[throwaway3878]

I had (somewhat hyperbolically) Asia and Latin America in mind but this being HN I eagerly await someone pointing out the existence of Belize or some parts of India and Singapore in a valiant effort to be technically correct.

[samatman]

India has the largest English-speaking population in the world. Yes, larger than the United States; it has a lot more people.

That's not a technicality, nor is it fair to Singapore to call that a technicality: it's a small country, but the vast majority of its citizens speak English as their home tongue.

English has official status in only Guyana and the Falkland islands, of all of South America. That's more like a technicality, especially since Creole is the actual spoken language of the people.

Belize is in Central America, which is part of the North American continent; the Caribbean (and its various English-speaking islands) are also lumped in with North America.

[throwaway2989]

> India has the largest English-speaking population in the world. Yes, larger than the United States; it has a lot more people.

India is a populous country with English as an official language. If you think all its inhabitants speak English you're in for a surprise should you ever go there. People are educated in English, certainly; however Canadians' well-known mastery of French as well as Irish people's mastery of Irish shows this criterion doesn't necessarily amount to much.

I'm wasn't disappointed by all the other technicalities in your post though, keep it up

[samatman]

At no time did I say that the majority of Indians speak English. I said they have the largest English-speaking population in the world.

Assuming that 300 million Americans speak English (to be generous), that would require more than 22.2% of India to speak English.

According to the last census, conducted in 2011[0], India has about 125 million English speakers. That same link says this is "projected to quadruple in the next decade".

If that supposition is at all accurate, India now has the largest population of English speakers in the world. The next census is in 2021, so we should know for sure by then.

[0]: https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-20500312

[Zenst]

https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/english-speaking-countri...