Qatar 2022 - the English speaking World Cup?

[Real Mardin]

Can't help but wonder if this year's World Cup breaks the record for the most number of nations who use English as an official or predominant language:

Australia (doesn't have an official language but English is predominant)
Cameroon
Canada
England
Ghana
USA (doesn't have an official language but English is predominant)
Wales

So that's 7. Can any World Cup beat that?


RM

[Real Mardin]

Italia 90 had 5:

Cameroon
England
Republic of Ireland
Scotland
USA


RM

[Real Mardin]

Espana 82 also had an impressive 5:

Cameroon
England
New Zealand
Northern Ireland
Scotland


RM

[Real Mardin]

South Africa 2010:

Australia
England
Cameroon
Ghana
New Zealand
Nigeria
South Africa
USA

8! Looks like we have a winner!

RM

[MH]

8 out of 32 is the same as 4/16 (1958), though.
>
> RM

[MH]

There are also 7 francophone nations by my count:

France
Belgium
Switzerland
Canada
Cameroon
Morocco
Senegal

A fair bit of French spoken in Tunisia, but the official language is
Arabic.

>
>
> RM

[Ammammata]

Il giorno Thu 16 Jun 2022 12:35:00a, *Real Mardin* ha inviato su
rec.sport.soccer il messaggio
news:9b9a2160-3666-41da...@googlegroups.com. Vediamo
cosa ha scritto:

> Can't help but wonder if this year's World Cup breaks the record for
> the most number of nations who use English as an official or
> predominant language:
>
> Australia (doesn't have an official language but English is
> predominant) Cameroon
> Canada
> England
> Ghana
> USA (doesn't have an official language but English is predominant)
> Wales
>
>

so they can heavily insult each other

--
/-\ /\/\ /\/\ /-\ /\/\ /\/\ /-\ T /-\
-=- -=- -=- -=- -=- -=- -=- -=- - -=-
........... [ al lavoro ] ...........

[Ion Saliu]

How about Spanish — 10?

Spain
Portugal
Argentina
Brazil
Uruguay
Costa Rica
Ecuador
Mexico
United States
Canada

There is a serious problem, though. Russian — 0. That could lead to Armageddon…

[The Doctor]

In article <7f60c702-0755-44c4...@googlegroups.com>,

Canada?
--
Member - Liberal International This is doctor@@nl2k.ab.ca Ici doctor@@nl2k.ab.ca
Yahweh, Queen & country!Never Satan President Republic!Beware AntiChrist rising!
Look at Psalms 14 and 53 on Atheism https://www.empire.kred/ROOTNK?t=94a1f39b
Denial of our faults condemns us to their permanence. -unknown Beware https://mindspring.com

[MH]

On 2022-06-19 04:45, Ion Saliu wrote:
> On Thursday, June 16, 2022 at 1:35:03 AM UTC+3, Real Mardin wrote:
>> Can't help but wonder if this year's World Cup breaks the record for the most number of nations who use English as an official or predominant language:
>>
>> Australia (doesn't have an official language but English is predominant)
>> Cameroon
>> Canada
>> England
>> Ghana
>> USA (doesn't have an official language but English is predominant)
>> Wales
>>
>> So that's 7. Can any World Cup beat that?
>>
>>
>> RM
>
> How about Spanish — 10?
>
> Spain
> Portugal
> Argentina
> Brazil
> Uruguay
> Costa Rica
> Ecuador
> Mexico
> United States
> Canada

Spanish is certainly not an official language in Canada, and does not
even rank in the top 5 most spoken mother tongues (English, French,
Mandarin, Cantonese, Punjabi I think. Tagalog might be next).

Spanish also does not have official status in the US, or Portugal and I
suspect not in Brazil though I would welcome correction there.
Portugese is the predominant and official language in the last two.

[Lléo]

MH escreveu:

You're right. Indeed it is not even the most widely spoken foreign language
in Brasil, which is English. I suspect, but do not know that for a fact, that
this is also true in Portugal as well (would welcome correction here too).

Continuing the theme of this thread, I suppose the most Lusophone World Cup
ever had to be 2006, with Brasil, Portugal and Angola all involved.

Most Germanophone WC? I guess it has to be one with all of Germany, Austria
and Switzerland (maybe Liechtenstein will join them someday in a 48-team WC?
:-)). Any other beyond 1934 and 1954?


