Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2012 February 14

= February 14 =

size of language learning industry
Hi, does anyone know a good website/ resource (ideally from some peer reviewed journal, but could be anything) that gives figures for the total dollar value for the foreign language education industry? The best I can find is this, but it is only on English as a second language, and it quotes $50b for private English instruction, which is presumably not the whole market by a long shot. I assume private instruction is different from private tuition, that is, privately owned businesses vs. private one-on-one or small group tutoring. Under this definition, private instruction would be a fairly large slice of the global market in all languages, but not the whole pie, which is what I'm curious about. I'm also interested in what the total market is for translation services. Thanks, IBE (talk) 09:56, 14 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Would you count foreign language instruction in public schools? Because that's presumably a huge expense as well. Meelar (talk) 18:15, 14 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Yes, I would. A dedicated language teacher consumes his wages, plus presumably a pro-rata fraction of the school's resources. I imagine science would be more expensive per teacher because of labs etc., but I assume all subjects would be in the same ballpark. I know that the data I seek does not exist, but someone may have estimated in a reasonable manner, and I will take whatever I can lay my hands on. It's for a PhD, but I only want to make a side point in the introductory paragraph, so I'm trusting I won't get shot down in flames for using a non-scholarly ref. IBE (talk) 01:17, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Name for part of a name
Paul the Apostle was Saul of Tarsus. Is there a term for the "of Tarsus" part? Clarityfiend (talk) 22:04, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Habitational name? ---Sluzzelin talk  00:02, 15 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Traditional term of Bible exegesis was "gentilic", but Gentilic is a redirect ... AnonMoos (talk) 08:23, 15 February 2012 (UTC)