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

languageworldmap.com

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

#81

Post by SomeRndName11 »

fensgrim wrote: post #51

my 2¢: Russian could be assumed as a minority language for all* of ex-USSR countries, so OP missed Armenia/Georgia/Moldova. Also, it would be interesting to see partial overlap cases (e.g. Ukrainian-Belarussian, Russian-Serbian) where one party could understand another but couldn't answer well except in "universal" sign language (or through switching to another common denominator language); though good luck with rese…

Also Tajikistan. Ukrainian-Belarussian has much much higher overlap then Russian Serbian. And lets face it, Ukranians and Belarusians would use Russian when talking to each other (keeping in mind that Belarussian is barely used in Belarus itself).

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

#82

Post by aodonnell2536 »

didgeoridoo wrote: post #65
aodonnell2536 wrote: post #63

United States given the same physical safety level as Mexico and a lower level than most African countries (including South Africa)? What are you basing that off of?

It appears to be based on the Global Peace Index rating, wherein the United States rates juuust below... Haiti. It has nothing to do with physical safety, obviously.

I guess I can’t fault the site’s creator for going with an established ranking, but after reading what you said and taking a look at the index it seems utterly laughable.

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

#83

Post by O1111OOO »

78 comments. Only 37 points as I type this.

I say this because there's clearly lots of interest (engagement: 78 comments) but people aren't happy with the results (only 37 points).

The first language I typed in was English and right away I could tell it didn't take into account the inroads English has made as a second language. All of Europe (sans UK) is completely blank, for example.

I still bookmarked the site because I'm hopeful that the results will become more accurate over time as the constructive criticisms are addressed.

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

#84

Post by BrandoElFollito »

kiliancs wrote: post #74

Languages don't map to countries. For example, I introduced Catalan, and: - it highlighted all of Spain, even though Catalan is only spoken in some areas - it didn't highlight Andorra, an country where the only official language is Catalan - it didn't highlight parts of France and Sardinia where Catalan is also spoken (albeit not officially or with limited recognition) I happened to run into Viggo Mortensen's card, w…

Where is Catalan spoken in France?

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

#85

Post by BrandoElFollito »

Freak_NL wrote: post #61
wenderen wrote: post #60

Collecting some of the points other posters made: 1. Languages don't always neatly map to country borders. 2. Linguistically diverse / multi-ethnic countries can have multiple official languages, and some of those official languages are spoken only in a geographical subset of the country. 3. Languages can be mutually intelligible. Urdu and Hindi are mutually intelligible and you can get by speaking Urdu in most parts…

3½. Just because you speak passable German, doesn't mean you can always understand the Swiss (even when they speak Swiss German !).

Even if you speak native German, you will not understand a seizable part of Swiss who will be speaking their language (French, Italian, Romansh)

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

#86

Post by BrandoElFollito »

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 the sentence is very similar to French. This really looks like the Latin translations we did at school: translate the sentence word by word and stick the beth eat the end :)

It may be that the Scandinavian languages are more "compatible" with English (wildly guessing, with a lot of hand waving :))

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

#87

Post by BrandoElFollito »

josefrichter wrote: post #8
josefrichter wrote: post #7

I wonder why French doesn't show Morocco and Algeria? In both countries, some 30-50% of people speak French.

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

And BTW French had recently been removed as an official language there.

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

#89

Post by BrandoElFollito »

shimonabi wrote: post #20

By 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…

> if a person is not literate enough to communicate in English, I have nothing to talk to them about.

I agree, I have the same with quantum physics and Middle-Age French.

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

#90

Post by nickserv »

BrandoElFollito wrote: post #84
kiliancs wrote: post #74

Languages don't map to countries. For example, I introduced Catalan, and: - it highlighted all of Spain, even though Catalan is only spoken in some areas - it didn't highlight Andorra, an country where the only official language is Catalan - it didn't highlight parts of France and Sardinia where Catalan is also spoken (albeit not officially or with limited recognition) I happened to run into Viggo Mortensen's card, w…

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.
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