this post was submitted on 05 Oct 2023
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chapotraphouse
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Data here is a few years old, but in most places in the EU, more people can speak at least one additional language than not.
https://jakubmarian.com/average-number-of-languages-spoken-by-the-eu-population/
I'd wager a big part of it is due to the legacy of colonialism, where in the Anglosphere there are so many people in every direction that speak the same language that there isn't the same incentive to learn another. Whereas, for most of human history, people have needed to learn additional languages, and often stay accustomed to learning new ones.
A conjecture you could make is that for any country where over 90% of people speak the primary language, then the more populous the country, the less likely people are to be bilingual. This explains Japan, and perhaps also Russia and large parts of Latin America.