Worldwide Demographics

[wwmiv]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

That's an apples-to-apples comparison. Native speakers + 2nd language speakers (and NOT including foreign speakers, i.e. people who learned it as a foreign language).

Native speakers alone is a meaningless stat. By restricting to "native speakers", Henry Kissinger wasn't an Anglophone, and Mao Zedong wasn't a Mandarin Chinese speaker. You can see the absurdity of that.

You’re misinterpreting what I said. Completely.

I understand they are making an apples to apples comparison—and I think their apples to apples projections are dubious at best and flat out fabrications at worst. Like I said: irrespective of the current data (which looks wrong on its face anyway, given that Hindi almost certainly is larger than French using their method), I highly disagree with any projection of the future that shows French outgrowing Spanish in ANY apples to apples comparison. Including theirs.

[wwmiv]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

People from monolingual societies cannot comprehend this.

Rude sleight of hand ad hominems are the death of reasoned debate.

Furthermore, monolingual societies have their own strengths (even if they have their own weaknesses). I tend to think that the strengths of monolingualism are better than the strengths of lingual pluralism and that its weaknesses nowhere near as bad:

For instance: monolingual societies operate from a common set of cultural norms that are by definition* impossible in a lingually plural society. Internal cohesion being stronger = greater insulation from collapse from within (which happens to be the primary weakness of lingually plural societies). This is counterbalanced by monolingual societies tending to have fewer connections with the outside world—which dampens its economic potential.

The U.S. for the longest time struck the balance between the two by incentivizing monolingualism within a framework of high immigration—which means we keep the outside connections, but maintained English and the eventual abandonment of immigrant languages (Italian, German, Irish, etc.) as a requirement for full civic advancement. This balance between monolingualism and lingual pluralism has been lost in favor of more and more lingual permissiveness (Spanish, Hindi, Mandarin, Cantonese, etc.) that will eventually lead to lingual pluralism in the United States if left unchecked. That’s NOT a good thing.

I prefer the balance between the two (incentivized monolingualism with a high immigrant share) so that we can draw from both their strengths and neuter both of their weaknesses. English monolinguality for the vast majority of locally born (indigenous languages excepted—they should be preserved on their own cultural merits) is essential to that.

*different languages train your brain to think in different ways—and so an L1 speaking of one language and an L1 speaker of another, when bother learning their L2 (the lingua franca) will still have trouble communicating with the same in depth fluent nuance relative to two L1 speakers of the lingua franca would.

Lingual pluralism itself can make a political system unstable, especially in a democracy, because it raises the internal risk of miscommunication. That dampens the exercise (if not the legality) of free speech, too, as more and more people become unwilling to speak freely for the fear of being misunderstood, misinterpreted, and misconstrued.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by Yuri

Angola is not a monolingual society and yet half of them have Portuguese as the mother tongue; the other half probably use it as L2.

Same as in Côte d'Ivoire.

Originally Posted by Yuri

I checked Senegal and apparently only 26% is able to speak French and less than 1% use it as the main language of communication.

Wrong. At the 2023 Senegal census, 37.5% of the population age 10 and older could read and write French.

And the percentage of Francophones in Dakar, the capital, is higher. 54% in Dakar understand French orally, 49% can read it, 49% can write it. The capital is what influences the rest of the country.

As for your ridiculous 1% language of communication, according to a 2025 survey cited in the 6th edition Francophonie report, 86% of respondents in Dakar said that mastering the French language was important for employability. 93% said that the French language was important in the workplace.

Originally Posted by Yuri

This week I saw a clip of Senegalese parliament criminalizing homosexuality. Zero votes against it.

What does this have to do with the French language??

Originally Posted by Yuri

This (overweight) congresswoman was speaking in English.

In your imagination (or you confused with another country).

PS: You may not be aware of it yet, but Youtube now has this very annoying habit of offering automated AI dubbing of people in videos. So perhaps you saw a Senegalese MP automatically dubbed in English by AI in your jurisdiction (you have to check the settings to remove the automated dubbing, which has appeared barely a month ago, and is one of the most annoying features of Youtube).

