Do Filipinos speak English?"
That question showed up today in an email from an American journalist writing about the aftermath of the typhoon that has devastated the Philippines.
Yes, I told her, many Filipinos do speak English. In fact, it's one of the two official languages of the country (the other is Filipino, or Tagalog), and roughly two-thirds of the population have some degree of fluency in English.
That was all she needed to know for her story. But for the rest of the day, as I kept up with news about the ongoing relief efforts, the reporter's simple question stuck in my head. How little most of us know, I thought, about the spread of the English language beyond our own shores.