throwaway2989

> India has the largest English-speaking population in the world. Yes, larger than the United States; it has a lot more people.

India is a populous country with English as an official language. If you think all its inhabitants speak English you're in for a surprise should you ever go there. People are educated in English, certainly; however Canadians' well-known mastery of French as well as Irish people's mastery of Irish shows this criterion doesn't necessarily amount to much.

I'm wasn't disappointed by all the other technicalities in your post though, keep it up

There are plenty of Chinese diasporas all around the world. I'm willing to bet that if you asked around 20 people or so in an average American or British city you'd end up being understood in Chinese. Yet I don't see many people calling Chinese an international language.

It'll take more than just stats gleaned on wikipedia to make a coherent case. A large majority of mankind has no use for English and thus doesn't use it, and this can be readily witnessed firsthand by travelers who stray off tourist paths. (For instance I say rural Germany is rough going because I've been there and witnessed it firsthand.) That doesn't mean English isn't a lingua franca, it's just not the lingua franca in most of the world. In Latin America people will use Spanish or Portuguese, in Africa people will use French, Arabic, English or Swahili, in much of Central Asia people will use Russian. Even then, knowledge of those languages isn't a given.

The fact of the matter is that English isn't known or used by most of the world population. Arguing about the rest is just semantics.