These are the MPs from Senegal's parliament last week during the debate, no English whatsoever (if you listen to the original voices and not some dubbing):

• Video Link

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by wwmiv

I highly disagree with any projection of the future that shows French outgrowing Spanish in ANY apples to apples comparison. Including theirs.

It's the simple fact of demographics. This is the projection of population for French-speaking and Spanish-speaking countries at the time of the 2012 UN World Population Prospects revision. Since then, newer revisions have projected an even higher population for the Francophone countries in the coming decades, and a lower one for the Spanish-speaking countries. That's because the fertility rates have plummeted across Latin America, whereas they have remained high in Africa.

Not everyone speaks French in the Francophone countries, but it's not hard to see that whatever the % of French speakers in each country, it's only a matter of time before French is more spoken than Spanish. In terms of total population, the Francophone countries are already more populated than the Spanish-speaking countries.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

Same as in Côte d'Ivoire.

Wrong:

langue parlée à la maison (%, 2014): français 6%

Le français est la langue d'enseignement et 34 % des habitants du pays la comprennent

In Angola is 71% (12x more) and virtually 100% respectively.

Why you make such wild claims when you know it would be easily debunked?

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

Wrong. At the 2023 Senegal census, 37.5% of the population age 10 and older could read and write French.

And the percentage of Francophones in Dakar, the capital, is higher. 54% in Dakar understand French orally, 49% can read it, 49% can write it. The capital is what influences the rest of the country.

As for your ridiculous 1% language of communication, according to a 2025 survey cited in the 6th edition Francophonie report, 86% of respondents in Dakar said that mastering the French language was important for employability. 93% said that the French language was important in the workplace.

Negligible numbers. Over 90% of the Dutch know English.

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

What does this have to do with the French language??


In your imagination (or you confused with another country).

PS: You may not be aware of it yet, but Youtube now has this very annoying habit of offering automated AI dubbing of people in videos. So perhaps you saw a Senegalese MP automatically dubbed in English by AI in your jurisdiction (you have to check the settings to remove the automated dubbing, which has appeared barely a month ago, and is one of the most annoying features of Youtube).


These are the MPs from Senegal's parliament last week during the debate, no English whatsoever (if you listen to the original voices and not some dubbing):

(...)

Because Senegal is a "Francophone" country and yet a member of the parliament was delivering the speech in English and I found it odd.

And yes, she was speaking in English. Go to 0:47:

• Video Link


--------------------------


According to Wikipedia, there are only 1.2 million of L1 French speakers in Africa and 167 million L1+L2. Only 1.2 million. That's nothing.

[wwmiv]

Yeah… those numbers are BS and the projections are detached from reality.

Currently (L1+L2)

Spanish: ~580-600 million
French: ~300-320 million

There are so many geopolitical events that will intervene between now and when it is even plausible that French could overtake Spanish (2100 maybe?) that it isn’t even worth discussing. Spanish is so far ahead that any random intervening event is as likely to benefit it as it would French.

Let’s take a few “remote” possibilities:

• Russian and Islamist financed proxy wars destabilizes the West African interior region further, Russia and Islamist backed militants somehow ends up victorious, and French falls out of political favor and education pivots to a local language—this is ongoing in Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and will likely expand. In Senegal, this could mean political consolidation toward Wolof, for instance.

• A huge swath of the Democratic Republic of the Congo is conquered by Rwanda (functionally ongoing) and, in the eventual federal consolidation with the East African Union as part of Rwanda, Swahili and English could displace French. Guess what? That’s what happened in Rwanda in 2008.

