Is India or US the biggest English-speaking country?
Is India or US the biggest English-speaking country?
The US. The US has over 250 million English speakers (89% of the US population), while India has around 90 million (only 8% of the Indian population).
I think we had a long drawn out thread discussing whether India was an English speaking country and I believe the overwhelming consensus was that India is not an English speaking country.
India is probably a lot like the Netherlands, where many many people speak English but English is not one of the official languages. India is probably *unlike* the Netherlands in that India is full of Indians and is much larger and has fewer dikes and in India they don't have the Anne Frank museum or window shopping for hookers.
Holland is also unlike India in that Holland is full of Dutch people who are tall, blond and generally have good teeth. But the number of people fluent in English causes some people to confuse the two countries. It becomes even more confusing when I add into the equation the fact that I have met lovely Indian hookers in Amsterdam, which is also in Holland and not in India. I was walking down Warmoestraat and I stumbled into a warren of debauchery that included a diverse selection of grade A women when I met some incredible Indian hookers. In that moment, being very stoned, the enigma almost crashed the server in my head.
You be the judge, but I stand by my statement that India is not Holland. To this day I believe they are different countries.
India is probably a lot like the Netherlands, where many many people speak English but English is not one of the official languages. India is probably *unlike* the Netherlands in that India is full of Indians and is much larger and has fewer dikes and in India they don't have the Anne Frank museum or window shopping for hookers.
Holland is also unlike India in that Holland is full of Dutch people who are tall, blond and generally have good teeth. But the number of people fluent in English causes some people to confuse the two countries. It becomes even more confusing when I add into the equation the fact that I have met lovely Indian hookers in Amsterdam, which is also in Holland and not in India. I was walking down Warmoestraat and I stumbled into a warren of debauchery that included a diverse selection of grade A women when I met some incredible Indian hookers. In that moment, being very stoned, the enigma almost crashed the server in my head.
You be the judge, but I stand by my statement that India is not Holland. To this day I believe they are different countries.
<India is probably a lot like the Netherlands, where many many people speak English but English is not one of the official languages.>
Actually, English is one of the official languages in India unlike the Netherlands. The thing is, most Indian people's first language/native language is not English. They speak their native languages(tribal languages) at home, local schools and etc. However, English is an important language for interethnic communication, especially in the big cities, including much day-to-day scientific, governmental and business use.
Actually, English is one of the official languages in India unlike the Netherlands. The thing is, most Indian people's first language/native language is not English. They speak their native languages(tribal languages) at home, local schools and etc. However, English is an important language for interethnic communication, especially in the big cities, including much day-to-day scientific, governmental and business use.
The vast majority of Indians understand at least some English - many are quite proficient in both speaking and understanding the Language as I believe it is a compulsory subject in all Indian schools. No doubt I will be corrected if I am wrong here. So with a population in excess of one billion that's a whole lot of people with varying degrees of English Language comprehension and competence in its use.
The main problem British people have with Indian spakers of English though is trying to fathom out the pretty stong accent, but there again you could say the same about a person from Bedfordshire, Southern England, trying to work out what the heck a guy from Bearsden, Glasgow, is saying. That's the root cause of many problems many people have when call centres are located in either India or Glasgow!
The main problem British people have with Indian spakers of English though is trying to fathom out the pretty stong accent, but there again you could say the same about a person from Bedfordshire, Southern England, trying to work out what the heck a guy from Bearsden, Glasgow, is saying. That's the root cause of many problems many people have when call centres are located in either India or Glasgow!
>>The main problem British people have with Indian spakers of English though is trying to fathom out the pretty stong accent, but there again you could say the same about a person from Bedfordshire, Southern England, trying to work out what the heck a guy from Bearsden, Glasgow, is saying. That's the root cause of many problems many people have when call centres are located in either India or Glasgow!<<
It goes both ways, one must remember. Often when talking with call center people from India, they have a harder time with my own speech than I have with theirs. (And if they really have that much trouble with non-standard varieties of English that even my rather careful and high-register but phonologically non-standard speech that I use them is significantly intelligibility-breaking, how are they going to understand someone from, say, rural Yorkshire?)
It goes both ways, one must remember. Often when talking with call center people from India, they have a harder time with my own speech than I have with theirs. (And if they really have that much trouble with non-standard varieties of English that even my rather careful and high-register but phonologically non-standard speech that I use them is significantly intelligibility-breaking, how are they going to understand someone from, say, rural Yorkshire?)
***And if they really have that much trouble with non-standard varieties of English that even my rather careful and high-register but phonologically non-standard speech that I use with them is significantly intelligibility-breaking, how are they going to understand someone from, say, rural Yorkshire?***
I've no idea, Travis. And even worse with someone from Glasgow..heaven help them there.
Iowa born and bred Bill Bryson managed to fathom out Yorkshire speech though.....after he'd been living there about five years. He said that he was always amused when walking along the country lanes near his home in the wilds of North Yorkshire and any of his farmer neighbours passing by in their cars or SUVs or Landrovers or whatever - a single almost imperceptible raising of an index finger on the steering wheel was the accepted form of friendly greeting to any passers by. Yorkshire people are well known for using as few words as possible in any conversation - as well as being blunt, brusque, straightforward and to the point bang on - no messing about - something which Southern English people find to be just a wee bit verging on the rude, as most Southern English people never use one word when ten or more will do.
