Mostly a note to myself, on languages.

[randomness]

So, 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.

Comments

[spinrabbit.livejournal.com]

I am guessing that if one had stats on speakers of the language who don't speak another language higher on the list, you'd probably get some of those Indian languages dropping down the list, and some African ones shoehorning themselves in.

[miss-chance.livejournal.com]

hmmm... If the goal is to share a language with the maximum number of people on the planet, this list makes sense. But if the goal is to actually be able to talk to the maximum number then wouldn't you need to re-order the list to the places you intend to visit?

I'm looking at Polish there at the bottom of the list. If I could somehow learn Mandarin Chinese in the next four weeks or learn Polish in the next four weeks, I'd end up able to talk to more people by the end of the summer by choosing the latter, because I'll be spending three weeks in Poland.

I still want to be able to pick up languages much more quickly than I can, though. I admire your polyglotism.

[cerebralpaladin.livejournal.com]

I've sometimes wondered what the order should be if the goal is to share a language in common with as many people as possible. English is still first, of course, but there's at least some chance that Arabic or Hindi would pass Spanish (a lot of Arabic speakers don't speak English as well). How many Hindi speakers speak English? Many, surely, but enough to make a difference relative to Arabic? I have no idea. Still, the top 3 probably stay the same. I bet that further down, though, it would make a lot of difference. But I really don't know, or even how to figure that out.

[chhotii.livejournal.com]

How about if I tag along when you go to India, and brush up on my Hindi beforehand. :)

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

Awesome! That means I can sort of talk to a whole lot of people!

[eclectician.livejournal.com]

The other interesting question is how many words you need to know to be really effective in the language. I just keep thinking of the Chinese stat - you know, of the howevermany pictograms, you need to know a relatively small number to be really effective with the language.

[achinhibitor.livejournal.com]

I once formulated my "list of languages that would enable you to talk with any educated (secondary education) person":

English, Mandarin, French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Swahili, Japanese

To some degree, this is not a ranking. E.g., German doesn't make the cut because though German is widely spoken through central Europe, almost all of them know other languages. Whereas French and Spanish are widely used through their former empires on other continents.