I’m sorry, but the geopolitical picture isn’t pretty for French which is why the propaganda about it is constant and unabating. I fully expect that now is the Francophone apex and that English, Swahili, and local languages like Wolof, Bambara, Hausa, Mouchi, Lingala, and a standardized Cameroon Pidgin and Seychelles Creole begin to displace French. French serves zero practical purpose except for banking and French political manipulation and control—it is in France’s national interest to maintain it, and Africa’s collective interest to abandon it and replace it. Maybe it won’t be as thorough as Rwanda, but all of Franco Africa is eventually going to go the way of either Haiti or of Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Madagascar, Burundi.

Sorry not sorry. French is a beautiful language. But it isn’t ever going to outgrow Spanish, which has NONE of these pressures.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by Yuri

Wrong:

langue parlée à la maison (%, 2014): français 6%

Le français est la langue d'enseignement et 34 % des habitants du pays la comprennent

In Angola is 71% (12x more) and virtually 100% respectively.

Why you make such wild claims when you know it would be easily debunked?

You're using outdated or biased data, as usual.

Côte d'Ivoire is precisely very similar to Angola because in Côte d'Ivoire (unlike in, say, Senegal or Guinea), French (or a slangish French called Nouchi) is spoken since birth by an ever growing part of the population, i.e. contrary to many Francophone African countries, in Côte d'Ivoire the % of people who speak French is higher than the % of those who went to school, and in fact the % of those who speak it is higher than the % of those who can read and write it, which shows it's less a learned language there, and more an oral language, unlike in most other Francophone African countries. That's particularly the case in Abidjan.

As for raw data, the 2021 Ivorian census found that 47.7% of the population age 15 and older can read and write French (but like I said, the % of those able to speak it, in various registers, from Nouchi to pure standard French) is higher, unlike in other African countries. Among the people age 15-19, the percentage of those who could read and write French at the 2021 was 68.9% (and even 71.8% for those age 15), which shows a great progression of education in Côte d'Ivoire (all schools in the country are French-language schools, and the schooling of children suffered in the 2000s due to the civil war, but has been improved since 2011).

So the demographers from OIF, assuming that the children age 10 to 14 are already 68.9% able to read and write French (which they say is conservative considering that it's improving with each age, like 71.8% for those age 15), calculate that 51.0% of the Ivorians age 10 and above could read and write French in 2021. Quite significantly above your 34%.

Originally Posted by Yuri

Negligible numbers. Over 90% of the Dutch know English.

The major difference being that English is not a daily language in The Netherlands, whereas French is a daily language in Senegal. Debates at the national assembly in The Hague are not conducted in English. You don't need to speak English to be hired to work for the city of Utrecht. Most university courses are not taught in English. Hospitals in The Netherlands do not function in English. Etc. etc.

You comparison between Senegal and The Netherlands shows that you don't understand what is a Francophone country. But then what's new? You were already doing that 15 years ago on the SSC forum. Some people never change. Your avatar flag is quite telling.

Originally Posted by Yuri

And yes, she was speaking in English. Go to 0:47:

• Video Link

A quick search about this lady, I see she's a member of the populist, anti-Western so-called "Pan-Africanists". She's also in charge of foreign relations in the national assembly of Senegal.

She likes to use other languages to address an 'international audience'. In this other video from 2024 for example, she uses Arabic and English (on top of Wolof mixed with French) to address Anglophone Africa and Arabic speaking countries:

• Video Link

But yet she's a Francophone, as can be seen in this video below. Her occasional use of Arabic and English is not destined to her colleagues (most of whom don't understand English, and a lot of whom would probably struggle with political Arabic, since all they've learned in Coranic schools was religious Arabic).

• Video Link

This lady is not only a rabid Panafricanist (the most racist and stupid people in Africa, like the Chavistas in South America), but she is also apparently a vindicative Islamist conservative (her veil is not typical of women in Senegal, it's something the Islamists imported from the Middle East).

These people will wreck Senegal, just as Chavez & co. wrecked Venezuela. I give them 10 years before they become very unpopular and the more pro-Western (and modern) people they defeated last year return to power (unless they subvert democracy like in Venezuela).

