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How Many Millions? The Statistics of English Today

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 October 2008

David Crystal
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Extract

In the reign of Queen Elizabeth – the first, that is, from 1558 to 1603 – the number of English speakers in the world is thought to have been between 5 and 7 million. At the beginning of the reign of the second Queen Elizabeth in 1952, the figure had increased almost fiftyfold. In 1962, Randolph Quirk estimated in The Use of English that 250 millions had English as a mother tongue, with a further 100 million using it as a second or foreign language.

Type
Special Features
Information
English Today , Volume 1 , Issue 1 , January 1985 , pp. 7 - 9
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1985

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References

References and Related Reading

Baily, R. W. and Görlach, M. (eds.), English as a World Language. Cambridge: C. U. P. 1984.Google Scholar
Fishman, J. A., Cooper, R. L. and Conard, A. W. (eds.), The Spread English: the Sociology of English as an Additional Language. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House. 1977.Google Scholar
Gunnemark, E. and Kenrick, D., What Language Do They Speak? Kinna, Sweden: Gunnemark (private publication).Google Scholar
Kachru, B. B., ‘South Asian English‘, in Bailey and Görlach, pp. 353–383.Google Scholar
Quirk, R., The Use of English. Harlow: Longman. 2nd edn. 1968.Google Scholar