible 100 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."
 * Here is also the article "India." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2008. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 20 February 2008  India: The lingua francas:  "English, a remnant of British colonial rule, is the most widely used lingua franca. It is, however, claimed as the mother tongue by only a small number of Indians and is spoken fluently by less than 5 percent of the population."
 * I am reverting the edits by the IP editor to the last stable version of this article. Regards,  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  09:14, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

UPDATE!!!
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
 * This should be updated when there is a reliable source of verifiable information to support the updated figure. The source cited in support of the current figure is supported by data from the Philippine census of 2000. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 02:34, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Map Colours?
Thoughts?
 * It is hard to believe that China (with a larger population than India's) and with no history of British rule (unlike India's 200 years) can have a higher percentage of English speakers. It is actually not even close.  Same with Russia.   Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  23:11, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
 * PS It is probably best to include only countries that have some history of English use, where English has at least served as a lingua franca; otherwise, the comparisons, such as of Spain with South Africa, really don't provide much real information.    Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  23:22, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Err, the data for Russia is probably pretty good, and it has 4.8% of Russians with knowledge of English, compared to 8% of Indians. You can view the 2002 Russian census here: .  The Chinese data might be a little generous, but the source is solid - maybe a better thought is that the India data is a little stricter in terms of "who speaks English", but its the best I've found.  If you know of better data, please provide it.
 * Beyond that, you'll need to elaborate on your second comment for me to make any sense of it. Wily D  00:18, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Hi there, This page is about English speakers, not English users; see my post(s) above explaining the difference. China for example might have 350 million English users (for example, in David Crystal's highly optimistic estimates), but only a few (less than 10) million speakers.
 * I guess what I meant in my PS was that I don't see the value of comparing (a) countries with English-speaking traditions (like Canada, South Africa, Nigeria, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Trinidad, Jamaica, ..., where English is an official language) with (b) countries that have only recently (last 50 years) started teaching English as a foreign language and where English is not an official language (or even a language of limited everyday use).  Spain and South  Africa, for example, might show similar percentages in your map, but as anyone who has been to Spain and South Africa knows, there is no comparison between the two countries when it comes to the prevalence, cultural-value, and standards of English.  South Africa has produced two Nobel laureates in English Nadine Gordimer and Whatshisname and many internationally known writers; Spain, on the other hand, has no literature in English.  Same with India and China: India has produced one Nobel laureate  Rabindranath Tagore, who wrote in Bengali, but translated his works himself into English, and in addition many internationally known English novelists Salman Rushdie, R. K. Narayan, Mulk Raj Anand, Arundhati Roy, Anita Desai, Kiran Desai, Ruth Prawer Jhabwala, ... ; China has nothing.
 * Not only are the comparisons between (a) and (b) not very informative as comparisons, but they will likely be inaccurate because the standards of determining who is an English speaker will be wildly different between groups (a) and (b). That's why, in my opinion, it is best to have different maps for groups (a) and (b).   Regards,  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  12:56, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Monolingual Americans wanting to retire elsewhere might indeed be interested in how many English speakers they can expect to find in a potential destination whether or not there is a "tradition." I have been compiling information on various countries (in a format unsuitable for Wikipedia), and I find that for many countries, this article, as bad as it is, is the only place I can find that attempts to answer the question. 伟思礼 (talk) 15:34, 7 June 2023 (UTC)



Is Nigerian Pidgin really English?
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)
 * I don't really agree. I'm an Arabic learner who sees how widely different Arabic dialects can be from each other, but the only way to treat Arabic is as a single "macrolanguage". (I've been learning for 5 years now and have lived in the Arab world, and the differences are very, very strong.)  I think the same should be done for English.  I haven't been to Nigeria, but I understand Fela Kuti just fine... There are some different words like "yansh" for "ass" or "quench" for "die", and yes the grammar is different, but I find it intelligible. Agh.niyya (talk) 04:08, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
 * ^ Well, the relationship between Arabic dialects is not really comparable to the relationship between English and a creole lexified by English. The relationship between English and Nigerian Pidgin is probably more analogous to the relationship between Old French and Middle English. That is to say, no genetic relationship whatsoever. Nigerian Pidgin doesn't seem to be well studied. But its classificiation as a creole is sturdy, and a creole, by definition, is not classified in the family of its lexifier. The prototypical pidgin simply borrows words from its lexifier, not morphology. That's not to say it couldn't, but I don't think that would constitute classification as English. Of course, even if it did inherit morphology from English, that wouldn't classify it as English. Because English is not a language family, it's a language. So at best it would be classified as an English dialect. But it's nowhere near morphologically similar enough to any English dialect to be called an English dialect. So for it to be classified under or adjacent to, say, British English, English would need to be elevated into a language family. Which might happen eventually but we're definitely not there yet.Aminomancer (talk) 08:29, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Supporting sources for population figures
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)

Percentage or Density?
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)

