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NUMBERS CONSIDERED In considering which languages dominate the Internet, two statistics are considered: the first language of Internet users and the language of actual material posted on the web. Internet users Internet-user percentages usually focus on raw comparisons of the first language of those who access the Internet. Just as important is a consideration of second- and foreign-language users; i.e., the first language of a user does not necessarily reflect which language they regularly employ when using the Internet. First-language users English-language users appear to be a plurality of Internet users, consistently cited as around one-third of the overall (near one billion). This reflects the relative affluence of English-speaking countries and high Internet penetration rates in them. This lead may be eroding due mainly to a rapid increase of Chinese users,http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/online/archives/2005/08/16/english_grip_on_internet_being_eroded.html which broadly parallels China's advance on other economic fronts. In fact, if first-language speakers are compared, Chinese ought, in time, to outstrip English by a wide margin (837+ million for Mandarin Chinese, 370+ million for English). First-language users among other relatively affluent countries appear generally stable, the two largest being German and Japanese, which each have between 5% and 10% of the overall share. Second- and foreign-language users If a gradual decline in English first-language users is inevitable, it does not necessarily follow that English will not continue to be the language of choice for those accessing the Internet. There is an enormous pool of English second-language speakers who employ the language in technical, governmental and educational sphereshttp://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/lan_eng_sta and access the Internet in English. A classic example of this scenario is India, the world's second most populated country. With economic growth, English has begun exploding as the emerging lingua franca in India. In 1995 it was thought that perhaps only 4% of the population was truly fluent in English (still an impressive 40 million).http://www.postcolonialweb.org/india/hohenthal/5.2.html A decade later, by 2005, India had the world's largest English -speaking and understanding population http://www.abc.net.au/newsradio/txt/s1363471.htm and second largest "Fluent English" speaking population (led only by U.S.). It is expected to have the world's largest number of English speakers within a decade. http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=5675 is official but Different Spoken Variants Of Chinese are often Mutually Unintelligible ; the Diaspora disproportionately speaks Cantonese . There is, however, an existing written standard that serves as a common written language. In the future, then, English and Chinese may have roughly equal positions at the top of the overall Internet first-language users, but English will likely continue to dominate as the default choice for those accessing the Internet in a second language. Other world languages that could conceivably begin to challenge English include Spanish and Arabic , though it remains to be seen if these, too, will be largely isolated to first-language speakers on the Internet as is Chinese. Internet content One widely quoted figure for the amount of web content in English is 80%.http://www.englishenglish.com/english_facts_8.htm Other sources show figures five to fifteen points lower, though still well over 50%.http://www.verisign.com/press_releases/pr/page_029135.htmlhttp://www.trnmag.com/Stories/2001/112101/English_could_snowball_on_Net_112101.html There are two notable facts about these percentages: The English web content is greater than the amount of first-language English users by as much as 2 to 1. Given the enormous lead it already enjoys and its increasing use as ''lingua franca'' in other spheres, English web content may continue to dominate even as English first-language Internet users decline. This is a classic Positive Feedback Loop : new Internet users find it helpful to learn English and employ it on-line, thus reinforcing the language's prestige and forcing subsequent new users to learn English as well. Certain other factors (some predating the medium's appearance) have propelled English into a majority web-content position. Most notable in this regard is the tendency for researchers and professionals to publish in English to ensure maximum exposure. The largest database of medical bibliographical information, for example, shows English was the majority language choice for the past forty years and its share has continually increased over the same period.http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1175804 Again, this does not necessarily correlate to first-language statistics; the fact that non-Anglophones regularly publish in English only reinforces the language's dominance. It should be noted that English has the richest technical vocabulary of any language, and so many IT and technical professionals speak English regardless of country of origin ( Linus Torvalds , for instance, comments his code in English, despite being from Finland). 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