Friday, December 12, 2008

Looking to Learn a New Language?

I am really in love with the idea of becoming fully fluent in two languages, and I think my cranium is just big enough for a third. Spanish would probably be the most useful, no? I scrapped this off Wikipedia a few minutes ago.

Ranking of languages by number of sovereign countries in which they are official:
* 55 countries: English
- largest: United States, India, Nigeria
* 29 countries: French
- largest: France, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Canada
* 24 countries: Arabic
- largest: Egypt, Sudan, Algeria
* 20 countries: Spanish
- largest: Mexico, Spain, Colombia, Argentina
* 10 countries: Portuguese
- largest: Brazil, Portugal, Mozambique, Angola
* 7 countries: German
- largest: Germany, Austria, Switzerland
* 5 countries: Dutch
- largest: Netherlands, Belgium, Suriname
* 4 countries: Albanian, Italian, Russian, Serbian,
* 3 countries: Chinese, Malay, Persian, Swahili, Tamil, Turkish, Urdu, Hungarian.
* 2 countries: Aymara, Bengali, Croatian, Greek, Hindi, Korean, Quechua, Romanian, Sotho, Swati, Swedish, Tswana

Logic indicates I should focus on Arabic, but I don't see that happening anytime soon...

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