--
Lléo

[Lléo]

Ion Saliu escreveu:

> How about Spanish — 10?
>
> Spain
> Portugal
> Argentina
> Brazil
> Uruguay
> Costa Rica
> Ecuador
> Mexico
> United States
> Canada

As pointed out elsewhere, we should probably count only 6 or 7 of the above
(depending on whether it's fair to count the US or not). For Spanish, that's
par for the course for the last 10 WC's or so, more or less, if I looked things
up correctly. The most Hispanophone WC was 2014, with 9 countries having it as
an official or proeminent language: Spain, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Ecuador,
Colombia, Mexico, Costa Rica and Honduras. If one prefers to count the US as
well, there's your 10.

In terms of proportion of teams, though, I don't think one could surpass the
1930 World Cup, with 7 of the 13 teams coming from Spanish-speaking countries:
Uruguay, Argentina, Paraguay, Peru, Chile, Bolivia and Mexico. The US was there
too fwiw, so maybe 8 if you want to count them?

The lowest count was in 1938. The Spanish Civil War, coupled with the boycott
of Uruguay, Argentina and most of the "Western hemisphere" qualifiers dried
up the pool of Spanish language qualifiers. Cuba was that WC's sole Spanish
speaking representative, thus guaranteeing that the language can be said to
have been present in every World Cup.


--
Lléo

[Ion Saliu]

Axiomático:

I should have added [H] to me reply –
“Spoiler alert! Humo(u)r involved!”

No wonder no native English-speaker reacted to my post the way you did.

I would have expected, though, another type of reaction. Like: “There ain’t no Spanish — it’s Catalan… or it is Basque…”
BBRRRRRRRRAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!

The clear majority at 2022, however, belongs to NATO: 13 (out of 30 total members… not far from 50%). Can you spot them, aksiomatika?

After all, soccer is a surrogate for war. Armageddon is coming! Armageddon is coming!

Fortunately, the Pope is against the war. Can you tell the predominant religion at 2022 World Cup? Spoiler alert: it ain’t the host… although they are more numerous than ever.

Spoiler alert: The Pope should award the 2022 Champion…


Ion “Parpaluck” Saliu
Truthful Warrior At-Large
https://www.facebook.com/Parpaluck

[Werner Pichler]

1938 had Germany and Austria in it - in theory, but then actually also in practice... better drop it.

1934 and 1954 both also had Belgium and Italy in it, two countries where German today is an official
language (although it wasn't at the time).

(and 1934 Czechoslovakia had a population of 20% German speakers. Better drop that, too)


Ciao,
Werner


>
> --
> Lléo

[Jesus Petry]

I did understand your attempt at humor, and therefore didn't bother to respond.

But it was easy to miss it, because in your post you seemed to play two opposing roles at once for comedic effect, a bit too sophisticated and surreal. Not many people are used to that.

Tchau!
Jesus Petry

[Ion Saliu]

On Monday, June 20, 2022 at 1:16:07 PM UTC+3, Ion Saliu wrote:


> Aksiomatika:

>
> I should have added [H] to me reply –
> “Spoiler alert! Humo(u)r involved!”
>
> No wonder no native English-speaker reacted to my post the way you did.
>
> I would have expected, though, another type of reaction. Like: “There ain’t no Spanish — it’s Catalan… or it is Basque…”
> BBRRRRRRRRAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!
>
> The clear majority at 2022, however, belongs to NATO: 13 (out of 30 total members… not far from 50%). Can you spot them, aksiomatika?
>
> After all, soccer is a surrogate for war. Armageddon is coming! Armageddon is coming!
>
> Fortunately, the Pope is against the war. Can you tell the predominant religion at 2022 World Cup? Spoiler alert: it ain’t the host… although they are more numerous than ever.
>
> Spoiler alert: The Pope should award the 2022 Champion…
>
>
> Ion “Parpaluck” Saliu
> Truthful Warrior At-Large
> https://www.facebook.com/Parpaluck

Other interesting facts about the World Cup –

You watch a match, say, in the Top-5 European championships, or in UEFA Champions League. You notice religion is omnipresent. The players perform religious acts, especially praying and looking up to the sky (like to the Supreme Referee). Most prayers are representative of Catholicism and Islam. Which brings me to this fact:

• The Vatican holds the most World Cups: 16 trophies
• Protestantism: 5
• Orthodox Christianity: 0
• Islam: 0
• Buddhism: 0
• Hindu: 0
• Shinto: 0
• Other credos: 0

From another perspective, NATO holds the most World Cup trophies: 12.
• Warsaw Pact: 0 (where art thou Hungary... Russia... Ukraine... ?)
• Other military alliances: 0

Las Vegas is brewing some enticing bets for this edition of the World Cup –
• [(NATO) AND (Catholic)]: (7 titles so far) ?
• [(NATO) AND (Protestant)]: (5 so far) ?

