KingJP wrote:
farukahmet wrote:
China has a population of 1.4 billion and India of 1.2...you can't beat that.
I wouldn't be so sure, as both these vast countries literally teem with regional languages, complicating the subject.
India has 18
major regional languages, many of which even have their own scripts. The Indian Constitution contains a list of 22 recognized languages. Hindi is of course the main language, as it is spoken by more than 30% of the population and is even generally understood throughout the country. But still, it depends on whether one will throw purely Hindi-speaking groups and Hindi-comprehending groups in the same basket, in order to make a statistic. Hindi is mainly spoken in Delhi, Marathi is spoken in Mumbai, Bengali is spoken in Kolkata, Malayalam is spoken in Kerala, Tamil is spoken in Chennai, Urdu is spoken in Pakistan (which was Indian territory until 1947) and parts of India and so on. On one hand Hindi, Bengali and Marathi are Indo-European languages, descending from Sanskrit, while on the other hand Malayalam and Tamil are Dravidian, with different descent.
Some plain examples to point out the differences:
Hindi:
Yes = Haan
No = Naheen
Thank you = Dhanyavad or Shukria
Please = Kripaya or Mehardani
Bengali:
Yes = Haen
No = Na
Thank you = Dhonnobad
Please = Doya koray
Marathi:
Yes = Ho
No = Nahi
Thank you = Dhanyavad
Please = Krupaya
Tamil:
Yes = Amma or Seri
No = Illai or Vendaam
Thank you = Nanri
Please = Daivusaidhu
Malayalam:
Yes = Athe or Seri
No = Illa or Alla
Thank you = Nanni
Please = Dayavuchaidu
For more information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_na ... s_of_IndiaI don't know as many things about China, but again
Wikipedia may give us a clue.
Spanish is probably indeed in the top-3, as it usually does not present dialectal divergence in the same degree like the aforementioned. But then again, like farukahmet quite punctually noted, this is a highly debatable subject, since it includes tens of parameters to deal with, both linguistic and statistic-wise.
Yeah it's true, if I'm not mistaken they even have a different language when being at your work-place, grocery store or family! I believe they use about four languages everyday.
Also, Mandarin is the way we people (we as in not Chinese) people know the language. For Chinese people it's the "north/official language" (官話), but there are also a lot of variations and Cantonese in the South. But most people learn Mandarin because it's the most common and official language.
Burn wrote:
I think it depends how you see this. There is simply a difference between most spoken language by natives (in this case it's Mandarin) and most spoken language in a global communication world (in this case English is first, followed by Spanish and French).
Agree, it depends on how you look at it.
Daeron wrote:
Well, global communication... Speaking about it in a material meaning, even in some European countries it's hard to find someone who speaks English well when you just walk on the street with a map and an unconfortable expression on your face and then we don't speak about places in Africa, South America, wherever.
Btw it's also quite easy to find someone speaking Chinese in your own town - don't you have a Four Dragon's Treasure Restaurant on the corner?...
English is said to be the world language but it's a different question who actually speaks it. In tourism and international trade, law and among the so called "intellectual" jobs it might be natural to require some language skills but I think that's all. I wouldn't say that in my own country, in the 21th century, in the Net Age it's the main hobby for the average teenage student to listen to the teacher in the English class. (Just another thing they keep f*ng you with in the school...)
This works however on the internet, that's true. But I have no idea about the amount of homepages in Chinese, Hindi, Russian, etc. Most of things on the web are there to find in English but that doesn't mean yet it's the global net language IMO.
I think English
is a global language, but I find it funny that a lot of people don't speak it. I specifically remember being in Hamburg at the Remedy Records store (biggest one I saw in Europe), and that the girl who attended me didn't know one single sentence in English. Then again, she might have been embarrassed to use it or didn't like to use it at all, but in general I thought that she didn't know it. I also remember in Tilburg a girl who was in a bike that didn't know too much English. I just showed her "Kleine Zaal 13" and she said North, then left. Thanks to that girl for getting me to TG's concert
.
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