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As in most things, you admit failure to do your homework yet still claim absolute certainty - Edit 1

Before modification by Joel at 10/08/2015 02:32:29 AM

One scholar who HAS done his homework (i.e. David Crystal) estimates Indias English speakers as the most of ANY country, and that global non-native speakers outnumber natives 3:1. http://www.theguardian.com/education/2004/nov/19/tefl https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-speaking_world

View original postAnd we have it by pretty good margin. If you move the bar to fluent English speakers it isn't even close.

Fluents speakers only "move the bar" if native merit exclusive notice, which they do not: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EF_English_Proficiency_Index

The US has the most native speakers, but 35 dialects: Which is largest? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dialects_of_the_English_language#United_States

Do not say "THE Southern:" There are literally HALF A DOZEN Southern dialects, even accepting Wikipedias list, despite it conflating the Deep Southern accent of MS, AL and GA with those of VA, TN and/or LA (the last ALONE having TWO official dialects.) As a generous guestimate, MAYBE 30 million people speak ANY given Southern dialect: 2.5% of the global English-speaking population is a PLURALITY of it?!

View original postI don't have any data to back up which dialect Europeans who speak English as a second language gravitate towards but to my ear t sounds more American than British. That would make sense since so many of them watch American movies and TV. I don't think what they teach in school really matters. In America our schools teach proper Spanish but even the white people who learned as a second langue are more likely to speak with a Latin American dialect.

Continental Europe has plenty of UK TV along with ours; the BBC makes half the kid shows my daughter watches each morning (irrelevant to language, since all are dubbed, but it shows the BBCs European footprint at least matches any US networks.) Admitting ignorance of a subject yet reaffirming ones position by dismissing counterevidence is just purblind: My country, right or wrong. Arguments against Trumps factually deficient nativism would seem more sincere absent arguments here echoing his.

1.2 billion people speak English; half the EUs half-billion residents conversationally or better

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