Which languages have the most native speakers in Europe?
I'm trying to make a quiz for each continent. But I'm having working out the data myself. When I'm finished feel free to make it!
Native speakers only? That isn't what your source is working with.
By the way, we now finished the 5-by-continent version. Does it look right? I know we must've made many mistakes. Using all speakers.
Yeah I'm not sure about the source for this one tbh. It claims first and second speakers, but the numbers seem way too low. I find t hard to believe that only 58 million people can speak English as a first or second language.
Sorry 59 million. Anyway. The Russian data on mine is wrong as discussed below, but there than that looks good!
I think being able to speak a language, and it being "your language" are different things. Many people are probably able to speak english, but do not consider it their second language. Most people have grown up with only one language, in a country(region) with one (dominant) language.
besides the uk and ireland which european country has english as an official language?
The correct number for Russian according to the source is 95 million, 82 million is for Russia only.
+1 95 million includes Russophones in Belarus and Ukraine, etc.
Yeah I've changed it, just waiting for the quizmaster to approve it.
Excellent quiz, quite challenging but I got the last with 4 s cones to spare.
Misspelled Ukrainian Ukranian. Only one I missed.
This quiz unfairly advantages people who aren't ignorant.
Surprised Serbo-Croatian didn't make it.
Should turkish make the list?
The source says there's about 19 million native Turkish speakers in Europe.
Don't forget this is native speakers only. Not everyone in France is a native speaker. And the populations of the rest of those countries is quite small. Also only 65 million live in Metropolitan France.
You have the number of people speaking Dutch at 21,900 million. As you say that the quiz only accounts for native speakers of a language and the population of the Netherlands is 17 million, almost half of Belgium must then be native Dutch speakers? (Pop. of Belgium is 11 million). Are you considering Flemish as Dutch?
Flemish is the same as Dutch, just with a different accent and a few different words for some things. It's like the difference between UK English and US English.
Yes, Dutch is an official language of Belgium (often referred to as Flemish) and is native for 60% of the population.
Surprised at the low number for English. The population of the UK is over 65 million, the vast majority of whom will be English speakers. Add in some 4.7 million Irish - the vast majority of whom will also be English speakers, and you aren't far short of 70 million.
The vast majority will be English speakers but a significant minority will not be native speakers.
Got them all with 1:15 remaining at 5:46:16 PM on February 25, 2019. I was surprised that Dutch made the list.
In my travels around Europe I've many times thought that it would be very handy to speak Russian. Not only is it tied to be the most widely spoken language, apparently, but also those Europeans who speak Russian are much less likely than the German-speakers to have even a passable level of English.