its territory must learn to use it as such before its influence goes
far abroad. English, French, and German, and they alone, have reached
this point. French and German have no new country, and practically the
whole of their country is now literate; their relative share in the
world's reading can only increase as their population increases. Spanish
and Russian, on the other hand, have both new country and room for a
much higher percentage of literacy.

It is probable that all the countries in temperate zones will have
universal literacy by the end of the century. In this case, even if no
one read English outside its vernacular countries, it would still hold
its own as the leading literary language. German and French are bound to
fall off relatively as vernaculars, and this implies a falling off of
their importance as culture languages; but the importance of English in
this respect is bound to grow. The first place among foreign languages
has been given to it in the schools of many European and South American
countries; Mexico and Japan make it compulsory in all schools of upper
grades; and China is to follow Japan in this respect as soon as the work
can be organized.

The number of people who can actually read, or will learn if now too
young, for the various languages of the world appears to be as follows:

Number
in Millions Per Cent

English 136 27.2
German 82 16.4
Chinese[A] 70 14.0
French 28 9.6
Russian 30 6.0
Arabic 25 5.0
Italian 18 4.6
Spanish 12 2.6
Scandinavian 11 2.2
Dutch and Flemish 9 1.9
Minor European[B] 34 6.8
Minor Asiatic[B] 16 3.2
Minor African and Polynesian[B] 2+ 0.5

Total 473+ 100.0

Notes:
[A] Not a spoken language, but a system of writing.

[B] None representing as much as 1 per cent of total.

English, therefore, now leads all other languages in the number of its
readers. Three-f