[Foundation-l] A simple question on languages.

[Thomas Dalton]

> > But then it's a completely different question.
>
> It is. But it's much easier to answer.

I wish they'd accept that argument in my exams... ;)

> Native speakers. However, as I noted previously, using the 6 languages
> of the United Nations, INCLUDING second-language speakers, your reach
> will still be under 50%. I didn't check out the statistics for
> second-language speakers for, say, the top 20 languages, but as one
> can imagine, there is a strong correlation between the number of
> native speakers a language has and the number of second-language
> speakers (with notable outliers such as French and Japanese, on
> opposite sides). Thus, outside of the top 15 or so languages, the
> number of people who speak the language as their second language is
> usually going to be insignificant compared to the number of native
> speakers. I guarantee you that even incorporating all bilinguals,
> you're not going to be able to reach greater than 75% with less than
> 50 languages, and quite likely many more.

I agree. In addition to the correlation you mention, the number of new
speakers you get with each new language you add diminishes because
there is an increased chance that you've already counted them as a
speaker of a language you've already considered.