Doggone It

One of my Hong Kong friends has a mom who, at the age of nearly 60, just started studying English for the first time in her life. When I asked what prompted her decision to start learning a new language now, as opposed to let’s say 10 years ago when her son (my friend) did, she revealed the exact source of her inspiration: A little while back she was at the dentist’s office waiting in the lobby for her routine check-up when in walked a foreign man with his dog. The receptionist noticed the dog climbing on one of the chairs and immediately called for the man to take his pet outside. The man ordered at his dog in English, who then responded without a moment’s hesitation. My friend’s mom, as she puts it, suddenly realized that a “stupid dog” had better English than her. How could it be? She immediately resolved to begin her study of the world’s second, third or fourth (depending on your source, as well as how you define “speaker”) most widely spoken language – a language apparently even some animals can understand.

This got me to thinking...Is it possible that there are more animals who understand English than native Chinese English-speakers (this question only considers Chinese who have not immigrated or studied abroad)? According to this statistic, 63% of American homes include a pet, with cats and dogs as the most popular choices. These are smart animals that for the most part live in English-speaking environments and are most likely trained to obey their owners’ commands. Other pets likely to answer to the calls of the owners are horses, birds, and other small animals. After checking out some numbers published by the American Pet Product Manufacturers Association, we know that there are more than 163 million cats and dogs in the US, most of which I’m guessing can understand, “yes,” “no,” “stop,” “food,” etc. Assuming that half of all horses can understand similarly simple direction, that’s another 7 million we need to add to the English-speaking animal pool. And if 10% of birds and small animals have the same ability as cats and dogs – and some horses – that’s another 4 million. All together, that’s more than 170 million animals in the US alone that have better English than what my friend’s mom had just a while back.

Now according to Wikipedia, which obviously needs to be read and referred to with caution, China has the world’s 15th largest English speaking population at 10 million people, or 0.77% of its total population. Wikipedia notes that this figure is for English users in mainland China only. They also remark that the figure of 300 million, which is often cited in response to the question of how many English speakers there are in China, refers to learners of the language, and not regular users. According to my personal experience in this wonderfully interesting country, many learners of English, while able to say “hello” and “thank you,” can not understand a word beyond that. They’d be lost if I yelled “bad dog!” or, “your dinner’s ready!”

I guess you can sense the facetious tone in this entry, but the numbers don’t lie...at least not that much. It seems there are nearly as many animal English “speakers” in the US as there are even English learners in China. This comparison must be taken with consideration of the fact that the natural capacity of an animal is obviously a drop in the bucket of the mental capacity of even the most unintelligent Chinese person. Does this suggest that American pet ownership is excessive, or that the Chinese still have a long way to go in terms of integrating into the English-speaking world (assuming that’s even an aim)? Perhaps both? It’s interesting to think that communication might be easier at home among millions of cats and dogs than here in the countryside.