The latter is the most attractive bet to me (the opening line was 13/1). Holland failed too many times in the finals (3 so far)…

BBRRRRRRRRAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!

[Mark]

On Monday, June 20, 2022 at 1:42:32 PM UTC+1, Werner Pichler wrote:

> >
> > Most Germanophone WC? I guess it has to be one with all of Germany, Austria
> > and Switzerland (maybe Liechtenstein will join them someday in a 48-team WC?
> > :-)). Any other beyond 1934 and 1954?
> 1938 had Germany and Austria in it - in theory, but then actually also in practice... better drop it.
>
> 1934 and 1954 both also had Belgium and Italy in it, two countries where German today is an official
> language (although it wasn't at the time).
>
> (and 1934 Czechoslovakia had a population of 20% German speakers. Better drop that, too)
>
>

1934 edges it, because only part of Germany (West Germany) were at the 1954 World Cup.

[MH]

??? The premise here is number of German speaking countries, and the
federal republic of Germany (West Germany) was a German speaking
country. 1954 had 3 countries in the finals that had German as an
official language (at that time). The Saarland could also have
qualified but were drawn in a group with Germany. Although I guess they
were a protectorate, not a country. East Germany first entered the WCQ
in the 1958 version.

[ixion martin - GdBx]

Ion Saliu a couché sur son écran :

> There is a serious problem, though. Russian — 0.

Poland soon...

--
Ixion

[Lléo]

Jesus Petry escreveu:

> Em segunda-feira, 20 de junho de 2022 às 07:16:07 UTC-3, Ion Saliu escreveu:
> > On Monday, June 20, 2022 at 4:24:23 AM UTC+3, Lléo wrote:
> > >

> > > [Let's snip what I wrote about Spanish language countries in the WC]

> >
> > Axiomático:
> >
> > I should have added [H] to me reply –
> > “Spoiler alert! Humo(u)r involved!”
>
> I did understand your attempt at humor, and therefore didn't bother to respond.
>
> But it was easy to miss it, because in your post you seemed to play two
> opposing roles at once for comedic effect, a bit too sophisticated and
> surreal. Not many people are used to that.

Actually, I was just taking the hook to add some trivia about something I had
never thought about in World Cups. Seemed in line with the topic ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

So, trivia time for you people. There are three languages that have been
"represented" in every World Cup. I just told you all what one of them is,
in my previous post. But what are the other two?


--
Lléo

[MH]

Well Brazil have played in all of them, right ? So portugese.
And I have an inkling French is the other one. Belgium were there in
1930, France in the next two. Add in Switzerland and Haiti, and I think
every cup is covered.
>
> --
> Lléo

[Ion Saliu]

Ultra Axiomatix:

This thingy really intrigues me: Religion and World Cup. It is even more intriguing since I am the founder of Mathematical Atheism.

It is this lopsided success in World Cups for a religion known as Catholicism. 16 trophies! The only other successful religion, with 5 successes, is also Christian: Protestantism. What gives?

For the record, I was born religious. Like any child, there ain’t nothing you can do about it. You are forced to belong to a religion from day one.

So, I was born Orthodox Christian. Since the pandemic, I had to watch quite a few football matches in the Romanian championship. The players do the same thing as in any other championship. They perform religious rituals. As the Romanians are predominantly Orthodox, the footballers perform a specific ritual: Crossing (the sign of the cross from the forehead to the belly, and then from the right shoulder to the left).

Other Orthodox footballers do the same: Greeks, Russians, Ukrainians, Serbs, etc. However, them Orthodox footballers have never had any success. The Supreme Referee has granted them only mediocrity! Why they don’t abandon their ritual is beyond me!

On the other hand, look how grandiosely the Supreme Referee (now VAR) has rewarded the Catholics! 16 out of 21 World Cup titles! The Vegas odds on [Catholik] are a meager 3/5. Of course, it is so easy to win with such a bet!

The Protestants have had some success: 5 trophies. Their ritual is different from the Catholics, though. The Protestants kneel before the match starts. Instead of looking up toward the Supreme Referee, they look down. As if they pray to the grassroots to be kind to them and make the opponents slip and break their legs!

