Is the Tower of Babel still affecting us or something?
Edit:
We have 8 billion people, yet the best we could muster for the most total speakers of a language is under 2 billion, including non-natives…
- English (1,452 million speakers) First language: 372.9 million Total speakers: 1.4+ billion According to Ethnologue, English is the most-spoken language in the world including native and non-native speakers.
I’d argue that by your own criteria, English is that language.
Less then a quarter of people speak English, so not even close.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-speaking_world
So you’re right: one quarter of people at most. Nonetheless that’s remarkable. Too bad it’s due more to subjugation than cooperation.
Nowadays it’s probably also because of the dominance of American culture, especially online.
Our perception of it is also highly distorted due to the bubble we live in. Chinese are living in a different kind of bubble where everyone can more or less understand each other, as long as they stick to the written form. The languages may be different, but they are written using the same system, which makes communication possible. Also, the Great Firewall of China keeps Chinese people inside that bubble and foreigners outside it.
Awfully generous of the UK to go out of its way to respect Mongolia. I guess you gotta honor that Klingon code.
Well fuck me sideways I thought it was more than that.
There’s like 1.2 billion English speakers, including non-native speakers, tho? the OP asks for like 3.5 billion or somethin’… since population globally is 8 billion…