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Top 12 langanguages in speakers - Loglan/Lojban 1995 list
The 12 most spoken languages - 1995 Loglan/Lojban Project baseline values
Following is data derived from the 1995 Encyclopedia Brittanica Book of
the Year regarding language populations for the top 12 languages, which
are the baseline set for the Loglan/Lojban project (only the top 6 are
used for Lojban gismu making). For comparison, summary numbers from
1994 are also shown, along with amount of change. I think that these
numbers serve as a fairly authoritative estimate of the number of
speakers of the 12 languages, and unlike other published estimates, my
methodology in generating the numbers is open to inspection, along with
source data for individual countries. (See signature for the Lojban ftp
site, filename "LANGSTAT.95" has the supporting data)
The number of 2nd language speakers is determined by taking actual
counts of such 2nd language (or creole) speakers generated by official
sources and reported in the Brittanica. An increment is added to
reflect 2nd language literacy in the official language of a country,
presuming that all official languages of the country are taught in the
schools, based on official-source literacy figures. Finally, for
Arabic/Moslem countries, the status of Arabic as a religious language is
used to generate an additional increment. This is most significant for
Iran where the religion is heavily state supported even though the
official language is not Arabic, and there are few native speakers of
that language.
Having determined these numbers, the Lojban gismu-making weights are
determined by summing the number of native speakers and 1/2 the total
from all 3 methods of estimating 2nd language speakers (since these 3
methods include an elimination of overlap in the calculation). The
total of 1st and all 2nd language speakers is not used in the Lojban
algorithm.
The 1995 numbers are summarized as follows (in millions):
native 2nd/creole+literacy+religion Total speakers
native+1/2*2nd
normalized weight for 6 languages based on 1.0 total.
Chinese 801.552 314.039+25.225 1140.816
971.184
.347 (-.001)
Hindi 413.231 66.39+206.000 685.621
549.426
.196 (+.002)
English 334.786 187.907+59.895 582.588
448.343
.160 (-.003)
Spanish 330.999 12.644+11.531 355.174
343.086
.123 ( 0)
Russian 210.948 0+77.965 288.913
249.930
.089 (+.001)
Arabic 205.272 0+19.705+46.991 271.968
238.620
.085 (+.001)
Bengali 183.860 0+.927 184.787
184.323
Portuguese 166.662 6.294+10.028 182.984
174.823
Japanese 125.086 0 125.086
125.086
French 74.529 41.198+29.477 145.204
109.866
Malay-Indon. 37.752 137.526 175.278
106.515
German 94.768 1.714+8.511 104.993
99.880
These were the 1994 numbers (The Russian 2nd language numbers were of
lower quality because most of the ex-CIS states had no reported literacy
figures in the Brittanica, and I used a floor value that turned out to
be significantly low).
native 2nd/creole+literacy+religion
native+1/2*2nd
normalized weight for 6 languages based on 1.0 total.
Chinese 792.183 310.584+21.957
958.454
.348
Hindi 405.745 56.6+201.225
534.658
.194
English 329.906 163.662+73.214
448.343
.163
Spanish 325.856 7.069+15.723
337.252
.123
Russian 210.772 0+62.456
242.000
.088
Arabic 198.468 0+19.264+48.323
232.262
.084
Bengali 180.290 0+.904
180.742
Portuguese 164.124 6.199+9.238
171.843
Japanese 124.6059 0
124.6059
French 72.589 41.384+23.010
104.786
Malay-Indon. 36.656 .04+133.053
103.203
German 91.616 1.716+7.625
96.287
For comprison, here is the total speakers from the 1987 World Almanac
and the numbers used in the 1987 original Lojban gismu-remaking effort,
which were based on the 1985 Brittanica BotY. Note that Hindi passed up
English in about 1989 due to rapidly increasing numbers of native
speakers along with a major increase in literacy which is continuing.
The drop in native English, French, German, and Indonesian speakers is
due to the switching of creole speakers and some estimates of non-native
official language speakers (especially in Africa) from native to 2nd
language totals.
1987 1987 gismu-remaking 1995
World Almanac native 2nd n+1/2s norm. weight weight
Chinese 788 752.1 319.1 911.7 .360 .347
English 420 366.5 322.4 527.7 .208 .160
Hindi 382 294 200.3 394.2 .156 .196
Spanish 296 264.7 58.2 293.8 .116 .123
Russian 285 164.3 109.7 219.12 .087 .089
Arabic 177 155.9 57.7 184.8 .073 .085
Bengali 171 87 80.8 127.4
Portuguese 164 110.4 45.5 133.2
Malay/Indon. 128 121.1 39.5 140.9
Japanese 122 120.1 0.6 120.4
German 118 105.4 18.3 114.6
French 114 81.1 75.5 118.9
----
lojbab = Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273 lojbab@access.digex.net
Ask me about the artificial language Loglan/Lojban, or see the Lojban WWW Server
href="http://xiron.pc.helsinki.fi/lojban/";
We also have material available via ftp (ftp.cs.yale.edu, directory pub/lojban).
email mailing list (listserv@ and lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu). The
LLG is funded solely by contributions, and are needed in order to
support electronic and paper distribution.