Density again
Like this?
 * I see that the image description says "Log density of anglophones". To quote from the Logarithmic scale article, "Presentation of data on a logarithmic scale can be helpful when the data covers a large range of values – the logarithm reduces this to a more manageable range." For a range of 0 to 1 (e.g., density), a linear scale is probably more appropriate, more informative, and less misleading (see the quantiles 0, 0.25, 0.5 0.75, & 1.0 on the log scale graph on page 17 here). Beware of misuse of statistics; it is all too easy to unintentionally create a false impression with a dramatic graphic.  Also, mention in the image description of the source of the data being illustrated would be useful&mdash;and might be necessary to avoid a fact challenge. If someone has the time and interest to do the work, a density chart on a linear scale for English alone and/or for English in comparison to other languages (differentiated by color? in an animated gif slideshow similar to the image here?) would probably be useful. A dot map similar to this showing number of speakers by location would probably also be useful if the data on which to base such a map is available from a reliable source. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 22:52, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
 * The data sources are all listed here: Image talk:KnowledgeOfEnglishPercentOfPopulationWithSubdivisions.PNG and Image talk:PercentageOfThePopulationWhoSpeakEnglishAsTheirMotherTongue.PNG. I will say that without a log scale, I find the density data just looks like black, with a few values picked out (i.e. you see Washington D.C. and a few cities, but that's essentially all.  This density goes from something like 10^(-5) - 10^3, hence the choice of logarythmic plotting.  I haven't been able to find more finely resolved speaker data than what's plotted here - if you have it, I'm interested in seeing it.  Anyways, I also have the "percent that speak english, percent native English speakers" [[Image:KnowledgeOfEnglishPercentOfPopulationWithSubdivisions.PNG|right|thumb]]prepared. [[Image:PercentageOfThePopulationWhoSpeakEnglishAsTheirMotherTongue.PNG|left|thumb]]
 * U.S. state-by-state data from Census 2000 is here. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 06:56, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I used http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/c2kbr-29.pdf for state by sate data - seemed like a very reasonable source to me. I also have provincial and territorial data in Canada, State-by-state in South Africa and Territorial and State data for Australia.  Constituant Country data for the UK or regions of New Zealand - here levels are high enough that you might see much.  A lot more data would be nice for "knowledge of English", but very little of that just seems to be available. Wily D  10:33, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Reacting to your edit summary ("Eh?") I'm not trying to pick a fight here, just trying to provide what I hope might be useful responses. I'm not an expert in this area and I probably have fewer available research facilities than you (I'm located on Boracay island in the Philippines). If my responses are not useful to you, feel free to ignore them. BTW, re the particular .xls .pdf files mentioned, my recollection without looking at those files again is that they're alternative presentation formats for the same data. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 01:22, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Probably access to data is not what I'm looking for, although "ability to read data not written in English" would be a huge asset - I can halfway muddle through French language data, and am otherwise stuck with only English. Someone who could read census data from Spanish speaking countries not published in English would be a huge asset.  But also, I mean, as the person creating these maps, are they badly laid out?  Unclear?  I'm colour-blind (actually, I have anomolous three colour vision, but I digress) so my choice of colours might be terrible ... these are all definite problems I have. Wily D  03:15, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

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)
 * OK. Looking at the maps above using black & yellow I had the belated realization that (I think) population density differences mask any significant impression I might take from the maps about english-speakers as a fraction of the population, or about english-speakers vs. non-english-speakers. I think it would be more useful to show shadings indicating the ratio of english-speakers to non-english speakers for particular areas. That's what you've done with the red-blue maps&mdash;I like those, but the colors don't work well for me (I've got good color vision - always fly through color-vision tests with a 100% score). I think the black-yellow shadings for 0%-100% would work better. Also, for the US, please note the section below this one&mdash; note the pretty significant difference between 82.44%, 89.33%, and 95.8%, depending on the answer to the question, "percentage of what?". Also, significant changes would be produced by choosing other gatings (e.g., age 18+ vs. age 5+ vs. any age, or an english speaker gating threshold of "very well" vs. a threshold of "well" or "very well". -- Boracay Bill (talk) 05:00, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
 * The percentage plots are linear, only the density plots are logarythmic - this is a necessary case, I think. I've tried making the opposites and they're utterly unreadable shit, as far as I can see.  Linear density means you see 5 or 6 tiny dots of English speakers, which're just consequences of the district size plotted (i.e. they're Washington, D.C., Gibraltar, maybe Singapore, and so forth).  I can try a different colour choise for the percentage plots.  For the U.S. data, I get a "surveyed population" with "number that speak English".  There's probably some minimum age threshold, but I think it's reflective of the number of English speakers vs. total number elidgible under thesurvey's terms, which seems the most reasonable way to go (Most American states are ~99% knowledge of English and 95+% native English, which seems more representative).  The "Knowledge of English" might not have a consistant threshold, which is problematic, but it's mostly gray anyways, I'm not sure it's terribly useful at this time. Wily D  10:42, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I swapped out the colours on the mother tongue percentage - my own impression is that it's absolute shit - South Africa is a total nonentity in the English language world, and Alaska is more prominent than California or New York - this does not seem to represent "English speaking population". Denisty of Anglophones, neglecting all others, seems a much more reasonable represetation to me. Wily D  14:55, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

