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English-speaking world

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The English-speaking world consists of those countries or regions that use the English language to one degree or another.

The English-speaking world. Countries in dark blue have a majority of native speakers. Countries in light blue have English as an official language, de jure or de facto.

Number of native speakers by country

Country Native speakers
1  United States 214,809,000[1]
2  United Kingdom 58,200,000[2]
3  Canada 18,232,195[3]
4  Australia 15,581,334[4]
5  Ireland 4,400,000[5]
6  South Africa 3,673,203[6]
7  New Zealand 3,500,000+ (approx.)[7]
8  Jamaica 2,600,000+ (approx.)[8]
9  Singapore 2,000,000+[9]
10
|| ???

References

  1. ^ "U.S. Census Bureau, Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2003, Section 1 Population" (pdf). U.S. Census Bureau. pp. 59 pages. Table 47 gives the figure of 214,809,000 for those five years old and over who speak exclusively English at home. Based on the American Community Survey, these results exclude those living communally (such as college dormitories, institutions, and group homes), and by definition exclude native English speakers who speak more than one language at home.
  2. ^ The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, Second Edition, Crystal, David; Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, [1995] (2003-08-03).
  3. ^ Population by mother tongue and age groups, 2006 counts, for Canada, provinces and territories – 20% sample data, Census 2006, Statistics Canada.
  4. ^ [1] Main Language Spoken at Home. The figure is the number of people who only speak English at home.
  5. ^ http://www.cso.ie/releasespublications/documents/population/current/popmig.pdf
  6. ^ Census in Brief, page 15 (Table 2.5), 2001 Census, Statistics South Africa.
  7. ^ Languages spoken, 2006 Census, Statistics New Zealand. No figure is given for the number of native speakers, but it would be somewhere between the number of people who spoke English only (3,008,058) and the total number of English speakers (3,673,623), if one ignores the 197,187 people who did not provide a usable answer.
  8. ^ [2]
  9. ^ The Singapore Story: From Third World to First, Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore Press Holdings. The figure is from 2000 and asked what the language spoken at home was (English lead with 40% of the population). The number of native English speakers in Singapore is obviously much higher today than 2000, with the new census due in 2010 with estimates around 2.5-3 million native speakers

See also


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