[Foundation-l] A simple question on languages.

[Thomas Dalton]

On 23/01/2008, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at 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.