Following my earlier series of posts “The Importance of Speaking English” and “6 Reasons not to learn Chinese“, I wanted to say again in slightly different words how bright the 21st century should look for an Anglophone in the two long-anticipated growth continents of the world: Asia and Africa, and why I choose to live in Asia now and hope to live in Africa around 2030.
One quick chart, worth at least 100 words, shows that at least as far as English as an “official language” goes, there is more population in officially English countries in Asia and Africa than in the US, Canada, Australia, and UK. “Official” is in quotes for the benefit of the US and Australia, which have no official language, but also since official doesn’t necessarily mean widely used.
Although I love learning other languages for fun and profit, and of course choose to live in a linguistically diverse area largely for that reason, I do feel comfort that the native language I speak and write in can take me so far legally and commercially from Hong Kong to Belfast or Capetown with so many Anglophone / Anglosphere countries in between.