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by wwmiv

Yeah… those numbers are BS and the projections are detached from reality.

Currently (L1+L2)

Spanish: ~580-600 million
French: ~300-320 million

There are so many geopolitical events that will intervene between now and when it is even plausible that French could overtake Spanish (2100 maybe?) that it isn’t even worth discussing.

323.4 million for French, and that's only in the Francophone countries (so not counting the French speakers in the USA for instance, when that 600 million figure for Spanish speakers includes the Spanish speakers in the USA). As a reminder, a like for like comparison (including all countries) is 396 million for French and slightly more than 600 million for Spanish (as per the 6th edition Francophonie report).

And this 323.4 million is only for the people already in school (or who went to school), i.e. it doesn't included the children under the ages of 6-9 y/o (depending on countries) who haven't started their French-language education yet. In Africa, where most Francophones live, these children are very numerous, and they will start their French-language education in the coming 5 years. Then the next generation born will be even bigger than the current one. It's a snowball effect.

Spanish has no reserve. Younger generations are smaller and smaller.

Originally Posted by wwmiv

Let’s take a few “remote” possibilities:

• Russian and Islamist financed proxy wars destabilizes the West African interior region further, Russia and Islamist backed militants somehow ends up victorious, and French falls out of political favor and education pivots to a local language—this is ongoing in Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and will likely expand. In Senegal, this could mean political consolidation toward Wolof, for instance.

• A huge swath of the Democratic Republic of the Congo is conquered by Rwanda (functionally ongoing) and, in the eventual federal consolidation with the East African Union as part of Rwanda, Swahili and English could displace French. Guess what? That’s what happened in Rwanda in 2008.

These scenarios typically fail to take into account how entrenched is the French language in the Francophone sub-Saharan African countries. The Sahel countries already tried to pivot away from the French language in the 1970s, at the peak of Soviet anti-Western influence, when French was less widespread in those countries than today, and they failed. And they are currently failing for the same reasons: no single language to unify those countries other than French, no money to transform the education system into using the local languages instead of French (printing books, training teachers, etc), no desire by the local population to receive an education in the local languages (because that affords less mobility and opportunity to the children). Today, with mass Francophone medias reaching all corners of Africa, it's even harder than in the 1970s when cell phones didn't exist, TV was virtually non-existent in these countries, and at best people only had a small radio set.

As for the DRC, well it WAS conquered by Rwanda, in 1997, and contrary to what some people in Britain and America anticipated with excitement, it didn't lead to the eradication of the French language there. Quite the contrary, the Anglophone leader of the Rwanda-backed rebellion turned into a Francophone president (out of necessity, because that's the language spoken by most people), and French has never been so spoken in the DRC than now (certainly more than in 1997).

A new Rwanda-backed rebellion today would be even less unlikely to change the national language of the DRC than in 1997. It's simply not realistic as a scenario.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

You're using outdated or biased data, as usual.

Côte d'Ivoire is precisely very similar to Angola because in Côte d'Ivoire (unlike in, say, Senegal or Guinea), French (or a slangish French called Nouchi) is spoken since birth by an ever growing part of the population, i.e. contrary to many Francophone African countries, in Côte d'Ivoire the % of people who speak French is higher than the % of those who went to school, and in fact the % of those who speak it is higher than the % of those who can read and write it, which shows it's less a learned language there, and more an oral language, unlike in most other Francophone African countries. That's particularly the case in Abidjan.

As for raw data, the 2021 Ivorian census found that 47.7% of the population age 15 and older can read and write French (but like I said, the % of those able to speak it, in various registers, from Nouchi to pure standard French) is higher, unlike in other African countries. Among the people age 15-19, the percentage of those who could read and write French at the 2021 was 68.9% (and even 71.8% for those age 15), which shows a great progression of education in Côte d'Ivoire (all schools in the country are French-language schools, and the schooling of children suffered in the 2000s due to the civil war, but has been improved since 2011).

