Mostly a note to myself, on languages.
May. 29th, 2012 11:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
randomnessSo, if the intent is to be able to talk to the maximum number of people on the planet, here are the languages I should learn. Numbers vary wildly, so this is only a guide. (Highest estimate for total number of users, native and non-native in millions from each language's Wikipedia page, fetched 29 May 12.):
English 1800
Mandarin Chinese 1020
(Castilian) Spanish 500
Hindi-Urdu 490
Arabic (dialect chain) 340
French 275
Russian 258
Portuguese 252
Bengali 230
Malay 180
Swahili 150
Japanese 127
German 120
Persian 110
Punjabi 104
Turkish 91
Italian 85
Javanese 85
Vietnamese 81
(Jiangxinese) Gan-Hakka Chinese 80
Thai/Lao-Isan 80
Korean 78
(Shanghainese) Wu Chinese 77
Telugu 74
Marathi 72
Gujarati 65.5
Tamil 65
(Filipino) Tagalog 64.3
Pashto 60
(Cantonese) Yue Chinese 56
Dutch/Afrikaans 51
(Hokkien) Min Nan 50
Kannada 47
Oriya 45
Ukrainian 45
Polish 44
Burmese 42
Obviously, diminishing returns set in after a while. But I've made a pretty good start on the first two. Perhaps the plan should be to learn a hundred words in each language, and be able to string them together in some way intelligible to someone who actually speaks the language.
Compiling this list has really brought home to me the messiness of language classification. It has also reminded me how true it is that languages are dialects with flags.
English 1800
Mandarin Chinese 1020
(Castilian) Spanish 500
Hindi-Urdu 490
Arabic (dialect chain) 340
French 275
Russian 258
Portuguese 252
Bengali 230
Malay 180
Swahili 150
Japanese 127
German 120
Persian 110
Punjabi 104
Turkish 91
Italian 85
Javanese 85
Vietnamese 81
(Jiangxinese) Gan-Hakka Chinese 80
Thai/Lao-Isan 80
Korean 78
(Shanghainese) Wu Chinese 77
Telugu 74
Marathi 72
Gujarati 65.5
Tamil 65
(Filipino) Tagalog 64.3
Pashto 60
(Cantonese) Yue Chinese 56
Dutch/Afrikaans 51
(Hokkien) Min Nan 50
Kannada 47
Oriya 45
Ukrainian 45
Polish 44
Burmese 42
Obviously, diminishing returns set in after a while. But I've made a pretty good start on the first two. Perhaps the plan should be to learn a hundred words in each language, and be able to string them together in some way intelligible to someone who actually speaks the language.
Compiling this list has really brought home to me the messiness of language classification. It has also reminded me how true it is that languages are dialects with flags.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2012-05-29 08:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-05-30 05:10 am (UTC)(I've already picked up a copy of Teach Yourself Beginners Hindi Script so that I have some chance of reading signs.)
(no subject)
Date: 2012-05-30 12:43 pm (UTC)Have you learned to read Arabic script? I never got far with that one, but mastering that skill really should be on my bucket list.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-05-31 05:26 pm (UTC)Yeah, the book has examples of that. Funny!
Have you learned to read Arabic script? I never got far with that one, but mastering that skill really should be on my bucket list.
I haven't! It was something I was hoping to learn in the class I never got to take. :(