The Second Most Spoken Languages around the World

The most common spoken language in Brazil is Portuguese. Then it's German, which is spoken by about 3 million people. Olivet Nazarene University in Olivet, Illinois created an interactive map of the world that shows which languages are the second most widely spoken in each country. The author also describes the prevelance of English around the world:

While many people would guess that English is the second most commonly spoken language in a majority of countries, that’s only true for some areas. For example, despite its proximity to North America, the only Central American countries to list English as their second most spoken language are Costa Rica and Panama. Similarly, in South America, Chile is the only country to have English as its second most spoken language, which just over 10% of the population claims to speak as a primary language. Throughout the rest of South America, regional indigenous languages are commonly the second most spoken, replacing English as a second language. […]

Interestingly, the area of the world where English is the second most commonly spoken language is Asia, especially Southeast Asia. Countries such as Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nepal, and India are becoming increasingly common, especially as speakers of various ethnic languages and dialect use English as a common language. Many schools in Japan and South Korea also teach English from a very early age, increasing its prevalence throughout the country.

-via The Presurfer


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Does anyone else think that there might have been some data manipulation? For example, lumping all indigenous languages into a single group. And then there iss Switzerland. The most common language on the street is Schweizerdeutsch with German coming in second.
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