Bryson now lives in Norfolk, in East Anglia, England - God knows how long it took him to get to grips with the local speech patterns down there...at least from the older people. Local accents among younger people now in many parts of Southern Englkand anyway are now all but dead in the water and Estuartised EERP has now taken over, as you no doubt know.
I've no idea, Travis. And even worse with someone from Glasgow..heaven help them there.
Iowa born and bred Bill Bryson managed to fathom out Yorkshire speech though.....after he'd been living there about five years. He said that he was always amused when walking along the country lanes near his home in the wilds of North Yorkshire and any of his farmer neighbours passing by in their cars or SUVs or Landrovers or whatever - a single almost imperceptible raising of an index finger on the steering wheel was the accepted form of friendly greeting to any passers by. Yorkshire people are well known for using as few words as possible in any conversation - as well as being blunt, brusque, straightforward and to the point bang on - no messing about - something which Southern English people find to be just a wee bit verging on the rude, as most Southern English people never use one word when ten or more will do.
Bryson now lives in Norfolk, in East Anglia, England - God knows how long it took him to get to grips with the local speech patterns down there...at least from the older people. Local accents among younger people now in many parts of Southern Englkand anyway are now all but dead in the water and Estuartised EERP has now taken over, as you no doubt know.
>>The thing is, most Indian people's first language/native language is not English. They speak their native languages(tribal languages) at home, local schools and etc. [...]
In fact, with English being official, there is some ground of justifying India as Anglophone, but .... I think cultural heritage is also important. A culture cannot be inherited at all without ... I can't say to destroy, which is too naive to use... without replacing it with another completely, just like how Buddhism didn't prosper at all in India, even though Buddhism as one dominant religion has since created loads of cultural words in Chinese, for example, that also co-exist with its immense influence on the Chinese culture (which, after all, actually accepted multiple religions). I don't have to judge it very precisely: simply to say, India isn't Buddhist _now_ to a very large degree.
By the same token, I can't say it's Anglophone at all, like some other remote ex-British colonies. When the people who speak English outside the home of English (England, the US...etc) don't really identify themselves with the Anglophone culture(s), more are the chances that they use it simply for national (India) and international communication. They probably don't, for example, use English words for religion, for cultural activities... and socializing in the same "speech community". And by the same token, I don't use English at all for all the above purposes. Even though the Netherlands is nearer to an Ang. country and its Ang. culture, it, still, isn't Ang.
This linguistic divergence is quite interesting. Do my people actually accept the British heritage as part of their own identity, or do they only accept it as a cultural reality in where they live? Probably the latter. Some ... eh... I don't know why, some just like putting their English names (Kenneth, Joyce, Jamie, Julian, etc) along with their Chinese names, but more are those who don't. Is an English name part of their own (both groups), or is it simply a "nickname"? Chances are that many of them find it hard, because they probably know very well that foreigners can't read their names at all, and they have to adopt some kind of English names, even if that might sound outlandish even to me or to some foreigners (Anglophones, at large), for some reasons of economy. I even heard one friend of mine having the change his given name for admin. purposes just because it would sound outlandish (namely, from "lik" to lake, because lik is like LICK).
I, too, still have troubles deciding on a good nickname/name to be called by foreigners. For almost all Chinese outside Hong Kong, I'm perfectly fine with my 3-character personal name; in Hong Kong, no, either they call me Mr. Xie formally, or even I am forced to use an English name, which I won't like to use at all now. I'm not Anglophone or Germanic or English or American and it's, while a socio-cultural norm here, un-acceptable for my having been always referred to by a Germanic name (starting with G). In that case, English names sound even more like privacy-saving pseudonyms, so that you don't have to tell anyone your real name, which is, again, while natural to many others, outlandish to me, at least.
In fact, with English being official, there is some ground of justifying India as Anglophone, but .... I think cultural heritage is also important. A culture cannot be inherited at all without ... I can't say to destroy, which is too naive to use... without replacing it with another completely, just like how Buddhism didn't prosper at all in India, even though Buddhism as one dominant religion has since created loads of cultural words in Chinese, for example, that also co-exist with its immense influence on the Chinese culture (which, after all, actually accepted multiple religions). I don't have to judge it very precisely: simply to say, India isn't Buddhist _now_ to a very large degree.
By the same token, I can't say it's Anglophone at all, like some other remote ex-British colonies. When the people who speak English outside the home of English (England, the US...etc) don't really identify themselves with the Anglophone culture(s), more are the chances that they use it simply for national (India) and international communication. They probably don't, for example, use English words for religion, for cultural activities... and socializing in the same "speech community". And by the same token, I don't use English at all for all the above purposes. Even though the Netherlands is nearer to an Ang. country and its Ang. culture, it, still, isn't Ang.
