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Because the UK, Australia, South Africa, Canada and the United States are ~6x the size of Germany. This was caused by colonialism, though, not cultural imperial
by ijpoijpoihpiuoh 7y ago
Because the UK, Australia, South Africa, Canada and the United States are ~6x the size of Germany. This was caused by colonialism, though, not cultural imperialism.
- lotsofpulp 7y agoI would throw India in there too, as most everyone educated is fluent in English, and I expect more and more Indians to be fluent in English going forward.
- ijpoijpoihpiuoh 7y agoYeah, I think the person who made the cultural imperialism point was trying to say more or less that: that there are a lot of countries that speak English because English is the culturally dominant language. Personally I think there's a less sinister way to phrase that than "cultural imperialism," though. And I'm not sure it's caused by cultural dominance so much as economic dominance and pragmatism. I don't think many people learn English to watch American movies or wear American blue jeans. Further, I'm not sure to what extent it affects the market size for books. I would guess, not being privy to any actual information on the topic, that the vast majority of English books are consumed by majority-English-speaking nations. There are probably exceptions for outsized blockbusters like Harry Potter.
- billfruit 7y agoPerhaps Nigeria, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Belize too.
- phillc73 7y agoNew Zealand, Ireland, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago add another 13.5 million. On the flip side, English is only the first language of 9.6% of South Africans.[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_South_Africa#Languages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_South_Africa#L...
- andrepd 7y agoThere are way more native speakers in Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, etc.