THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. Over Half of Those Who Speak it Inhabitants of the United States.
The languago in which Shakespeare and Milton wrote was the language of but five or six millions of people in their day, and as late as 100 years ago English was spoken by not more than 15,000,000 or 16,000,000 people. At the same period French was the mother tongue of at least 30.000,000, and German, in one or other of its forms, was the language of from 35,000,000 to 40,000,000 people. This state of affairs is now completely reversed. Between iorty and fifty years ago the English language equalled the German in the number of those who spoke it, and now the latter is left far behind in the race. German is spoken by 10,000,000 persons in the AustriaHungarian empire, 46,000,000 in the German empire, 40,000 in Belgium, 2,000,000 in Switzerland, and is the native tongue of some 2,000,000 in the United States and Canada. This gives a total of about 60,000,000 persons who may speak German. With French the case is much the same, but the gain during the past century has been smaller than that of German. French is now spoken by the 38,000,000 people of France, by 2,250,000 in Belgium,, 200,000 m Alsace-Lorraine, '600,000 in Switzerland, 1 500 000 in Canada and the United States, 600,000 in Hayti/ and by 1,500,000 in Algiers, India, the Wost Indies, and Africa , in all about 45,000,000. English is now spoken by all but, some 500,000 of the 37,000,000 persons in the British Islands, by 53,000,000 out of the 56,000,000 inhabitants of the United, States, by 4,000,000 persons in Canada, 3,000,000 in, Australasia, 1,700,000 persons in the West Indies, and perhaps by 1.000,00.0 in India and the other British colonies! This brings up the total to 100>00,0,060, .wliicli cannot be very far from thVtruth^ , ,, , t ,
The ratep^yere.along.the^ipe^i y?&\me* Plains 'AdlwAy" '"dispute the ,'gaymep/pfj rates, and are being'sued bytno Company.
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Bibliographic details
Te Aroha News, Volume III, Issue 107, 20 June 1885, Page 5
Word Count
323THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. Over Half of Those Who Speak it Inhabitants of the United States. Te Aroha News, Volume III, Issue 107, 20 June 1885, Page 5
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