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The European Union is a supranational union composed of 27 member states. The total English-speaking population of the European Union and the United Kingdom combined (2012) is 256,876,220 [69] (out of a total population of 500,000,000, [70] i.e. 51%) including 65,478,252 native speakers and 191,397,968 non-native speakers, and would be ranked 2nd if it were included.
In linguistics, a sprachraum (/ ˈ s p r ɑː k r aʊ m /; German: [ˈʃpʁaːxˌʁaʊm], "language area", plural sprachräume, German: [ˈʃpʁaχˌʁɔʏmə]) is a geographical region where a common first language (mother tongue), with dialect varieties, or group of languages is spoken.
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the Anglosphere as "the countries of the world in which the English language and cultural values predominate". [ 7 ] [ b ] However the Anglosphere is usually not considered to include all countries where English is an official language, so it is not synonymous with anglophone .
A sprachbund (/ ˈ s p r ɑː k b ʊ n d /, from German: Sprachbund [ˈʃpʁaːxbʊnt] ⓘ, lit. 'language federation'), also known as a linguistic area, area of linguistic convergence, or diffusion area, is a group of languages that share areal features resulting from geographical proximity and language contact.
The English-speaking world comprises the 88 countries and territories in which English is an official, administrative, or cultural language. In the early 2000s, between one and two billion people spoke English, [1] [2] making it the largest language by number of speakers, the third largest language by number of native speakers and the most widespread language geographically.
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Modern English, sometimes described as the first global lingua franca, [61] [131] is also regarded as the first world language. [132] [133] English is the world's most widely used language in newspaper publishing, book publishing, international telecommunications, scientific publishing, international trade, mass entertainment, and diplomacy. [133]