So the demographers from OIF, assuming that the children age 10 to 14 are already 68.9% able to read and write French (which they say is conservative considering that it's improving with each age, like 71.8% for those age 15), calculate that 51.0% of the Ivorians age 10 and above could read and write French in 2021. Quite significantly above your 34%.

Again: 71% of Angolans speak Portuguese at their homes. Whether is 6% or 10% in Cotê d'Ivoire speaking French at home is completely irrelevant. It's a world apart.

Same with this 34% or 47% knowing French, it doesn't matter to they point: in Angola virtually 100% knows Portuguese.

You were completely WRONG when you said Angola and Côte d'Ivoire are the same. Stop the gaslighting.

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

The major difference being that English is not a daily language in The Netherlands, whereas French is a daily language in Senegal. Debates at the national assembly in The Hague are not conducted in English. You don't need to speak English to be hired to work for the city of Utrecht. Most university courses are not taught in English. Hospitals in The Netherlands do not function in English. Etc. etc.

You comparison between Senegal and The Netherlands shows that you don't understand what is a Francophone country. But then what's new? You were already doing that 15 years ago on the SSC forum. Some people never change. Your avatar flag is quite telling.

Languages of Senegal:

Principally-used languages in Senegal according to the 2023 Census:

Wolof: 53.5%
Pulaar: 26.3%
Serer: 9.6%
Joola: 2.8%
Mandinka: 2.8%
French: 0.6%
Balanta: 0.4%
Mandjak: 0.4%
Signed languages: 0.3%

Note: These numbers represent respondents' single most used language, not all languages they know.

Not even 1% of Senegalese say French is their most used language.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by Yuri

Again: 71% of Angolans speak Portuguese at their homes. Whether is 6% or 10% in Cotê d'Ivoire speaking French at home is completely irrelevant. It's a world apart.

You compare a survey (not a census) from 2014 (12 years ago) in Côte d'Ivoire where people responding to the survey declared only ONE language spoken at home (which is contrary to what happens in Africa, where people speak several languages at home due to the multilingual nature of these societies) with the census of Angola where they say (if only you had cared to read your source) that people speak SEVERAL languages at home (among them Portuguese).

So comparing apples and oranges there.

Originally Posted by Yuri

You were completely WRONG when you said Angola and Côte d'Ivoire are the same. Stop the gaslighting.

They are comparable because in both countries (and also in Gabon, as well as in Cameroonian cities), French (or Portuguese in Angola) is not just a language learned at school, but it's also a street language heard since the very beginning of life.

I know I'm talking to a wall and you're not interested in a real conversation here or getting to know the facts, but I'm only stating it for other people who will read this thread.

Originally Posted by Yuri

Not even 1% of Senegalese say French is their most used language.

Apparently you don't understand the concept of 1st and 2nd language. I don't think you're really interested in understanding these concepts, you're only here to diss all things French, as you already used to do on SSC, so I won't waste time explaining. You have lots of material that you can find online that will explain to you what these concepts are, especially in Africa. All I can say is, if you genuinely imagine that French represents only 1% of language use in Senegal, you're in for a shock on your first visit to Dakar. We had a forumer on SSC who could have explained it to you, but I doubt he would participate here.

[wwmiv]

You’re a propagandist. Plain and simple. The numbers I gave are worldwide and DO include the U.S., Canada, etc. I’d go so far as to say you’re on France’s government payroll.

[MolsonExport]

To borrow from Godwin's Law: "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving France or the French language/people approaches one."

[montréaliste]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

To borrow from Godwin's Law: "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving France or the French language/people approaches one."

I suppose it's a good enough reason to explain your distant love for your home town.

Can't tell if Molson Export is a sarcastic handle, but I can tell you there are a lot better representational brews in the local arena than that one.

[MolsonExport]

well, if it wasn't obvious, I was referring to the well-established pattern of New Brisavoine hijacking nearly every thread he participates in. I am far from the only person noticing this, judging from the many times people have made similar comments.