U.S. figures
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)
 * Shouldnt the same thing apply to India too ? The English speakers number is from 1991 census data, when India's population was 821 million not 1132 million. So the percent of English speakers would be 10.9 %. I am invariant under co-ordinate transformations (talk) 16:36, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
 * If the situation is as you describe it, Yes. See WP:SYNTH: "Editors should not make the mistake of thinking that if A is published by a reliable source, and B is published by a reliable source, then A and B can be joined together in an article to come to the conclusion C." -- Boracay Bill (talk) 22:28, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Percentages. How are they being computed?
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&amp;fowler «Talk»  20:22, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
 * A couple of pretty random examples:


 * I took a quick look at the 2006 Eurobarometer survey, and could not find support for those figures for Hungary in that source.
 * The supplied link to the supporting source for Israel points to a page which says, in part, "[eng] 100,000 in Israel (1993).  Alternate names: Anglit.  Classification: Indo-European, Germanic, West, English "
 * -- Boracay Bill (talk) 23:00, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Read WP:OR before trying to enforce it. It's not original research without some kind of synthesis.  Straightforward transformations which cannot be honestly disputed (i.e. if a source says 1.01 parsecs I can write 3.29 lightyears and it's not original research).  The sources I've used are all listed on the image pages. Wily D  19:39, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
 * OR says, "This includes unpublished facts, arguments, speculation, and ideas; and any unpublished analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to advance a position, ..." OR can include SYNTH, but OR is not limited to cases which include SYNTH. In re the examples above I see no support for the claimed 7,303,000 population of Israel, nor do I recall (without looking back at the source to check this) support for any of the asserted figures for Hungary. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 22:13, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Oh, I can't speak to those. I was responding to the criticism of the maps (which I've made).  Page 144 of http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_243_en.pdf has percentages for European Union (and prospoective EU) countries.  Other numbers have other sources.  For densities, most of the diciest numbers don't matter very much, because they're all very close to zero (the density of anglophones in Brazil is too low to show up on the map, for instance). Wily D  00:05, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
 * (Added later: I apologize, I didn't mean densities, only the percentages. I have now corrected my posts.   Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  23:46, 1 November 2008 (UTC))
 * No, I don't think this is equivalent to conversion say between miles and kilometers (for which there are templates). What you are doing is actually producing a new statistic (viz. percentages) from data involving number of English language speakers and total populations.  There is a secondary problem of whether the statistics are from the same years (and it appears that in some cases they are not), but even so, statisticians don't simply divide two columns to produce percentages, they also have to take the margin of error in each column into account.  To give a simple example, if the population is 100 with a margin of error of 30% (say) and the estimate of English speakers is 30 with a margin of error of 33%, then the population can in fact range anywhere between 70 and 130, and the number of English speakers anywhere between 20 and 40.  That means the percentages can range anywhere between a low of 20/130 and a high of 40/70.  However, if you take the average of those two, you get 66/182 (=36.2%), which is not the same thing as 30/100 (which is what you would get by dividing the two columns).  You will need actual percentages computed by a reliable source to construct such maps or columns.  If you have such reliable data for the European Union countries (and some others), then fill only those in. Leave the others blank in your maps, or render them in a color which is linked to "data not available."  Same with the columns; they should be left blank.   Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  10:49, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Also, as I've indicated to you before, the percentages themselves are not that informative, when the standards of determining who is an English speaker are not the same. Thus a number of European countries have higher percentages than South Africa, yet the latter has produced two Nobel laureates in English (Nadine Gordimer and JM Coetzee); similarly China has a higher percentage than India (based on the numbers for China being computed on the basis of English "users," ie. people who can read and write English sentences, but can't really speak it); however, India has produced five (if you count Ruth Prawer Jhabvala) Booker Prize winners.  All this simply doesn't add up; in other words, the statistics, even when quoting reliable sources, become meaningless, since the criteria are not the same.   Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  11:17, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I understand that you have strong preconceptions of what's going on. I also understand their are other factors - such as historical rates (Europeans having a widespread command of English is fairly recent, whereas there have been a good number of Anglophones in South Africa for 200+ years - this is probably the source of the literature dichotomy) and whatnot.  India has more native speakers, and a longer history, China has more people with a knowledge of English today.  These aren't equivilent, and it's patently silly to think that historical production of literature should be a monotonically increasing function of current knowledge of English.  If you have access to reams of historical data on the subject, we could, of course, produce some kind of animated map.   Until that happens, there's only the current situation to represent.  Which's what this article is about.  Feel free to work on Spread of the English lnaguage or whatnot, if that's your interest; but that's not the subject of this article.
 * Miles and Kilometers is the same problem. I can't accurately translate 1 parsec into 3.26 lightyears, due to precision errors - but the math isn't that hard.
 * The Knowledge of English is mostly grey precisely because I can't get much data. I'm not sure it's even worth much.  The density of Anglophones map is much more illuminating to me, of course, different readers find different presentations the most informative. Wily D  16:54, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

