On 23/01/2008, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
What is the minimum number of languages must you write in to effectively communicate with 99.9999% of all the world's literate people?
That's a difficult question to answer, since you need to know not just how many people speak each language, but also how many people speak various combinations of languages so you don't count people multiple times. I'm pretty sure it's beyond our ability to work out even a rough estimate based on general statistics - we need to find someone that's actually tried to answer that precise question and taken years working it all out.