By mid-century, Mandarin will be more widely spoken in Africa than English.

Created by NathanMcKnight on 2012-10-21; known on 2060-01-01

NathanMcKnight estimated 75% on 2012-10-21
NathanMcKnight changed the deadline from “on 2012-10-21” on 2012-10-21
gwern said “does anyone track this sort of thing? I mean, how much english is spoken there now? does a bilingual not using english count as being spoken?” on 2012-10-21
NathanMcKnight said “There are currently eleven African countries with >100k English speakers, while there are only two for Chinese. Usually, number of speakers is proxy for how widely spoken a language is.http://tinyurl.com/ylsxex http://tinyurl.com/nuomj” on 2012-10-21
NathanMcKnight said “Sorry those links ran together…<http://tinyurl.com/ylsxex><http://tinyurl.com/nuomj>” on 2012-10-21
RandomThinker estimated 80% on 2012-10-21
JoshuaZ estimated 51% on 2012-10-21
faws estimated 7% and said “For hundreds of millions of Africans English is one of their national languages. No one is going to adopt Chinese as national language, and even if Chinese were to replace English as lingua franca it’s not going to happen quickly enough.” on 2012-10-22
RandomThinker said “faws makes a good point. Got overexcited in my initial assessment.” on 2012-10-22
NathanMcKnight said “English certainly does have cultural momentum, but the economic gravity in Africa is rapidly shifting as a result of China’s aggressive pursuit of resources and labor. That’s a strong motivator.” on 2012-10-22
William-Quixote estimated 10% on 2012-10-22
museveni estimated 0% and said “Economic incentives won’t be enough to replace centuries of colonial history (which is the basis of African countries’ education systems, which chooses the second language learnt). ” on 2012-10-28
NathanMcKnight said “It took about ten years for English to replace French and German as a European lingua franca, and I’m sure the same is true in several other countries. Language change can be surprisingly fast. ” on 2012-10-28
Jayson Virissimo estimated 25% on 2012-10-28
PseudonymousUser said “mid-century is 2060?” on 2012-10-28
NathanMcKnight said “Referring to the last century, the entire range from 1935 to 1965 is loosely referred to as mid-century. I’d count the central decade (2045-2065) for PB purposes. Besides, it could take a while before the data are clear.” on 2012-10-29
faws said “Which ten years in particular are you referring to? As far as I can tell the prominence of English had been rising for centuries (or at least since the industrial revolution) before it became unequivocally dominant. ” on 2012-10-29
NathanMcKnight said “faws: That’s true globally, but the specific timeframe I was referring to was the switch of the common language in the EU parliament as a result of the entry of first Scandinavia, then Eastern Europe into the union. Not sure of the exact date.” on 2012-10-29
NathanMcKnight said “It was ‘95-’04. I know the EU parliament is a narrow sample, but as I understand it, the shift reflects a larger linguistic trend in Europe. ” on 2012-10-29
faws said “Not at all. English has been the No 1 foreign language essentially everywhere in Europe except for the non-russian speaking parts of the Eastern block (where it was No 2 behind Russian) since WW2, and the most widely learned before that.” on 2012-10-29
faws said “Before WW2 English was regarded as the language as commerce, French of diplomacy and culture and German of science (with overlap), but English already was the most prominent of those three. ” on 2012-10-29
NathanMcKnight said “But nonetheless, the rise of English displaced many local linguae francae, often in a short period of time, if I’m not mistaken. It stands to reason that a new lingua franca can replace English just as quickly.” on 2012-10-29
NathanMcKnight said “How long did it take for English to displace Russian as the lingua franca of the Eastern Bloc? I was there in ’99, and it had already supplanted Russian, despite centuries(?) of Russian dominance.” on 2012-10-29
NathanMcKnight said “All it takes to supplant a language is for one generation to find a new language to be of greater utility.” on 2012-10-29
NathanMcKnight said “…actually, Eastern Europe is a great example. In the last 200 years, the lingua franca has been French, German, Russian, and English. ” on 2012-10-29
faws said “The lingua franca can change rapidly if the number of speakers of the two languages is already close. People learned both Russian and English in school and Russian wasn’t very popular in most places. The fall of the USSR isn’t typical.” on 2012-10-30
faws said “In 1999 all the young and/or educated people you interacted with presumably all spoke English, but the old people who couldn’t speak English probably outnumbered the young who couldn’t speak Russian.” on 2012-10-30
NathanMcKnight said “People didn’t learn English in school in the Eastern Block until relatively late, I believe. In any case, by the middle of this century, does anybody believe Russian speakers will outnumber English speakers in those countries?” on 2012-10-30
NathanMcKnight said “Actually, the old people spoke German.” on 2012-10-30
NathanMcKnight said “I’m not trying to prove anyone wrong, by the way. In fact, I usually prefer not to try to convince people of my predictions. I just happen to find linguistics particularly interesting.” on 2012-10-30
Jayson Virissimo said “Yeesh, we really need threaded comments.” on 2012-10-30
Ken estimated 20% on 2012-11-12
seifip estimated 5% on 2013-04-14
Madplatypus estimated 10% on 2015-07-15
actrice estimated 10% on 2015-07-15
themusicgod1 estimated 62% on 2016-10-10
pranomostro estimated 20% on 2018-11-25
Baeboo estimated 20% on 2018-12-12
n99 estimated 1% on 2022-10-28