Global distribution of languages

Curious инфографика edition of South China Morning Post, showing not only the current state of affairs in the spread of the world's languages, and the factors influencing their future. Especially interesting to look at it, if we bear in mind that the language in the modern world = the spread of culture. Ie speech, eventually, on the world's cultural diversity, its future and place of different cultures in the future.

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Interesting facts:

The world has 7, 2 billion people
For the 4, 1 billion of them are native is one of the 23 most common world languages
Chinese - the most common of native languages 1, 2 billion media
English - the most common language in the world, taking into account half billion learned it - only it say 1, 8 billion
The French and English languages - the only two, to learn that the number exceeds the number of those for whom he is a native
- Russian - eighth prevalence in the world as a mother tongue to 166 million people
- The Russian language - the eighth in the number of countries in which to speak it - 16 countries, including, in addition to 15 b countries. USSR More and Mongolia.
- The Russian language is not included in the top 7 most studied language in the world, with seventh in Japanese with only three million who teach it, so no matter how many people either taught Russian - they are even less
- Russian language is inferior to the number of speakers on it Portuguese - mostly, of course, due to the much larger population of Brazil прогнозируемое decline of Russia's population to 120 million by 2050 and 100 million by 2100, we can assume that the sphere of influence of the Russian language and Russian culture will decline. At least, do not see the prerequisites for growth, or even save the status quo.
  
  French is well settled in second place in the number of students it. Despite the fact that the total number of speakers it is not comparable with the Chinese, the ratio of home / learned in their favor, in contrast to China, which is probably just too difficult to learn. Yes, the spread of the French now mostly - a legacy of the colonial era, due to African countries, but it is not so bad, given the growth potential of African countries in the XXI century, both numerically and economically. By a combination of factors we can say that the French are not at least less likely to become redundant world language than that of the Chinese.
  
  However, while China - the second economy in the world, it is also impossible to write off. 30 million learn Chinese - a drop in the sea, so that the next desyatiteletiya demand for learning Chinese should grow.
  
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  A brief summary:
  1. Do not see the prerequisites for growth, and even save the sphere of influence of the Russian language
  2. The English language is not threatened as a world language
  3. The French language - non-obvious candidate for a place contingency language
  4. The Chinese language will be beneficial to learn and teach in the coming decades
    
    Source: geektimes.ru/post/265070/