Talk:List of multilingual countries and regions

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Contents 1 Number of French speakers in Canada 2 Cities / criteria / structure 3 French in Cape Verde?!? 4 Lack of Logic

[edit] Number of French speakers in Canada

The article claims that approximately 25 % of the population of Canada can speak French. I was under the impression however that 23 % was the percentage of Canadians who speak French as first language. The percentage of Canadians who are fluent in French either as first or second language (i.e including bilingual Anglophones) is somewhat higher though (I believe, close to 30 %). Could anyone check the official figures from Statistics Canada ? 161.24.19.82 13:39, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

I found this on a StatsCan page (http://atlas.nrcan.gc.ca/site/english/maps/peopleandsociety/lang/officiallanguages/englishfrenchbilingualism): "In 1996, 67% of Canada’s population were able to conduct a conversation in English only, 14% in French only and 17% in both of these languages. Around 2% of people enumerated reported not knowing either of these two languages."

In the "List of multi..." article, I've changed the numbers and added the word 'another' so the text reads "...25% of Canadians speak French with another 18% speaking both English and French". DDD DDD 23:51, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cities / criteria / structure

That list of cities is getting longer and longer. Fair enough. I'm wondering if we should make some sort of criteria or structure for that list. Maybe we could divide the list by geographical region/continents (africa, americas, asia, etc...). Or possibly by city population (for example: 2.5 million+, 1 million to 2.499,999 million, 250,000 to 999,999, 100,000 to 249,999, less than 100,000 - although we could end up with a VERY long list if we did it like this). Also, I believe the wiki article for that city should already indicate the city's liguistic features so we could go to the city article and verify/learn more. Anybody? Thoughts? DDD DDD 00:33, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] French in Cape Verde?!?

French is a foreign language in Cape Verde. It is neither an official language, neither a national language. TenIslands 12:06, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Lack of Logic

When listing cities where many languages are spoken, which logic should be followed? One could either list the languages in alphabetical order or list them according to size in the city - BUT there has to be consistency. At the moment, French is listed after English in Montreal, Hebrew is listed as the third language in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem; these are clearly cases of listing the languages in alphabetical order. In other cases, such as Gorizia, Williamsburg or Koper, the largest language is listed. Now, which solution should be taken. I find the latter one more informative but the most important thing here is consistency. JdeJ 17:53, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

whats the logic of listing Amman Beirut and Cairo as multilingual towns when they are not? in a multi lingual town or country the constitution states clearly the multilingualism of a country .. teaching foreign languages is a world-wide phenomenon not a feature of a certain country or town ... the official languge of Beirut Amman and Cairo is Arabic ... English French German Spanish and Italian probably even more languages are taught as foregn languages everywhere in the world. in Switzerland 4 languages are considered by the constitution as official and national languages .. logic to call the country multilingual but because foreign languages are taught in Germany that doesnt make Germany a multi-lingual country ! so whats the logic of stating cairo as multilingual town? —Preceding unsigned comment added by BerlinerOmar (talk • contribs) 12:27, 26 October 2007 (UTC)