I wonder how many people speak different pairs of languages. Like if you know English and Mandarin, can you speak to 1 in 3 people? Or is there a lot of overlap putting you closer to 1 in 5?
This would be a real mess to check. I bet there’s a really small overlap for some pairs, like Egyptian Arabic vs. Japanese*; but for others the overlap is rather large, like Hindi vs. English. And sometimes counting if you can speak a language or not can be tricky — like, how much Spanish does a Portuguese speaker need to learn, or vice versa, in order to be considered “speaking” it?**
*I can think on at least one example of that, though: Fairouz Ai. Two if her brother also learnt Arabic.
**The Venezuelans (mostly ES speakers) in my city (mostly PT speakers) come to my mind. Sometimes their portuñol is easier to understand than some Portuguese varieties. Do they “count” as speaking Portuguese? No idea.
I wonder how many people speak different pairs of languages. Like if you know English and Mandarin, can you speak to 1 in 3 people? Or is there a lot of overlap putting you closer to 1 in 5?
This would be a real mess to check. I bet there’s a really small overlap for some pairs, like Egyptian Arabic vs. Japanese*; but for others the overlap is rather large, like Hindi vs. English. And sometimes counting if you can speak a language or not can be tricky — like, how much Spanish does a Portuguese speaker need to learn, or vice versa, in order to be considered “speaking” it?**
*I can think on at least one example of that, though: Fairouz Ai. Two if her brother also learnt Arabic.
**The Venezuelans (mostly ES speakers) in my city (mostly PT speakers) come to my mind. Sometimes their portuñol is easier to understand than some Portuguese varieties. Do they “count” as speaking Portuguese? No idea.