Maps show most-common second language in each country of the world

I thought this was pretty interesting ...















http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/second-languages-of-the-world-infographic

I'm Surprised it is not English in Australia.

Actually looking at the blog
I think it makes the assumption that since English is the official language it is everyone's first which is not even close.

even 20 years ago and the number is growing

27% of people in Sydney spoke a language other than English at home

nationally it was 15%
http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/2f762f95845417aeca25706c00834efa/d67b7c95e0e8a733ca2570ec001117a2!OpenDocument

I think this is actually charting the most commonly learned language learned in each country *after* the language learned at home (whatever that might be).

Doesn't say in Britain lol

Ben_Reilly wrote:I think this is actually charting the most commonly learned language learned in each country *after* the language learned at home (whatever that might be).

exactly in Sydney over a quarter of people speak a language other than English at home and Learnt English as a Second (or 3rd etc) language to speak outside of the home.

Arab Asian or non-english European... all LEARN English as their Second language

risingsun wrote:Doesn't say in Britain lol

it says polish

veya_victaous wrote:

Ben_Reilly wrote:I think this is actually charting the most commonly learned language learned in each country *after* the language learned at home (whatever that might be).

exactly in Sydney over a quarter of people speak a language other than English at home and Learnt English as a Second (or 3rd etc) language to speak outside of the home.

Arab Asian or non-english European... all LEARN English as their Second language

Veya, do you have all those publications required for informing the public on everyday issues printed in multilingual languages like we do or is it all just in plain English?

Irn Bru wrote:

veya_victaous wrote:

Ben_Reilly wrote:I think this is actually charting the most commonly learned language learned in each country *after* the language learned at home (whatever that might be).

exactly in Sydney over a quarter of people speak a language other than English at home and Learnt English as a Second (or 3rd etc) language to speak outside of the home.

Arab Asian or non-english European... all LEARN English as their Second language

Veya, do you have all those publications required for informing the public on everyday issues printed in multilingual languages like we do or is it all just in plain English?

Here is an Aussie street sign


so Yes
but with exception of some legal docs it is largely for tourists.
Most people speak good enough to get by, we are far less anal about using 'correct English'.
but most Council forms or applications for licences etc can be done in almost any language.

I was told that in 100 years the world will only speak six languages: Spanish, English, Russian, French, some kind of Chinese dialect, and...believe it or not, Portuguese.  Brazil, not Portugal, is expected to become an economic power down the line.

Can't vouch for it.

veya_victaous wrote:
I'm Surprised it is not English in Australia.

Actually looking at the blog
I think it makes the assumption that since English is the official language it is everyone's first which is not even close.

even 20 years ago and the number is growing

27% of people in Sydney spoke a language other than English at home

nationally it was 15%

http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/2f762f95845417aeca25706c00834efa/d67b7c95e0e8a733ca2570ec001117a2!OpenDocument

JUST personally, I reckon Greek, Italian and Vietnamese would all outdo Mandarin as a "second language" down here in Oz...

There really isn't that big a Chinese population in Australia when compared to people from British and Irish ancestry; followed by decent influxes of Italian, Greek, Polish, Dutch, Russian and other Euro' "economic refugees" between the late '60s and mid '70s; and then war refugees from Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos over the late 1970s and through the 1980..
SINCE the 1990s the main sources of refugee immigrants have been Sudanese, Rwandan, Somali, Iraqi, Iranian and Afghani.  THE biggest influx of Chinese nationals down here was probably during the Gold rushes of the mid-late 19th century. THERE were also significant numbers of Turkish camel drivers imported between the mid 19th and early 20th centuries along with the tens of thousands of camels that were used to help open up the 'dry' interior of this continent..

CHINESE language classes in Australia have only been on the rise since the late '80s or early '90s ~ in line with China's increasing trade with Australia..

