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Some numbers have been calculated by Wikipedia editors by mixing data from different sources;
figures not attributed to sources and given with a date should be treated with caution.
In most sources, the results shown are of people who say that they can speak English, while that was not verified; which means the actual number of English speakers could be higher or lower
Figures are from the 2022 American Community Survey 5-year estimates by the U.S. Census Bureau for persons age 5 and older. Total English speakers are those who either spoke English at home (i.e. as first language), or reported speaking another language at home but could speak English "very well" or "well" (i.e. as an additional language).[2]
2011 Census figures for population and first, second, and third languages. English as a first language is only spoken by 259,678 people, as a second language by 82,717,239 and as a third language by 45,562,173.[3]
English is one of the official languages under the constitution and is commonly used in education and administration.[4][5][6] According to statistics from various sources, the English-speaking population ranges from 88.69 million[7] to 108 million,[8][9] accounting for 49% to 58% of the total population.[10][11]
English is the most widespread language in the country due to the many different languages spoken, with 60 million speakers.[12] This includes speakers of an English creole, accounting for 51% to 57% of the total population.[12][13] It is estimated 10% of Nigerians speak English as a first language.[14]
Source: Data from the 2011 census for England and Wales.[15] Additional English speaker figures are for usual residents aged 3 years and over with a main language other than English who can speak English "very well" or "well".
Native speakers: Mikrozensus 2020, Statistisches Bundesamt.[20] Non-native speakers: Eurobarometer report 2012 Does not include foreign military personnel based in Germany.
The 2016 count reported that 23,757,525 people were able to conduct a conversation in English only, while 6,216,065 were able to converse in both English and French. The census also asked for the first language learned at home in childhood and still understood by the individual: 52% or 19,460,850 reported English as their only mother tongue, 165,320 reported both English and French as mother tongues, 533,265 reported English and a non-official language as mother tongues, and 33,900 reported English, French and a non-official language as mother tongues. The data also show that 26,007,500 Canadians report English as their first official language spoken.[22]
Source: 2016 census.[24] The 2016 census data is subject to multiple interpretations. The data noted that 17,020,421 persons out of 23,401,892 total only spoke English, and a further 4,695,489 spoke English either "Very Well", "Well" or "Not Well". A further 193,036 persons were listed as speaking English "Not At All". However, 1,492,941 persons provided incomplete information; 1,440,493 provided no language or proficiency details and 52,448 gave no information on proficiency.
During the two decades since the U.S. military intervened in Afghanistan, English as a foreign language was learned by 6% of Afghans. (see Languages of Afghanistan)[33]
Source: British council (2012) and EF. Only 5% of Brazilians have a proficient grasp of English as a second or foreign additional language and an additional 6% have a very rudimentary knowledge.
Figures are for English users in mainland China only (i.e. excluding Hong Kong where English is an official language and Macau). The often-cited figure of 300 million is for "learners."[37]
Source: Eurobarometer report 2006 The Belgian population is divided in two distinct linguistic regions: The Belgian Dutch-speaking Flanders, and the Belgian French-speaking Wallonia (the region of Brussels also has a majority of native French speakers). Like in the Netherlands, a high percentage of Flemish people speak English fluently, and in Wallonia, a lower percentage of people speak English (as it is the case in France), which brings down the total percentage.
Figure for speakers of English as "main language", according to Federal Statistical Office, Neuchâtel 2008.[47] Source for number of non-native English speakers is 1999 publication by Prof. François Grin[48]
There were 4,027,947 responses to 2006 Census: Language spoken. 3,673,679 gave English as a response, 81,936 had no English but another language. The balance of 272,382 were; no language (too young) 75,195, no response 196,221, response unidentifiable 588, response outside scope 378. Hence it is most meaningful to express the English-speaking per cent without including the figures for these 272,382. This gives 97.8% English-speaking, 2.2% non-English-speaking (3,673,679 and 81,936 divided by 3,755,565) Crystal (2003), p. 109, gives figures of 3,700,000 native speakers and 150,000-second language speakers.
Source:.[54] Percentage of people who state they have a high level of English. Another 19.49% and 16.23% of people said they had an intermediate and low level, respectively, of English.