(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&amp;fowler «Talk»  21:46, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
 * PS See China's numbers below.  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  23:06, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
 * PPS I just checked the Eurobarometer Survey, Europe and its languages (2006) (p. 144). Its percentages of English speakers for European Union (and prospective EU) countries are based on the self-description of respondents based on the answers to the question: "D48b Which languages do you speak well enough in order to be able to have a conversation, excluding your mother tongue?" I would be more comfortable if there were some secondary sources to back this up, like the 10 million estimate for China.   Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  23:40, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
 * These are many points - let me say at the least - it's almost impossible to represent the measurement uncertainty in a map like this - certainly I'm not sure how you would. The plotted densities are logarithmic anyhow, which'll wash out errors not of order unity anyhow.
 * Much as the list, the map necessarily has caveats - I'm not sure it's worthwhile to say "Well, we can't necessarily be exact, so we'll say nothing".
 * I don't really like the "knowledge of" map anyhow - it's just too much grey to be of much value - I'd been hoping it'd be more complete, but I'm starting to suspect I'll just never find sources for ~3/4 of the world anyhow.
 * It's patently silly to complain about the Eurobarometer being self-reported. Almost every number there is just self reported - I certainly could've lied when I filled out the census and claimed I didn't speak English or my native tongue was Latin or whatever and that'd be that.  In some sense this is all consistent in this way.  You can feel free to dig around for additional number estimates if you like - I'm happy to adapt things if better numbers can be found. Wily D  20:48, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I guess you are right about the self-reporting. Census figure are self-reported.  It would still be good to find some secondary sources for the European data (will look for the same).  And when I have some time, I will move China to the right place in the table and use the 10 million figure from Yang's paper below.  Regards,  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  09:55, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
 * The original issue about the percentages still seems unresolved. I have looked at the Eurobarometer survey, which is the cited source, and I think I see the problem. Take Hungary. On page 14 of the survey report, it says that 23% of respondents in Hungary know English (well enough to hold a conversation). On page 70, it lists the 15+ populations of the countries, giving 8.5 million people who are 15 and older in Hungary. It seems that somebody has taken 23% of 8.5 million and put 2 million as the number of "additional language speakers" for Hungary. Someone else has then taken 2 million as a percentage of the total population of Hungary - 10 million - to arrive at the stated figure of 19.91% English speakers in Hungary. So this assumes that people younger than 15 are bound to be incapable of holding a conversation in English if it's not their native language. Still, it's confusing if people see 19.91%, when the survey - which is the claimed source - actually says 23%. I've checked with France, Germany and Italy, and the same explanation seems to work, since the percentages are also wrong for these countries. --Baryonic Being (talk) 22:26, 1 January 2009 (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)

China's numbers
Here a recent paper by  (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: "Speakers at the Advanced-Low level are able to handle a variety of communicative tasks, although somewhat haltingly at times. They participate actively in most informal and a limited number of formal conversations on activities related to school, home, and leisure activities and, to a lesser degree, those related to events of work, current, public, and personal interest or individual relevance. (ACTFL,1999:4)." 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&amp;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)

New Discussion
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)

Article semi-protected
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)

AfD?
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)
 * Ok, all the figures from the Eurobarometer are plain wrong and it appears that the person who inserted them did not read the report. The Eurobarometer made a number of very restricted surveys among adult respondents in EU countries, the sample was around 1000 respondents per country. That is all that the Eurobarometer presents. After that, some Wikipedia editor have taken the percentages given the Eurobarometer, calculated those percetages on the whole population and claimed that the resulting number equals the number of English speakers per country! This is a rather obvious breach of WP:OR, not to mention that it is wrong. First, the respondents in the study were all adults, so calculating the returns on the whole population is incorrect. It is highly likely than 100 Swedes aged 25-35 will speak English than that 100 Swedes aged 5-10 will speak English. This limitation has been disregarded in this article. Even if it were not, using the results of a restricted survey to try to claim the total number of English speakers based on one's own calculations is quite obviously not a proper used of sources.JdeJ (talk) 13:54, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
 * When this suggestion was posted, [English Language] did not already include the list in this article. It only listed seven countries, and even those have since been removed. This article is an extremely poor quality source, but for many countries, it is the only source I have been able to find. 伟思礼 (talk) 16:20, 7 June 2023 (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 agree. I've taken the liberty of copying your comment across to the current deletion discussion, since it seemed relevant. -- Avenue (talk) 10:23, 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)
 * Talk about rushing to delete an article. As mentioned by others on the afd page the article needs a major clean up, with more reliable sources.. surveys should never be used but none of that justifies deletion. If we had a single table on the English language article as someone suggested it would damage that article and make it too long. A full table (well sourced) fully deserves its own article and i hope it isnt deleted because a couple of people rush to judgement BritishWatcher (talk) 11:02, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
 * The article needs to be improved, not deleted. I don't think David Crystal's copyright is being violated either, given that most of his numbers are fantastic (as I've already indicated in my various posts above).  The solution is to not use Crystal's numbers and find other sources (as I did for China).     Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  17:28, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
 * PS I do agree with the nominator that the numbers for European countries (and perhaps for non-Anglophone countries) are mostly unreliable and should be removed; however, I think that the table in the English page is too short. Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  17:42, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I am against the AfD nomination, as I find this a useful list, and I agree that "the article needs to be improved, not deleted". I think survey information has some value, so long as it's made clear that is all it is. One or two things on the page jarred with me. For an instance, when we get to Thailand English is called "secondary language of the elite", which is taken straight out of the CIA handbook, but it has such a vague meaning that it would be better left out. Umar Zulfikar Khan (talk) 05:56, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Israel's numbers
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)
 * The supporting source cited in the article says, "[eng] 100,000 in Israel (1993). Alternate names: Anglit.  Classification: Indo-European, Germanic, West, English". Perhaps a better, more reliable, more timely source could be cited but such a source is not cited currently. I've restored the 100,000 figure to the Total English Speakers column and blanked the other columns. This now contradicts with the info for Israel in the List in order of native speakers table, which I haven't changed. I'm hoping that some info from a better source will turn up to allow all these figures to be updated. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 03:28, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

New Zealand
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)
 * I've changed the comment about NZ to indicate that. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 23:59, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Japan
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)


 * No, it would be more accurate to say that English education is mandatory for all high school students. While some spoken English classes are taught in the first year of high school, in the 2nd and 3rd years the focus is on grammar. Strictly speaking, students are English readers and writers, not speakers. The exams (and university entrance exams) are almost always paper tests, with no speaking required. Spacecowboy420 (talk) 07:03, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

Were is Serbia?
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)

Jamaica, Nigeria
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
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)

False assumption in calculation of the total number of speakers
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)
 * Sigh. We had the correct figure here from July 2006 to April 2009, calculated using the 15+ population figure given in the first annex to the Eurobarometer report. A series of compounding errors seems to have produced the current incorrect figure: someone added an irrelevant total population figure, another person calculated a percentage incorrectly as the number of speakers aged 15+ over the total population, and finally another person corrected the 15+ percentage but multiplied this by the total population figure to get the current incorrect number of speakers. I suspect similar problems affect many of the figures shown here. -- Avenue (talk) 12:18, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

problematic statistics
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)
 * The table certainly uses inconsistent methods. The article disclaims, "Statistics on second language speakers are usually imprecise, in part because there is no widely agreed definition of second language speakers, and some numbers have been calculated by Wikipedia editors from data in other sources, so these figures are imprecise and should be treated with great caution."
 * No figure is given for South Korea probably because no interested WP editor has come across a relevant figure. Some figures in the table are unsourced, and these may be figments of the imaginations of some WP editors. For figures which are sourced, the article does not assert that the figures are true, but rather asserts that the cited sources have reported those figures. See WP:V. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 23:44, 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)

English-speaking immigrants?
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)
 * The table doesn't mean to imply that Spain has no first language speakers. It means to imply we have no data on the number of first language speakers. Wily D  22:40, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
 * There are hundreds, if not thousands, of native English speakers who have decided to live in Spain. Shouldn't be very difficult to find a reasonable estimate. 伟思礼 (talk) 00:19, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Finland
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)

Exaggerated European numbers
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)
 * I fully agree. In Germany i would guess that about 10%-15% could speak English as good as native speaker not 56%. However, for Sweden and the Netherlands the figures might be right. Saying more than 80% are English-speaker seems to be realistic. --93.193.76.3 (talk) 16:21, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
 * As the page itself says - 'This includes both native speakers and second-language speakers of English' - that doesn't imply to me that one needs to speak as well as a native speaker. And indeed the page itself highlights the nature of the figures and how these should be treated with caution! --Neil (talk) 12:31, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes indeed. There are also many different definitions of who might count as an "English speaker", and I think the Eurobarometer question is not unusual. --Avenue (talk) 08:17, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Map needs update for Norway
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)
 * I agree that the map should be updated concerning Norway which I believe have quite a high number of English speakers. However, the percentage number for Norway in the table (91%) is somewhat puzzling to me as I cannot find that number, let alone the term "norway", in the source quoted (Eurobarometer 2005 Europeans and their Languages). In this regard, it actually makes sense that the Eurobarometer source does not include numbers for Norway as Norway is not a member of the EU! I have tried myself to find numbers for Norway in other sources but unfortunately without any luck. If anyone could find a number from a reliable source for Norway, it would be appreciated. Perhaps a native Norwegian could find a Norwegian government source online? In conclusion, the present percentage for Norway (91%) seems to be unsourced, and should be removed until a reliable source is found. 87.72.122.169 (talk) 09:50, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
 * What do they even mean that 90 % of people in Norway are English speakers? Maybe 90 % of the population has a basic understanding of English, but Norwegian is the official language - spoken by the vast majority of the population — Preceding unsigned comment added by Eskil S (talk • contribs) 07:39, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