I DON'T know how those authors got their figures, however...
MAYBE IF all the Chinese languages ~ Mandarin, Cantonese plus dialects ~ are taken together they just might be #1..   BUT when taken alone, I still suspect that Mandarin will still be #4 or 5 ~ and NOT the leading "second language" !    

http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/2f762f95845417aeca25706c00834efa/d67b7c95e0e8a733ca2570ec001117a2!OpenDocument
https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100415181341AA5VWxn
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Australia

Original Quill wrote:
I was told that in 100 years the world will only speak six languages: Spanish, English, Russian, French, some kind of Chinese dialect, and...believe it or not, Portuguese.  Brazil, not Portugal, is expected to become an economic power down the line.

Can't vouch for it.

I'M a bit dubious about the timeline for that narrowing in languages ~ maybe in 500 or a thousand years, but I reckon that less than 100 could be a bit of wishful thinking !

CANTONESE, VIETNAMESE, Hindi, and Arabic (and Farsi ?) are all spoken by significantly large populations..

AND then there's the likes of German, where proud countries with strong languages won't be in a hurry to give them up...


AS FOR BRAZIL'S rise as an economic "sleeping giant" ~ this year it has the 7th largest Gross National Product; (and by rights, India (#5) and Brazil(#7) should have replaced Italy (#9) and Canada(#10) at last years "G8" meetings in Europe - any wonder nobody takes any notice of the "G7/G8" clown show anymore !).

BRAZIL claims that it should have the 5th largest economy in the world within a decade.

(AND the way that Mexico is going it should pass Britain within a few decades..).

The most surprising for me is Tagalog in Saudi Arabia- am I missing something?

Eilzel wrote:The most surprising for me is Tagalog in Saudi Arabia- am I missing something?

I had the same question, and I suspected it must have an economic cause like Polish in Britain or Spanish in the U.S. ... and it does:

Saudi Arabia remains as the top labor-receiving country among other destinations of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) abroad this year despite the reported decline in the deployment rate.

In its latest report, the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) said Saudi Arabia tightened its hold in the no. 1 position, both in the new hires and rehires in the first three months of the year.

Citing a POEA data, Administrator Rosalinda Baldoz said the number of OFWs deployed in Saudi Arabia from January to March stands at 55,157, about 3,500 lower than the number of OFWs deployed in 2006.

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-164120111.html

Now why Filipino workers choose SA, that's a good question. Unfortunately most of the article is behind a paywall ...

I was surprised at English in Italy -- going by the doing-business theory, I would have suspected German to be the second language learned by most Italians.

True but English is the main language of people from a number of big economies so seeing it everywhere is no surprise even in what might have been less expected places.

Yeah very interesting about Saudi!

Eilzel wrote:True but English is the main language of people from a number of big economies so seeing it everywhere is no surprise even in what might have been less expected places.

Yeah very interesting about Saudi!

I know what you mean -- it would also be interesting to see the trends on English as a second language learning over the past decade or so. I'd expect it to be losing some ground to Chinese dialects, but I have no idea if that's true.

Ben_Reilly wrote:

Eilzel wrote:True but English is the main language of people from a number of big economies so seeing it everywhere is no surprise even in what might have been less expected places.

Yeah very interesting about Saudi!

I know what you mean -- it would also be interesting to see the trends on English as a second language learning over the past decade or so. I'd expect it to be losing some ground to Chinese dialects, but I have no idea if that's true.

A lot of the Chinese 'Business Class' Learn English at school, Similarly with Japan and Korea.
So it is not uncommon for 2 Asians to have English as a Mutual Language
I actually have Chinese friends that don't under understand each others dialect but know English... Particularly with Hong Kongese, Taiwanese and Mainland Chinese.

Similar with Indians, if they speak Hindi or Punjabi the seem to get by but if they are from a minority then often they have their local dialect and English. Although i think it may also be a caste thing the upper and aspirational class learn it as standard in part to be able use western educational material.... and as they are still part of the commonwealth, they do have history of English being used by the upper classes