Quoted: America is behind the rest of the world when it comes to bilingualism, with only 9 percent of the population reporting fluency in a second language, compared with 52 percent of Europeans, according to a research review by University of Wisconsin professor Francois Victor Tochon.
English is spoken by about 15 percent of the world’s population, but its “postulated ubiquity” is a “myth,” writes Tochon. “On average, bilinguals earn more in the United States and, more recently, in the United Kingdom.”