Seems to be based on official languages, which does not always reflect ease of communication. Entering "French" highlights all of Canada (rather than just Quebec). Good luck speaking French in British Columbia. Nice looking site tho
Show HN: I made a website that color-codes the world by language
11–20 of 116 posts
Re: Show HN: I made a website that color-codes the world by language
#12The problem with using official languages and only going country-level is it excludes minority languages that still have tens of millions of speakers across multiple countries.
Yeah, India is done badly by the OP.
Re: Show HN: I made a website that color-codes the world by language
#13No love for Piraha and Ainu :(
Re: Show HN: I made a website that color-codes the world by language
#14Almost 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 regions have no overlap (script could be same between them). I can understand some Mandarin but Cantonese is alien. That is true for their own people too. Chinese don't speak 'Macau'. I am not even getting into India at this point. That's completely chaotic.
This kind of infographic in broad strokes can sometimes be hurtful to some of the people. Not that I have any strong opinions but OP should know this.
Re: Show HN: I made a website that color-codes the world by language
#15In my experience a lot of this is quite incomplete. Obviously this uses a dataset like "official languages" of each country. For example, English would grt you very far in the Netherlands, but its not colored. Dutch can get you quite far in South Africa, but its not colored. English in particular should color most of the globe, except countries like Russia, France, and a few other blatant exceptions.
Maybe solid color for officially supported, striped/hashed for "unofficial but would get you pretty far"?
Or just color coded from white to 100% of that color based on the number of speakers in that country. A language being one of the official languages of the country doesn't guarantee that it will be useful in traveling that country, only that it will be useful when interacting with the government.
Re: Show HN: I made a website that color-codes the world by language
#16Cantonese is not in the list… and I bet a bunch of dialect won’t be there as well… this sound rather not completed…
Re: Show HN: I made a website that color-codes the world by language
#17Good Luck to whoever thinks of getting around in South India by speaking Hindi.
Re: Show HN: I made a website that color-codes the world by language
#18If this is using "official language", America should not be highlighted green for English.
Re: Show HN: I made a website that color-codes the world by language
#19Awesome idea!
It's so much more nuanced than this. I spent much time in Turkey and met people from Azerbaijan, Chechnya, and other Central Asian countries. All the Turkic languages are all mutually intelligible.
Re: Show HN: I made a website that color-codes the world by language
#20By knowing English, you can communicate with most of the world, because almost every country teaches English as a foreign language. For example, more than half of the popuation of Europe can easily communicate in English. I've seen that in Netherlands they already prefer English to Dutch when they talk to each other.
I know 3 foreign languages and I think it's a waste of time to learn more, because if a person is not literate enough to communicate in English, I have nothing to talk to them about.