PART II
CONTEMPORARY OPINION
1 . BABEL

    Considerable ignorance seems to exist as to the extent to which Babel actually prevails.
    There are approximately 1,500 languages at present spoken (differing as much as, say French, Spanish and Italian) by approximately 1,800 million people. Only 29 are spoken by more than 10 millions ; of these, seven account for half the total population. The seven according to a recent French estimate are :¹ --

English	170	Spanish	65
Chinese	400	Japanese	55
Russian	80	Bengali	50
German	80

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1 . The 2002 New York Times Almanac numbers are:

English	460	Chinese	800	Spanish	300	Bengali	192
Russian	160	Japanese	126	German	121	French	100

discussion

    Though approximately one person in three throughout the entire globe speaks English or is under English administration, probably less than one Englishman in a thousand could guess more than half the languages at the top of the list (i.e., those spoken by over ten million people). Of one-third he would be unlikely even to recognize the names.
    . . . (more)

A CURRENT LEGEND

THE CLAIM OF CHINESE

ARTIFICIAL SIMPLIFICATION

THE CASE FOR ENGLISH

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1 . List of Nations with Englsh

GALVANIZATION

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