Total was estimated by multiplying projected population for 2014 (DANE) by percentage of Colombian population that speaks English 4.09%[55] then 63,600 was added to that figure which is the total of American and British residents. Figures for native speakers are as follows: 60,000 U.S. citizens that reside in Colombia. 12,000 are Colombian Raizal from San Andrés and Isla de Providencia where they speak San Andrés–Providencia Creole[56] 3,600 British expatriates[57]
Number of those who understand spoken English, from these 1.9 million: 311,435 (2.6%/16.6%) can only read, 931,444 (7.7%/49.6%) can read and write in English. The number of native speakers is the sum of Americans and Englishmen "by nationality". (Census 2009)
Source: Crystal (2003), p. 109. This includes speakers of an English creole.
World
7,794,798,739
1,429,363,998
18.34
411,802,346
5.28
1,016,000,810
13.03
The European Union is a supranational union composed of 27 member states. The total English-speaking population of the European Union and the United Kingdom combined (2012) is 256,876,220[64] (out of a total population of 500,000,000,[65] i.e. 51%) including 65,478,252 native speakers and 191,397,968 non-native speakers, and would be ranked 2nd if it were included. English native speakers amount to 13% of the whole population of the EU and the UK, while the percentage of people that speak English "well enough in order to be able to have a conversation", either as first (32%), second (11%) or third (3%) foreign language, was 38%.
When taken from this list and added together, the total number of English speakers in the world adds up to around 1,430,000,000. Likewise, the total number of native English speakers adds up to around 410,000,000. This implies that there are approximately 1,020,000,000 people who speak English as an additional language.
^
Statistics on second language speakers are inevitably not precise; partly because there is no widely agreed definition of second language speakers – there is no differentiation between countries where English is the lingua franca and those where it is not.
^"English — more than a subject". Dawn. Archived from the original on 26 December 2017. Retrieved 25 December 2017. The report said English was deeply penetrated into the Pakistani society as it had one of the largest English-speaking populations of the world and claimed that 49pc population (88.69 million people) could speak English.
^"English Speakers By Country". worldatlas.com. 14 May 2018. Archived from the original on 6 July 2022. Retrieved 20 June 2022. Pakistan has the third largest number of English speakers in the world at 108,036,049 speakers.
^From mid-2009 to late 2013 this entry overstated the number of native speakers by roughly 100fold, and inflated the number of total speakers, on the alleged basis of material in "Philippines". Ethnologue. 19 February 1999. Archived from the original on 25 January 2013. Retrieved 16 October 2013.. In fact, EthnologueArchived 10 January 2022 at the Wayback Machine as of 24 December 2013 simply repeats the number of native speakers, 20,000, reported in Crystal 2003, on the basis of an old (pre-1995) census, and does not address total speakers at all. This attempt to correct these errors in turn perpetrates both error and original research, by applying the old percentages listed above, 63.71% of people over 5 as total speakers in 2000, and .04% of people as native speakers in 1995, to the 2010 totals from Philippines in Figures, 2013, Chapter 5, DemographyArchived 26 December 2013 at the Wayback Machine, tables 5.1 and 5.6. Andrew Gonzalez died in 2006; someone else's attention to the 2010 census figures, which appear not to be online and may not have been printed yet in adequate detail, is needed to produce reliable, more or less current, numbers.
^Jian Yang (April 2006). "Learners and users of English in China". English Today. 22 (2): 3–10. doi:10.1017/S0266078406002021. S2CID145247004.. Quote: "What this suggests, it seems, is that Yan’s (2004) ten million may after all be a more informed estimate of the actual regular users of English in China." (page 9)"
^Национальный состав и владение языками [National composition and language proficiency] (Report) (in Russian). Vol. 5. Таблица 4. Владение языками и использование языков населением [Table 4. Language proficiency and language use by the population]. Archived from the original on 31 December 2022. Retrieved 17 January 2023.
Raymond G. Gordon, Jr., ed. (2005). "English". Ethnologue: Languages of the World (Fifteenth ed.). Dallas, Texas: SIL International. ISBN1-55671-159-X. Retrieved 17 March 2006.
Crystal, David (2003). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language (Second ed.). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. p. 109. ISBN0-521-53033-4.