This linguistic divergence is quite interesting. Do my people actually accept the British heritage as part of their own identity, or do they only accept it as a cultural reality in where they live? Probably the latter. Some ... eh... I don't know why, some just like putting their English names (Kenneth, Joyce, Jamie, Julian, etc) along with their Chinese names, but more are those who don't. Is an English name part of their own (both groups), or is it simply a "nickname"? Chances are that many of them find it hard, because they probably know very well that foreigners can't read their names at all, and they have to adopt some kind of English names, even if that might sound outlandish even to me or to some foreigners (Anglophones, at large), for some reasons of economy. I even heard one friend of mine having the change his given name for admin. purposes just because it would sound outlandish (namely, from "lik" to lake, because lik is like LICK).
I, too, still have troubles deciding on a good nickname/name to be called by foreigners. For almost all Chinese outside Hong Kong, I'm perfectly fine with my 3-character personal name; in Hong Kong, no, either they call me Mr. Xie formally, or even I am forced to use an English name, which I won't like to use at all now. I'm not Anglophone or Germanic or English or American and it's, while a socio-cultural norm here, un-acceptable for my having been always referred to by a Germanic name (starting with G). In that case, English names sound even more like privacy-saving pseudonyms, so that you don't have to tell anyone your real name, which is, again, while natural to many others, outlandish to me, at least.
I would just go by your given Chinese name, Xie. Why invent one that isn't real? All of the native Chinese people I have met in the US just used their actual names -- they didn't try to be "Bob" or "Julie". In my experience, people who really are Chinese and yet are truly named Bob or Julie tend to be Americans who just happen to have that ethnic background. That's a whole 'nother story!
That's an interesting question. Almost everyone young in Hong Kong picks his or her English name at university, and this probably applies to at least two of them... whose students are of rather diverse family and academic background - some more competent, some much less... actually, I often question whether I could learn anything substantial in some of them, yeah, kind of...
Many of us are almost treating those names as part of their own - some have them as part of their legal names, such as Chan Thomas, or Thomas Chan Tai Man (so, it can even start with Thomas...); though the majority only have an ordinary legal name.
I don't care for names like such. Hm, generally, it's alright to call someone, whether s/he truly accepts or, in case, just accepts it for some kind of convenience like me. What I mean is that chances are, for very simple reasons, when you don't know a classmate well enough, it serves as something to avoid calling him/her too directly - which wasn't true at all in the elementary school. People often have better memory of others' English names than their "real" names.
Speaking of myself, my name may have been ... eh... simple to write for you too, hopefully, but at times difficult enough that people often can't know how to pronounce it. My surname (as you see) is quite commonplace, and my name isn't obscure, either, but in my view, some really strangely un-intelligent Hongkongers just fail to read my name correctly all the time, and I'm at times even referred to as a Mr. Zheng.
That is why I think I should be perfectly fine with my name in anywhere of the same province (in Guangzhou, every native of this town knows how to read it), and probably in the whole country; in Hong Kong, that may not be true.
Many of us are almost treating those names as part of their own - some have them as part of their legal names, such as Chan Thomas, or Thomas Chan Tai Man (so, it can even start with Thomas...); though the majority only have an ordinary legal name.
I don't care for names like such. Hm, generally, it's alright to call someone, whether s/he truly accepts or, in case, just accepts it for some kind of convenience like me. What I mean is that chances are, for very simple reasons, when you don't know a classmate well enough, it serves as something to avoid calling him/her too directly - which wasn't true at all in the elementary school. People often have better memory of others' English names than their "real" names.
Speaking of myself, my name may have been ... eh... simple to write for you too, hopefully, but at times difficult enough that people often can't know how to pronounce it. My surname (as you see) is quite commonplace, and my name isn't obscure, either, but in my view, some really strangely un-intelligent Hongkongers just fail to read my name correctly all the time, and I'm at times even referred to as a Mr. Zheng.
That is why I think I should be perfectly fine with my name in anywhere of the same province (in Guangzhou, every native of this town knows how to read it), and probably in the whole country; in Hong Kong, that may not be true.
It's off-topic now, but think about this if you like: I don't know about other countries, but do you, Germans, French, Russians (you all write in alphabet, unlike us and the Japanese, for example), for example, use English names instead of your real names in the English class/the English department/the English-speaking office?
Do you use Andrew instead of Andreas, Anna/Anne/Annie instead of Anya/Anja, and Jack/Jacky instead of Jacques?
In my language, a personal name could be very cultural/feminine/masculine/representing family expectations/representing wisdom, health, wealth, beauty, etc, and yet ALL of them, for a large group of young people, are replaced with completely unmatching Christian/even Japanese-like names in daily conversations.
Do you use Andrew instead of Andreas, Anna/Anne/Annie instead of Anya/Anja, and Jack/Jacky instead of Jacques?
In my language, a personal name could be very cultural/feminine/masculine/representing family expectations/representing wisdom, health, wealth, beauty, etc, and yet ALL of them, for a large group of young people, are replaced with completely unmatching Christian/even Japanese-like names in daily conversations.