English is quickly becoming the global language. In China, Yu Minhong has built New Oriental, into the country's biggest provider of private educational services, with more than 1 million students annually, the overwhelming majority learning English. In Chile, the government has said it wants its population to be bilingual in English and Spanish within a generation.

No one knows how many people are learning English. Ten years ago, the British Council estimated 1 billion English learners. A report, English Next, published by the Council in 2006, forecast that the number of English learners would probably peak at around 2 billion by 2016.

How many people already speak English? No one really knows that, either. The table below provides one estimate of first -language speakers from a translation company called Language is Everything.

Language is Everything, Half-year report, July 2007

Top 10 Most Widely-Spoken Languages

Language -followed by -

Number of speakers (as first language)

Number of countries where it is official

Their Alphabet

Chinese Mandarin

873 million

3 (China, Taiwan, Singapore)

There are between 40,000 and 50,000different Chinese characters

Spanish

322 million

21 (including Spain, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Peru, Venezuela, Chile)

Roman

English

309 Million

58 (including USA, UK, Canada, Australia, Ireland, South Africa, New Zealand, Jamaica, Trinidad &
Tobago, Guyana
Roman

Arabic

206 Million

25 (including Egypt, Algeria, Saudi Arabia)

Arabic

Hindi

177 million

1 (India)

Sanskrit

Portuguese

177 Million

8 (including Portugal, Brazil, Mozambique, Angola, Guinea-Bissau, East Timor)

Roman

Bengali

171 Million

2 (Bangladesh, India)

Bengali

Russian

145 Million

2 (Russia, Belarus)

Cyrillic

Japanese

122 million

1 (Japan)

There are four: kanji (Chinese characters),hiragana, katakana and romaji

(Roman)

German

95 Million

6 (Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium,Luxembourg, Liechtenstein)

Roman (plus ß, for double s in lower case)

It is clear that many more people speak a language that just the first-language speakers, and that English is certainly spoken by more people world-wide than Spanish.

Latin was once the shared language over a vast area, but that was only in Europe, western Asia, and North Africa.

It is not just that many of the world's largest companies conduct their business in English, it is the world's second language, how Chinese speak to Brazilians and Germans speak to Indonesians. English is truly the language of global business.

Steven Moore is Adjunct Professor of Communications and Communications Coach for both undergraduate and graduate programmes at the Queen's School of Business in Kingston, Ontario.

With over 75 publications to his credit, he is a recognized leader in the field of business communications teaching and coaching at both the undergraduate and graduate level.

Steven writes about Global Business English at http://www.global-business-english.com