Why aren’t the rest of the religions successful at all? What’s the matter? The Muslim players pray too, and they look up to the sky as well. The Buddhists, as few as they are, fall on the grass before the match and start short meditation sessions. I even heard the “Om” chant at times.

What’s so special about the Catholic rituals? As far as I can tell, I only noticed:
• kissing own fingers, then looking up to the sky where the Supreme Referee (now VAR) is supposed to reside.

“People who believe in gods
Are mighty frightened by the odds
But I give them software
To beat the odds with fanfare.”

Ion Saliu (royalty-name Parpaluck)
Founder of Mathematical Atheism
• https://saliu.com/almighty_number.html

[The Doctor]

Sepaking of which, how hot is it in Qatar?

>>
>> --
>> Lléo

>


--
Member - Liberal International This is doctor@@nl2k.ab.ca Ici doctor@@nl2k.ab.ca
Yahweh, Queen & country!Never Satan President Republic!Beware AntiChrist rising!
Look at Psalms 14 and 53 on Atheism https://www.empire.kred/ROOTNK?t=94a1f39b

Saying the right words is a poor substitute for having a right heart. -unknown Beware https://mindspring.com

[Mark]

Well, there could be a (possibly weak) case for claiming West Germany was only half a country.

[Real Mardin]

The thread title also begs the question "What was the least English speaking World Cup?"

The answer is 1938 - not a single English speaking team were at the tournament.

Dutch was, however, very well represented, with the following three nations being at the tournament:


Belgium

Dutch East Indies

Netherlands


RM

[Blueshirt]

There could also be a case for claiming that [post-WWII] West Germany
was only a third of a country...

[Lléo]

MH escreveu:

Indeed! For some reason I was kinda expecting English to have been ever
present as well, but as Real Mardin pointed out in another post, there was
no English speaking country in WC 1938.

German also misses only one Cup, 1930. Germany's near perfect attendance in
the World Cup pretty much guarantees its presence every time. Switzerland
was there in the only other World Cup they missed, 1950.

A similar case goes for Italian, which has only gone missing in two World
Cups. Not the present-day two in a row to which Italy failed to qualify,
as Switzerland again came to the rescue in these, but the other two Cups,
1930 and 1958.

Another quiz question for you rss people: what was the least linguistically
diverse World Cup?


--
Lléo

[MH]

On 2022-06-22 17:06, Lléo wrote:
> MH escreveu:
>> On 2022-06-21 20:16, Lléo wrote:
>>>
>>> Actually, I was just taking the hook to add some trivia about something I had
>>> never thought about in World Cups. Seemed in line with the topic ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
>>>
>>> So, trivia time for you people. There are three languages that have been
>>> "represented" in every World Cup. I just told you all what one of them is,
>>> in my previous post. But what are the other two?
>>
>> Well Brazil have played in all of them, right ? So portugese.
>> And I have an inkling French is the other one. Belgium were there in
>> 1930, France in the next two. Add in Switzerland and Haiti, and I think
>> every cup is covered.

I forgot Zaire. La francophonie was saved by Haiti and Zaire in 1974,
which seems to have been the only year none of France, Belgium and
Switzerland qualified. Haiti had home advantage for the final
qualifying tournament, and Zaire had home advantage for a replay after
the two legs vs. Cameroon ended all square - so it was close, I guess,
and could have come out differently. The expansion of the WC and the
larger african representation makes it very unlikely that there will
ever be a WC without Francophone teams.

[Futbolmetrix]

On Wednesday, June 22, 2022 at 7:07:00 PM UTC-4, Lléo wrote:

> Another quiz question for you rss people: what was the least linguistically
> diverse World Cup?
>

Nice thread. How do you measure linguistic diversity? Something like a Herfindahl index (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herfindahl%E2%80%93Hirschman_index)? Or do you also take into account the linguistic distance between NTs? (That is, a WC with exactly half the teams that speak Spanish and half the teams that speak French would be less diverse than one in which half the teams speak Spanish and the other half speaks Japanese...)

[Lléo]

Futbolmetrix escreveu:

> On Wednesday, June 22, 2022 at 7:07:00 PM UTC-4, Lléo wrote:
>
> > Another quiz question for you rss people: what was the least linguistically
> > diverse World Cup?
>
> Nice thread. How do you measure linguistic diversity?

I had just gone for the naive approach of counting how many languages were
"represented" in each WC :-) (btw, under that premise, the answer is 1930,
9 languages). But...

