[Foundation-l] A simple question on languages.

[Andrew Gray]

On 25/01/2008, phoebe ayers <phoebe.wiki at gmail.com> wrote:

> Finally, I'd be surprised if the Ethnologue doesn't address this --
> but I don't have one handy to check.
> http://www.ethnologue.com/print.asp
> (though, given its relative importance in what we do, the Foundation
> should definitely have one on hand -- and I'd be happy to buy one to
> start off a new SF office library :) )

I tried answering Greg's question using Ethnologue, but stalled somewhat.

Basically, my theory was that you could get a rough-and-ready answer
by working on a country-by-country level, taking known population and
literacy rates, and then distributing the various languages spoken in
the country amongst the population, assuming literacy is roughly
evenly spread and sharing out second languages amongst the
first-language speakers, rather than adding together "all the people
who speak some level of French AND all the people who speak some level
of English AND all the people who speak some level of Spanish"...
because you get a lot of overlap there.

The problem is, this breaks down very quickly for second languages -
Ethnologue just gives country-by-country details for first-language
speakers, which isn't much help.

-- 
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk