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BedHead: But it's compiled by a western source, so couldn't there be bias in the top 4 languages being western languages?
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Look at the criteria that earned languages high positions on the list. What are the key aspects of the top 3? 1) Languages of colonialization 2) Relatively easy languages. I think those two things explain a heck of a lot. English is a no-brainer at the top. The US/Britain won WWII. English became the new lingua franca. I do think among his criteria "socio-literary prestige" must be a fairly subjective measure. I don't see a whole lot of bias possible in the other factors. I don't know when this list was put together. Surely China's economic power is growing, but it doesn't have a lot of primacy in other categories.