> Something like a Herfindahl index (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herfindahl%E2%80%93Hirschman_index)?

..why not try this? With language data gathered from each country's Wikipedia
entry and indexes below multiplied by 10,000, here's what I got:

[pos] WC Herfindahl
[ 1] 1930 2343.75
[ 2] 1950 1604.94
[ 3] 1978 1200.00
[ 4] 2014 1075.00
[ 5] 2022 1052.94
[ 6] 2018 927.02
[ 7] 1974 925.93
[ 8] 2006 889.80
[ 9] 1934 884.35
[10] 1938 839.00
[11] 1994 820.31
[12] 1954 775.05
[13] 2010 746.94
[14] 1998 661.63
[15] 2002 656.79
[16] 1966 585.94
[17] 1962 540.12
[18] 1982 537.19
[19] 1986 524.61
[20] 1958 486.69
[21] 1990 475.21
[22] 1970 415.22

(hopefully the above table shows up ok in your screens)

So, it would seem that the answer, again, is 1930. Maybe this isn't really
surprising, given that it was the first WC and its participants were heavily
concentrated in a region that largely speaks the same language.

Interestingly, the seven most linguistically diverse WC's (by this measure,
anyway) would seem to be, in chronological order, 1958, 1962, 1966, 1970, 1982,
1986 and 1990. Of course, these were World Cups with the presence of the USSR
and its republics' 15 national languages boosting up the total number of tongues
spoken in these WC's. And next in line come 1998, 2002 and 2010 - the three
WC's with South Africa in them (bringing in their 11 official languages aboard).

I don't know if the above is a "problem" or not for this measure. If it is, I'm
not sure how to deal with it. It certainly impacts the calculations: for example,
if we counted only one language for the USSR, 1958, 1962 and 1966 would have been
kicked to the other end of the diversity spectrum (they'd become the 6th, 5th and
3rd *least* diverse Cups). Similarly, if we counted, say, only two languages for
South Africa, 1998, 2002 and 2010 would become the 7th, 8th and 4th least diverse
Cups.

As far as I remember, these are the only two with such a high number of language
counts (IIRC the next in line is Switzerland, with 4?).

> Or do you also take into account the linguistic distance between NTs? (That is,
> a WC with exactly half the teams that speak Spanish and half the teams that speak
> French would be less diverse than one in which half the teams speak Spanish and
> the other half speaks Japanese...)

That would be an interesting one. I'd give it a stab, but I don't know where to find
data on linguistic distances. Actually, for what it's worth (and maybe it's not much),
I dug up this from a quick Google search:

https://www.ezglot.com/language-similarity-matrix.html

I have no idea, though, whether these numbers are accurate or meaningful for this
subject.


--
Lléo

[Mark]

What was the least Spanish speaking World Cup?

[Ion Saliu]

What’s so special about the Catholic rituals? As far as I can tell, I only noticed this ritual before and during a football match:
• crossing from left to right, kissing own fingers, and then looking up to the sky where the Supreme Referee (now VAR) is supposed to reside.

Will Qatar finally win a World Cup for Islam? I mean, it was against all odds that Qatar was even selected to host the 2022 World Cup. You’ll be surprised how far the petrodollars can go!

“People who believe in gods
Are mighty frightened by the odds
But I give them software
To beat the odds with fanfare.”

Ion Saliu (royalty-name Parpaluck)
Founder of Mathematical Atheism
• https://saliu.com/almighty_number.html

Gosh! Nothing ever changes! Them Catholics again are favored. They chant loud and clear Brazil, Argentina, France… even if it all happens in the Land of Allah! Why don’t they ban the Pope from attending the World Cup games?! Instead, them Qataris banned TV people from Denmark, a protestant nation! Ban the Catholics, you fools, if want to win the World Cup!

[Blueshirt]

Ion Saliu wrote:
>
> Will Qatar finally win a World Cup for Islam? I mean, it was against
> all odds that Qatar was even selected to host the 2022 World Cup.
> You’ll be surprised how far the petrodollars can go!

Qatar?!! IF Qatar was to win the FIFA World Cup 2022 then FIFA would
definitely have reached the peak of corruption... I'd like to say not
possible, but FIFA tend to prove me wrong time and time again.

Judging by Infantino's comments in his press conference this morning,
the Petrodollars have clearly gone very far... but I doubt they've gone
as far as to stop Brazil, Argentina, France (etc.) from doing their
stuff in the next few weeks.