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As of 2024, there are 57 sovereign states and 28 non-sovereign entities where English is an official language. Many administrative divisions have declared English an official language at the local or regional level. Most states where English is an official language are former territories of the British Empire.
Gordon Brown, the former British prime minister, estimated that the total English-speaking population in China would outnumber the native speakers in the rest of the world in two decades. [ 23 ] There have been a growing number of students studying Arabic , due to reasons of cultural interest and belief in better job opportunities. [ 24 ]
The European Union is a supranational union composed of 27 member states. The total English-speaking population of the European Union and the United Kingdom combined (2012) is 256,876,220 [1] (out of a total population of 500,000,000, [2] i.e. 51%) including 65,478,252 native speakers and 191,397,968 non-native speakers, and would be ranked 2nd if it were included.
The English-speaking world comprises the 88 countries and territories in which English is an official, administrative, or cultural language. In the early 2000s, between one and two billion people spoke English, [1] [2] making it the largest language by number of speakers, the third largest language by number of native speakers and the most widespread language geographically.
Ex-Soviet republics and Warsaw Pact countries: Many people speak Russian fluently, especially in Slavic countries within the area of the former USSR (typically in Belarus and Ukraine), along with Moldova, which has a Slavic minority. However, few Polish, Slovak or Czech people speak Russian, despite huge expenditures in the past. Abkhazia.
Migrants from Shanghai also brought Shanghainese to many overseas Chinese communities. As of 2016, 83,400 people in Hong Kong are still able to speak Shanghainese. [5] Shanghainese is sometimes viewed as a tool to discriminate against immigrants. [6] Migrants who move from other Chinese cities to Shanghai have little ability to speak Shanghainese.
Principal language families of the world (and in some cases geographic groups of families). For greater detail, see Distribution of languages in the world. This is a list of languages by total number of speakers. It is difficult to define what constitutes a language as opposed to a dialect.
Urdu is co-official with English. South Africa: Africa 59,622,350 [3] More than 436,000 Hindi speakers. [4] According to the Constitution of South Africa, the Pan South African Language Board must promote and ensure respect for Hindi along with other languages. Fiji: Oceania 889,327 [5] Fiji Hindi is official alongside English and Fijian. Total ...