But thanks anyways for the criticism. I am fully aware that there are better beers in Quebec (Molson Export is the old beer for the Habs, and I am an export of Quebec, if you must know why I use it). Sorry if I don't want to subscribe to some hive mentality, whereby any deviation makes one an "Enemy of Quebec" (as bestowed by Liojack).

[wwmiv]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

A new Rwanda-backed rebellion today would be even less unlikely to change the national language of the DRC than in 1997. It's simply not realistic as a scenario.

One has to wonder if you are even aware that there is an ongoing war between Rwanda and the DRC with a faux armistice. Rwanda and allies have direct control on the ground across a large swath of eastern DRC.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic...%93Rwanda_conflict_(2022%E2%80%93present)

This is a long simmering conflict with multiple outbreaks of open warfare (1996-1997, 1998-2003, 2004-2009, 2012-2013, 2022-current). Rwanda and the other pre-East African Union states will eventually gain the land they seek, as the DRC does not have the international support, allies, nor domestic institutions, infrastructure, or social cohesion to fend them off over the course of the next 50-100 years. Eventually the dominos will fall—it is not a matter of if, but of when.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by wwmiv

One has to wonder if you are even aware that there is an ongoing war between Rwanda and the DRC with a faux armistice. Rwanda and allies have direct control on the ground across a large swath of eastern DRC.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic...%93Rwanda_conflict_(2022%E2%80%93present)

This is a long simmering conflict with multiple outbreaks of open warfare. Rwanda and the other pre-East African Union states will eventually gain the land they seek, as the DRC does not have the international support, allies, nor domestic institutions, infrastructure, or social cohesion to fend them off over the course of the next 50-100 years. Eventually the dominos will fall—it is not a matter of if, but of when.

Yeah, and Rwanda will turn into the "Singapore of Africa". "Visit Rwanda" as they say on football shirts.

In the real world, Rwanda is isolated (appart from partial support by the Ugandan dictator). Kenya and Tanzania, in particular, are absolutely opposed to a partition of the DRC, which could risk destabilizing their own countries. South Africa is also absolutely opposed to a partition of the DRC.

[mousquet]

Demographic projections or forecast are highly hypothetical.
In 1990, some professional demographers in France swore to their gods that the world population would be 20 billion in 2020.
They're not bragging about what they predicted back then.
Any unexpected disaster could cause the African people to die en masse. We've seen turmoils like this in the past.

When I was in preschool or nursery school, I was 4 or 5 in a Catholic establishment. Our teachers were telling us to make our moms buy food for Ethiopian little kids dying from famine. We filled several trucks like this.
They showed us pictures of little kids like us dying from starving... That's the kind of things you don't forget.
Today, people in Africa are still impoverished, but they no longer literally starve. I still fear it might happen again. You never know.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by mousquet

Any unexpected disaster could cause the African people to die en masse.

Any unexpected disaster could also cause the Latin American people to die en masse, si on en va par là.

[montréaliste]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

well, if it wasn't obvious, I was referring to the well-established pattern of New Brisavoine hijacking nearly every thread he participates in. I am far from the only person noticing this, judging from the many times people have made similar comments.

But thanks anyways for the criticism. I am fully aware that there are better beers in Quebec (Molson Export is the old beer for the Habs, and I am an export of Quebec, if you must know why I use it). Sorry if I don't want to subscribe to some hive mentality, whereby any deviation makes one an "Enemy of Quebec" (as bestowed by Liojack).

The two you refer to never engaged in angry Anglo bashing as far as I can ascertain in the years I have been here. I am just wondering why you had to turn this into a French vs Anglo thing by grouping those three. It sounds pretty 🞵🞵🞵🞵 hurty to me. This hive mentality, indeed. You need some introspection.

[craigs]

Originally Posted by montréaliste

I am just wondering why you had to turn this into a French vs Anglo thing by grouping those three.

He did not do that.