Native speakers list
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)

Philippines notes and figures don't match
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)


 * Some others have more english speakers than they have population, at least according to this list. I we believe the Crystal study from 2005, then we should have populations from that study also. Because according to wikipedia, US Virgin Islands, Gibraltar and Nauru don't have that kind of population even now. Marshall Islands might've had just enough, but there is no figure from 2005 in it's article. 82.141.119.188 (talk) 08:02, 11 October 2011 (UTC)


 * I've tried, but essentially failed, to correct the Philippines numbers; see the footnote for my reasoning. At any rate they probably aren't off by orders of magnitude any more, at least if these changes stand.

Joe Bernstein, not a registered Wikipedian. 173.250.162.183 (talk) 22:52, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Percentage sorting error
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)
 * Honestly, I consider this article too sloppily put together, too inconsistent, and too poorly sourced to be worth the effort of fixing the problem. But if you want to give it a go, you could take a look at the "Deaths" column in List of events named massacres as an example of how to make the corrections. 19:54, 11 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Honesty, I cannot think of a better way to be dismissive, ignore real problems reported about an article, discourage the improvement of articles, and decrease the collective sharing of knowledge that is the spirit that allows wikipedia to exist. The referred page for an example of how to fix it wraps everything with display:none tags which is a poor solution and requires editing each value and uses range values in the sorted column which is not recommended practice.  The Help:Sorting page has a good recommendation for a hidden header and footer for the sorting.  Unfortunately just adding the header and footer for this page does not produce the desired results as expr, selectively used, further complicates the sorting.  The empty values do not help but it seems those are empty because there are more speakers than eligible speakers. Quelrod (talk) 18:57, 19 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Try removing the "%" symbols from the numbers. The computer treats "9.9%" as a text string which comes after "10.0%", but treats "9.9" as a number which comes befoire "10.0". Martinvl (talk) 10:27, 1 June 2012 (UTC)


 * This works. Now we need to do the same on other columns. Martinvl (talk) 12:10, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

How is "Speaks English" defined?
Fluent? Conversationalist? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.43.27.98 (talk) 01:16, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
 * That's the problem with this list. It depends on the source --91.15.78.133 (talk) 18:10, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
 * And even the definition of fluency might vary. In some countries "very good knowledge" might be the same as "average" in other countries. --Oddeivind (talk) 06:56, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Crystal (2005)?
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 webpage in the existing reference indicates a 2nd Edition in 2003, but not 2005. I don't have access so can't check as to its content agreeing with what is in the article. Melcombe (talk) 22:19, 25 April 2012 (UTC)


 * My point is that the abbreviated cite "Crystal (2005)" is only helpful if one can then find elsewhere in the article the full cite. Since there is no cite for a work by Crystal for any year but 1995, "Crystal (2005)" is totally unhelpful. Particularly due to the fact that David Crystal has written dozens of books. If "Crystal (2005)" is meant to refer to "Crystal, David (2003-08-03) [1995]. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language (Second ed.)", which is the only full Crystal reference on the page, then the year in the full reference should be changed from 1995 to 2005 so it corresponds with all the "Crytsal (2005)"s. If it's another book, then I'm totally lost. (Edit: The "2003" in the cite seems to refer to the date the page was accessed, or at least that's usually what parenthetical dates refer to. Still isn't 2005, in any case.) Moncrief (talk) 22:34, 25 April 2012 (UTC)


 * My point was that "Crystal (2005)" should possibly be "Crystal (2003)" in both text and the references, but I can't confirm it. The "(2003-08-03)" might actually be the date of publication of the 2nd Edition, although Amazon says (4 Aug 2003), while CUP says September 2003. The 1st Edition was definitely dated 1995. Melcombe (talk) 17:30, 26 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Who can confirm it? As it is, it's unhelpful and inaccurate. Moncrief (talk) 19:13, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I think Melcombe is correct, a 2005 edition does not exist, instead it is the 2nd Edition from 2003 that is referred to. That is, at least, what can be found out from a search on book.google.com and cambridge.org. Perhaps the erroneous year 2005 was a result from a mix up with the source Ethnologue (2005) or maybe the year of printing of a 2nd Edition (2003) book printed in 2005? I will go ahead and amend all the Crystal (2005) references to read Crystal (2003). Still it would be nice if someone, in possession of the 2nd Edition (2003) book, could confirm that the references in this article really point to that book. 188.183.23.90 (talk) 01:21, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

