Really? Are you talking about India? If so, I'm not sure what percentage of people have english as their mother tongue - I think it would be quite small. Also, I think indian english is about as dissimilar to british english as american english is.
> there are few places you can go where absolutely nobody speaks it.
I can only assume you have never been to francophone or lusaphone Africa or many Latin American countries. Yes, if you search you might be able to find an intelligentsia that can manage some English, but the majority of people you meet will expect to communicate in French, Spanish or Portuguese.
That's not even true in my European country, I'm pretty sure at most 50% of Iranians speak English (not even taking into account that to write comfortably you need B2 or better English proficiency).
Any kind of English-only media is automatically ignored by 90% of my countrymates, because most people prefer their native tongue.
> Can an English speaking tourist manage in these parts of Sweden?
Absolutely.
According to Wikipedia, 86% of people in Sweden know English. The percentage will of course be smaller in countryside and among older people, but I don't think you can find a small town where at least 50% of people wouldn't know English.
> There is no other language, for example, that is close enough to English that we can get about half of what people are saying without training and the rest with only modest effort.
You mean like English as spoken in the American South, vs Australia, vs England? They are each very different from the English I speak, I can mostly understand each, but it takes effort and sometimes misunderstandings happen.
> 200 million speak english as a secondary language
Where did you get that number? The sources I've seen are 1+ billion
I'm not saying everyone should speak english. But it seems if things carry on the way they are, everyone will speak english, even if it isn't the best "choice"
> There are more non-native speakers than native speakers
That is a wonderful point that I've never thought of before.
You can really envision a lingua franca that is English but not American English or British English but Global English.
Second and third generation English speakers who live in a non-English speaking country as a majority of English speakers - will they be like how English is used in India or something completely different?
> Most people under 50 will speak English at a decent level.
Most people, period.
In fact the Dutch speak English so well that it is hard for an English speaking foreigner to learn Dutch because everybody will automatically switch to English at the first sign of foreignness.
> That is not a fair comparison for most people, because English is the most popular second language
According to Wikipedia, FWIW, 1.5 billion people speak English as a first or second language. That means there is a significant language barrier for ~78% of the world.
> There is no other language, for example, that is close enough to English that we can get about half of what people are saying without training and the rest with only modest effort. German and Dutch are like that, as are Spanish and Portuguese, or Thai and Lao
Only because we've arbitrarily decided that all of the English dialects are a single language. Texas Southern English and Newfoundland English are not significantly more mutually intelligible than Spanish and Portuguese. Scots and Singlish are considered English dialects but are barely intelligible to many English speakers.
I had it on the tip of my tongue, but I did not want to sound too offensive; although I dread to say it, it is quite true; however, it's not uncommon to hear people at least trying.
Is this true? I would think that at least 50% would be able to speak English. Perhaps even up to 80%. Anyone else with first-hand experience?
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