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Show HN: I made a website that color-codes the world by language

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Re: Show HN: I made a website that color-codes the world by language

#91

Post by zarzavat »

sam_lowry_ wrote: post #24
josefrichter wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah I see, these are just "official" languages. Otherwise probably the whole planet would be highlighted for English.

Highlighting proportions via color intensity would help. But this information is buried deep down in Google and Facebook and is sometimes outright illegal to disseminate (like in French vs Dutch at the level of Belgian municipalities). Before Cambridge Analytica scandal Facebook business accounts had access to numbers down to a few thousand with regards to the interface language. I remember that some 80% of Ukrainian…

Interface language != spoken language. If you are Ukrainian you might choose an interface in Russian or English for many reasons, familiarity, quality, etc. Maybe they don’t want to context-switch.

For most Ukrainians, Russian is (was?) a happy medium between being a language that they understand, and a language that is well supported in localizations.

I speak en-GB but I prefer an interface in en-US. Yet if you asked me to speak en-US with all its grammatical, lexical and phonological differences intact I would fail because my understanding is read-only.

Re: Show HN: I made a website that color-codes the world by language

#94

Post by whiskysong »

I'm on Firefox mobile on Android. When I tap on a country and then tap outside the pop-up, focus switches back to the language text box. I would expect focus to stay on the map so I can select another country.

Obviously this whole comment section is focusing on the problem of defining spoken language, but you have created a great proof of concept of an interesting idea. Looking forward to seeing how it evolves.

Re: Show HN: I made a website that color-codes the world by language

#95

Post by vogon_laureate »

BrandoElFollito wrote: post #86
srvmshr wrote: post #14

Almost the whole of Scandinavia speaks English as a second language, and yet English does not highlight any or the four countries. Most Scandinavian people might agree with this general observation that knowing little to no Nordic language can still get you by very comfortably in that region, although knowing the national language is a plus. Second, China speaks Mandarin and Cantonese (not available), and several reg…

I wonder how the native language correlates with proper English as a learned language. All of the Scandinavians I spoke about had a wonderful pronunciation of English. They may have had an accent, but the English words were not distorted by their language, and not was the grammar. On contrast, French often speak what I call a "lazy English". We tend to pronounce words as if they were in French and the structure of th…

It makes sense when you think about how much of English history is influenced by the presence of Danish raiders and kingdoms. I live near a place called Dane Hill for example.

In the Northern dialects and Scotland there are even more influences. For example in Scots dialect a kirk is a church, etc.

I’ve read that there are at least 900 English words that come from Danish and several hundred more that are suspected to be.[1]

Datter, arm, hus in Danish is daughter, arm and house in English, etc. it’s also why we have often two words with the same meaning (ie. anger and wrath or ill and sick).

  [1]: http://www.englishproject.org/resources/english-language-and-danish-language

Re: Show HN: I made a website that color-codes the world by language

#96

Post by vogon_laureate »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #73
petesergeant wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From Wikipedia[0]: Norway: 90%; Sweden: 90%; Denmark 86%. This is higher than Canada and a number of Anglophone Caribbean islands. Admittedly Finland is lagging at 75%, but we can also consider Iceland at 98%. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_English-s...

I'd seriously call those numbers into question (living in Sweden). Maybe 90% are at an A1 or A2 level. I'd say maybe 50% are fluent, and that's heavily slanted toward the younger side of the population curve.

Yeah my Swedish ex’s family couldn’t speak hardly any English.

Re: Show HN: I made a website that color-codes the world by language

#97

Post by BrandoElFollito »

nickserv wrote: post #90
BrandoElFollito wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where is Catalan spoken in France?

Traditionally the area northeast of the Pyrenees, or around Perpignan to name a city. I'm not sure there are many people that speak it though, I've only ever heard it on regional radio and television channels.

Ha, one learns every day! Thanks a lot - I never knew that.

For reference (Fr): https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pays_catalans

Re: Show HN: I made a website that color-codes the world by language

#98

Post by sam_lowry_ »

zarzavat wrote: post #91
sam_lowry_ wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Highlighting proportions via color intensity would help. But this information is buried deep down in Google and Facebook and is sometimes outright illegal to disseminate (like in French vs Dutch at the level of Belgian municipalities). Before Cambridge Analytica scandal Facebook business accounts had access to numbers down to a few thousand with regards to the interface language. I remember that some 80% of Ukrainian…

Interface language != spoken language. If you are Ukrainian you might choose an interface in Russian or English for many reasons, familiarity, quality, etc. Maybe they don’t want to context-switch. For most Ukrainians, Russian is (was?) a happy medium between being a language that they understand, and a language that is well supported in localizations. I speak en-GB but I prefer an interface in en-US. Yet if you aske…

en_GB vs en_US is largely a locale choice. Many developers in EU choose en_IE to have English translations, €, Monday 1st day of the week and comma as fractional separator.

Ukrainian vs Russian is a cultural choice. I sm sure that 80/20 ratio is old news by now, anyway.

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