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Not sure. Compare: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-speaking_world https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-speaking_world (at most more than a billion) and h
by vbernat 10y ago
Not sure. Compare: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-speaking_world https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-speaking_world (at most more than a billion) and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinophone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinophone (more than a billion).
- hx87 10y agoEnglish is much more common as a second/third/... language.
- vbernat 10y agoBoth links contain figures about non-native speakers. And it seems that native/non-native Chinese speakers are more numerous than native/non-native English speakers.
- hx87 10y agoTrue, native + nonnative speakers of Chinese > native + nonnative speakers of English, but the relation I'm talking about is: nonnative speakers of Chinese < nonnative speakers of English If the vast majority of Chinese speakers are native, that means that not that many non-Chinese people are learning the language compared to English, and thus English is more attractive for interlingual communication. China is big enough to be a world in itself, and for most of history has been so, but globalization means that it is part of a greater whole and competes on that level.