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Amusing visual evidence that speaking English sucks: http://cnrsociety.org/images/English-Official_Map-s.png


>1/6 is a rather sizable fraction of the world's population (India itself is ~1/6 or 1/7 at over a billion people). Are there any other languages that are official for so many people?

The metric system graphic indicates <1/6 of the world's population highlighted as not using the metric system, making gp's point stronger.


> Are there any other languages that are official for so many people?

Yes, Chinese for one. And Spanish closely follows English[1]

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_total_numb...


There's a difference between "A vs. B" and "A vs. Not A"


This would be a great analogy if countries in grey shared a common language.


The map's wrong to the extent it implies the USA has an official language. We have a de facto standard language, but we have no laws defining an official language.


And that's even funnier because Canada (as well as "the African ones") English isn't the only standard language. Canada for example has French as well as English, and Africa, well that depends which one. But it certainly isn't 100% English.




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