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Article published In: English World-Wide
Vol. 46:3 (2025) ► pp.299–322

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How to obtain speaker numbers for English varieties around the world

Theoretical concepts, challenges and estimations

ORCiD logo with link | University of Freiburg
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Open Access publication of this article was funded through a Transformative Agreement with University of Freiburg.

Published online: 19 September 2025
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https://doi.org/10.1075/eww.25008.ehr
Abstract
Situated at the crossroads of English varieties studies, sociolinguistics, and typology, this paper offers an empirically-based discussion of practical and theoretical challenges involved in collecting speaker data for English varieties. The starting point is recent research on statistical trends between sociodemographic data, including speaker numbers, and linguistic structures. Such quantitative analyses depend on the availability and quality of speaker numbers and thus precipitate the collection of unavailable and well-documented data. In this vein, I detail how to extrapolate speaker numbers from open-access sources for a wide range of English varieties. Based on empirical use cases, practical issues like data quality and reliability are discussed. Furthermore, I illustrate how (the lack of uniform) definitions for concepts commonly used in census data like mother tongue or native speaker impact data collection. In short, this paper highlights key issues in collecting speaker numbers which have implications for research in English varieties and beyond.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Compiling a demographic dataset
  • 3.Numbers and (non-)native speaker labels: Falkland Islands English
  • 4.Estimating numbers for non-standard varieties: Chicano English and Orkney and Shetland English
  • 5.Varieties, multilingualism, and the creole continuum: Cameroon
  • 6.Indirect methods: Uganda and Suriname
  • 7.Concluding remarks
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (67)
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2025. Assessing the Role of Socio-Demographic Triggers on Kolmogorov-Based Complexity in Spoken English Varieties. Entropy 27:10 ► pp. 1009 ff. DOI logo

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