"List in order of native speakers" should be merged with "List in order of total speakers".
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)

Turks and Caicos islands figure incorrect
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)

What does it mean by eligible population?
See title. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.102.212.216 (talk) 12:47, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Why are Guadeloupe and Saint Pierre and Miquelon listed as countries?
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)
 * Does this argument justify removing other places that aren't countries, such as Hong Kong and Puerto Rico? Or, if they are significantly different in demographics than the country that controls them, perhaps they are worth listing.  Personally, I am in favor of deleting the page, since it is missing half the places in the world that have country codes, and it has false info in what's left.  For example, the U.S. Virgin Islands does not have more English speakers than humans, and there are hundreds (if not thousands) of native speakers who have moved permanently to Spain. 伟思礼 (talk) 21:07, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Both the Kingdom of the Netherlands and United Kingdom consider most of their island possessions to be countries (also Scotland, Wales, Gibraltar, Northern Ireland). 伟思礼 (talk) 22:28, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

Usefulness of the second list
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)

Ranking number
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)

Inclusion of European Union data
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)
 * I have re-introduced the note on EU beneath the table (amended with 2012 numbers). I think EU has been added to and removed from the table a couple of times in the past, one could browse through the article's history to instigate that further. If you take a very rational and strict point of view, I don't think EU should be added to the list, because obviously it's not a country. That said, I don't think many people would strongly oppose that EU has an entry in the list because of the role EU has in the world, historically and presently. EU and US numbers are, for instance, compared frequently, so in that regard it could make sense. However, the trouble with adding political unions to the list starts if a lot of different unions are added. You could in principle add all sorts of unions, organizations and regions, such as the Arab Union, NATO, Commonwealth of Nations, South America, Scandinavia, and so on. I would think that it's better that the list stays focused on countries only, it's more clean that way, and (for a start) unions etc. can be added as notes underneath the list. 90.184.5.10 (talk) 19:42, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

something wrong on section: Notes
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)


 * That was vandalism added by 86.13.25.185 on 25 January. Thanks for spotting it. SiBr4 ("CyberFour") (talk) 13:56, 7 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks! Can you please help us remove the hyperlink as well? The page it points to is no longer valid. Sleepsort (talk) 02:18, 8 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Per WP:Link rot, links to sources shouldn't be removed just because they don't work. A dead link can be either tagged with dead link or directly replaced by a different link to the same source (or another source altogether). SiBr4 ("CyberFour") (talk) 19:04, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Ghana
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)

Pakistan
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&amp;fowler «Talk»  12:22, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
 * A number of sources have reported similar stat. E.g. . I am not sure if these stats are correct or not.  Occult Zone  ( Talk ) 13:11, 28 March 2014 (UTC)
 * The report you mention and others I've seen are Pakistani newspapers repeating the Euromonitor numbers. I'll try to find some older stats.  If we find that numbers have jumped dramatically between (say) 1999 and 2009, without a similar dramatic jump in literacy, urbanization etc, then something is screwy.   Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  13:22, 28 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)


 * Another source is an online paper, by Tariq Rahman, discussing English speakers in Pakistan. The publication date seems to be 09 Feb 2005 according to this site. On page 5 of the paper, a 1997 edition of 'English as a Global Language' (Crystal) is referenced with a 11.39 percentage of English speakers in Pakistan. Also see page 33, where the percentage of circulation of English periodicals (newspapers?) is estimated as 10.51 to the total circulation of periodicals. --90.185.131.137 (talk) 09:00, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Further, in "The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language", Crystal, 2003, page 109, the numbers of Pakistan are: Population(1990): 122,600,000, % L1 speakers: N/A, Total L1 speakers: N/A, % L2 speakers: 2, L2 speakers: 2,450,000. --90.185.131.137 (talk) 09:41, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I managed to find the book "English as a Global Language", 2nd Ed., Crystal, 2003. Pages 62 through 65 contain a table that lists 'Speakers of English in territories where the language has had special relevance'. Page 64 lists Pakistan with the numbers: Population (2001): 145,000,000, Usage estimate - L2 speakers: 17,000,000. L1 speakers are not mentioned. --90.185.131.137 (talk) 09:58, 24 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)

Discrepancy with English-speaking_world
English-speaking_world: 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)


