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I lived in Papua New Guinea for two years, where linguistic diversity is higher than any other country. There was however a few languages that everyone spoke.
by MarcScott 12y ago
I lived in Papua New Guinea for two years, where linguistic diversity is higher than any other country.
There was however a few languages that everyone spoke. Tok Pisin was a pidgin language spoke by almost everyone, and English (due to it being the language used in schools) ran a close second.
Despite the relatively few languages spoken in Europe, we don't have a universal dialect that everyone understands. The vast majority of us are monolingual.
- skj 12y ago> we don't have a universal dialect that everyone understands. Isn't that the role filled by English?
- lukaslalinsky 12y agoIf you get stuck outside of large cities in most European countries, you will not have much luck with English. Young people will probably know some, but if you need help from an average person, you better know at least some words in their language.
- poizan42 12y agoI don't have numbers, but I really doubt that the vast majority of european countries don't have english as a second language. Sure the populations in some european countries have a limited command of english, but in others it is practically universal. Just from personal experience, people in the nordic countries generally have a near-native command of english. In French and Germany it's a bit hit and miss, but younger people generally speaks english well enough to be able to communicate. In Italy it's pretty bad though, you can tell that just by all the signs with engrish.