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Adianna · Post by **Adianna** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 3:42 pm

Ankh Morpork wrote:Not sure if these numbers are correct. Cos if im not all wrong your just counting how many people the countries got. Im pretty sure there are more people speaking German/French/Spanish/English than Italian/Russian tbh since these languages are quite common as secondary language in most european countries unlike Russian/Italian.

Edit: Then again, I think i misunderstod your post. I thought it was a specific order you wrote down the languages but you proberbly just listed the ones you think are 6 most spoken in no particular order.

/Ankh

They are in order of how many people speak them as their native or official second language.

Russian 150 million
German 130 million
French 70 million
English 60 million
Italian 50 million
Spanish 40 million
Polish 40 million

Of course if you count it the way how many people know the language, English will rocket up as from the 130 million German speaking people at least half will be able to speak English, so with Spanish, French and Italian.

Ankh Morpork · Post by **Ankh Morpork** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 3:46 pm

Well, ive got no fancy numbers or info to show off with so i will just gonna have to take your word on it

/Ankh

Adianna · Post by **Adianna** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 3:47 pm

Just summed up the latest numbers i know of. Of course Switzerland with around 8 million inhabitants counts for French, Italian and German as they are really speaking all 3 languages there. As well as some parts of Italy, Hungary etc. speak German.

Ankh Morpork · Post by **Ankh Morpork** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 3:55 pm

I still think german/french/Spanish/English > Russian since I havent met many people who cant speak English but almost none that speaks russian (apart from russians and some Ukrainians)

/Ankh

Ovi · Post by **Ovi** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 4:24 pm

[quote="Adianna"]They are in order of how many people speak them as their native or official second language. ]

English only 60 million "as their native or official second language." is almost certainly wrong. There is 60 million (roughly) in the UK alone speaking it as their first language, and I would hazzard a guess there are rather a lot in the rest of Europe who speak it as their second language rather well.

Personally I don't really care about the figures, I would just like all of the world to decide on an international language and stick with it. I only speak English atm, but if I have to learn Mandarin then so be it

Ankh Morpork · Post by **Ankh Morpork** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 4:33 pm

Aye, thats why I dont think these numbers are correct.

/Ankh

Adianna · Post by **Adianna** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 5:11 pm

Official second language means it is officially spoken in that country. A lot of people here can speak English, though it's no official language here. That's why I said English would rank much higher if you count in people who learned it.

According to the numbers i found it's 57 million in UK (including North Ireland, Gibraltar etc.), 4 million in Ireland and less than one million rest in Europe.

Ankh Morpork · Post by **Ankh Morpork** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 5:16 pm

[quote="Adianna"]Official second language means it is officially spoken in that country. A lot of people here can speak English, though it's no official language here. That's why I said English would rank much higher if you count in people who learned it. ]

Aye, but point is - majority speak/know english so imo that should be good enough reason to start more servers in english than getting more french/german ones

(that is, if mythic get their thumb out of their arse and advertise more so we get more players)

/Ankh

Zupernova · Post by **Zupernova** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 7:37 pm

Hehe :sheepskip

Post by **Xest** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 8:53 pm

[quote="Adianna"]Official second language means it is officially spoken in that country. A lot of people here can speak English, though it's no official language here. That's why I said English would rank much higher if you count in people who learned it. ]
Those numbers regarding population of the UK at least are definetely a good few years out of date - the UKs population has passed 60million now, it was around 59.5 million in early 2003.

If you check the numbers on the link I posted earlier, Russian isn't actually classed as an official EU language, however as parts of Russia are indeed in europe (note: not all of Russia is) it does include some stats for Russia.

Reason I added in all languages to the conversation earlier is that it seems somewhat nonsensical to recommend the learning of a language based purely on a game like DAoC and I'd argue it's far better to learn a language based on it's general use - finally there are other factors, for example some languages are so similar in picking up one you could easily pick up another so it's worth considering that in the equation too imo.