 * Extraordinary census claims have to be taken with a great deal of skepticism because they rely solely on self-reporting, which is often not reliable. Yes, people lie, misrepresent, exaggerate or sometimes just plain don't understand the question. For example, according to the UK census, Jedi is a major religion there (see Jedi census phenomenon). The claim that there are either 125 or 250 million English speakers in India seems extremely inflated, unless one defines English speaker as anyone who can say "Hello" or "Thank you", or thinks they can. Which is a second problem here. Neither "English speaker" or "English user" is defined, beyond a simple positive response to the question. There is no way to gauge competence. For an extraordinary claim of this sort, you would require a very high-quality scholarly survey that was published with the benefit of academic peer review. Anything else would be useless, as are these census figures. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 21:51, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Please read the discussion upstairs: Talk:List_of_countries_by_English-speaking_population (from 2009). The 2001 census numbers from India are 125 million (86 million English-as-second-language speakers, and 40 million third language speakers), not 250 (see here).  True it is self-reporting, and the numbers are exaggerated, but the level of proficiency is more than just "Hello" and "Thank you."  Also, in India, often there is greater written proficiency than oral.  One measure of this is the quality of English-language newspapers.  Besides there are other organizations such as TESOL-India (Teachers of English as a Second Language( which have made their own estimates which roughly jibe with the census's numbers.  India's case is a little different from, say, Continental Europe or China or South America.  It has a long history of English use, going back to the late 18th century, 1773 to be precise, when the East India Company established an administration in Calcutta.  Even though there is disagreement about whether Indian English is a "proper" dialect of English (not least among Indians themselves), there is widespread recognition of this language variety, not just in the almost 800 references in the OED, but also in the burgeoning literature on its phonology and syntax, beginnings of attempts at codifying it.  There are estimates in this literature as well, which I don't have access to this minute (on account of traveling).  In the last 15 years, as the literacy numbers in India have increased, the number of English speakers likely have as well.  My own guess of the 2001 numbers is somewhere between 55 and 75 million second language speakers. There are likely more, perhaps 85 to 100 million, today.  The level of fluency varies.  It depends too on what you consider fluency and how you measure it.  For example, they might not be able to give the most precise directions, but they often know idiomatic expressions in English.  In Continental Europe, it is often just the opposite.   Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  23:15, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Iran
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)

Ghana
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)

How should the numbers be sourced?
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)

Austria 16 native speakers
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)

I'll be cleaning up the references here
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)

Puerto Rico
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)

Updated info for India?
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)

Nauru
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)

Ways to stop unverified changes
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. &#60;&#60;&#60; SOME GADGET GEEK &#62;&#62;&#62; (talk) 23:42, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

Numbers don't add up
I was just looking at two of the figures in the list:


 * 1) Brazil: 10.5 million English speakers out of 205 million citizens.
 * 2) * Listed percentage: 5%
 * 3) * Calculated percentage: 5%
 * 4) China: 10 million English speakers out of 1,200 million people.
 * 5) * Listed percentage: 8%
 * 6) * Calculated percentage: 0.8%

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)
 * It's difficult to define the level of competency of an "English speaker" because, naturally, there is a large spread in the ability, e.g. in one end of the scale, the ability is very basic whereas the ability in the other end of the scale approaches the level of a native speaker. Note that the numbers given in the table are often obtained by finding the percentage first from a survey, after which the number of English speakers are calculated using the considered country's population in a given year. The English level is therefore determined by the formulation of the questions in the survey and the subjective response to the questions. For instance, in the Eurobarometer 2012 report, the respondents were asked questions such as "what languages, other than their mother tongue, they were able to speak well enough to hold a conversation" which leaves plenty of flexibility in the definition of the speaking level. With this in mind, it's important to provide citations with the numbers in the table, so that the source (survey etc.) of each number can tracked. 80.62.117.233 (talk) 14:11, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

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Hong Kong 6%
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)

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When sorting by % English Speakers the sort is according to STRING VALUE i.e. 9% comes before 89% because 9 has a higher ascii value than 89...
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)

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Nauru Statistics don't make any sense
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)

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Australia 2016 numbers
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)

Dubious
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)

Unreliable map
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)


 * I agree. This map appears to be original research/synthesis. valereee (talk) 09:56, 22 December 2018 (UTC)

Question
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)

Iraq has 11 million English speakers?!
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)

update
Kenya cencus were done recently and population is actually more than figures given Sk gitau (talk) 16:19, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

This is good!
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)

South Korea
Where is South Korea on this list? 2601:681:4302:D540:5DF1:97C6:CCCF:4BF7 (talk) 09:56, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

merge
this was supposed to be merged Articles for deletion/Geographical distribution of English speakers, there was a discussion with, did the merge, but then undid it. Irtapil (talk) 21:26, 21 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I merged it. Interstellarity (talk) 12:20, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

Croatia has more non-native English speakers than total number
Additional research may be needed — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rivastons (talk • contribs) 17:40, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

Indonesia
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)

English speaking in uganda
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)

English
Hi 2402:3A80:99E:19DF:0:6B:8900:E301 (talk) 03:27, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Errors
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)

MAP IS RIDICULOUS
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)

Removed map, table needs more work (June 2022)
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)

Lots of doubts
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)

this entire map is bullshit.
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)

Whole article needs to be rewritten/deleted
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)