These kinds of popsci graphs are quite misleading. Unlike with the “Spanish”* bubble, the “Chinese” and “Arabic” bubbles contain many mutually unintelligible languages. Though to be fair, many (most?) of the people in the “Arabic” bubble can speak/read Modern Standard Arabic as a lingua franca, and virtually everyone in China can read Standard Chinese.
*Also, Dude, Spanish is not the preferred nomenclature. Castilian, please.
Spanish is not the preferred nomenclature. Castilian, please.
???
I know there’s a divide in that some countries say “Español” and others “Castellano” but I don’t think it’s a particularly controversial difference.
You seem like somebody who might have an answer for me:
A streaming service that I’m using lists the spoken language of the show, and I’ve often seen Spanish, Espanol, and Castilian listed. What’s the difference between Espanol and Castilian - is it like a regional dialect? Also I’m probably misinformed, but I always thought that Espanol was the English word for Spanish, which makes it seem odd that the service would list both Espanol and Spanish separately.
* Walter, this isn’t a guy who wrote the Magna Carta, this is a guy…
If there are two Spanishish audio tracks, I think that pretty much always means that one is “Latin American” and the other is “Peninsular.” I haven’t investigated this myself, but I hear that the “Latin American” track is predominantly a white collar Central Mexican accent. The standard Peninsular accent for media is a Madrid accent.
This is pretty spot on. I use español when comparing Spanish to another foreign language but castellano when talking about the language as a whole. The latter is the most popular in Spain because español is also the nationality and we also can speak catalán, vasco, valenciano, gallego, and others
From what I’ve been told they call it castellano in Argentina too, but I have no idea why.
No ho diguis als valencians que ells parlen català occidental 😛
Castilian ia a region of Spain where the “Spanish” language comes from. But there is not the only language there, and there was repression against the other languages there, specially the basque language.
So, call that language Castilian ia also recognize that other languages exists within the country.
(I’m not spanish nor a speaker, so, I may be wrong)
there was repression against the other languages there, specially the basque language.
There was for 40 years, in Franco’s mid-20th century fascist Spain.
Almost have as many people speak Tamil as Russian? Interesting!
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TIL Germany is in Eastern Europe
That geographical division made as much sense as referring to my foot as little hand.
Aaw, I thought this vis was really cool until I read every single comment
Japanese only spoken in Indonesia?
That’s Javanese, as in the island Java.
Japanese is in the top-left.
No Nigeria for English? Lagos is the largest English speaking city in the world.
I don’t think this image accounts for second languages (otherwise Hindi would be twice as big), and as I understand it the reason that English is the official languae of Nigeria even as an independent country is so as not to give anyone’s first language priority over any other
I’ve met a handful of Nigerian students from different parts of the country and they all spoke English as a first language. Also, the US is on there, we don’t have an official language either.
I think you’ve misunderstood me a bit. English is the official language of Nigeria. One of the reasons it’s the official language was that it was seen as neutral within Nigeria because it wasn’t any group’s first language. Or it was at the time, anyway. That was an entire human lifetime ago now, so it’s quite possible that things have changed a bit since then.
It does specify these are first languages/mother tongues. I think English would also be much larger if it included second languages.
Very well done!
Minor nitpick though, it’s “Telugu”, not “Telegu.”Does every household in New Guinea speak a different language or wtf is going on there
What happened to the French speaking African countries?
Also Angola absent from the Portuguese group
Aaaaaah “Chinese”.
A language family with many mutually unintelligible languages, large variantions in vocabulary and a script that us shared by all of them. And somehow we have to keep treating it as one language, so Winnie the Pooh isnt angry at us.
Yeah. It’s not like I can communicate with someone in Cantonese when they only know Mandarin.
If the same script is considered Chinese, might as well put Japanese Kanji inside.
I can’t even understand most Cantonese speakers when they’re speaking Mandarin…
Well I can’t even understand my Mandarin when I speak it
I’d like to point out that the dialect-language-family distinction is really a continuum. As dialects drift apart from each other, there is no point where God comes in and declares a dialect has graduated into its own language. Mutual intelligibility simply decreases continuously.
For instance, Portuguese and Spanish are widely considered to be different languages, although they are partially mutually intelligible, particularly in written form. Cantonese and Mandarin are less so, but still a bit. My uncle-in-law speaks Canto but can still understand my Mandarin (however, he can’t respond). I won’t deny that there is a political reason to want to refer to the Chinese/中文 languages as a single “language,” but the classification is honestly quite arbitrary. My understanding is that linguists generally place the category of “Chinese” somewhere between “language” and “family.”
Is Scots a different language than English? I don’t think I could understand someone speaking Scots without incredible concentration. (However, it’s still considered a “linguistic variety” of middle english.)
I am currently doimg course on both of these topics.
Yes, there is a continuum between these concepts, but there is a much better case for the idea that all ibero-romance languages are actually one language than for the “Chinese Macrolanguage”.
Hakka for example is not mutually intelligible with any of the other branches of the family, yet it is still considered to be a dialect of Chinese. Why? Because it shares the script?
The political reason, imho, far outweigh the linguistical reasons for considering Chinese to be a language rather than a family.
The reason why English, French and Spanish are among the world’s most widespread languages has its roots in the imperial past of the nations where they originate
Must be a hot day in Hong Kong for them to be throwing shade like that. It’s true of course but it’s true for all of the biggest languages that conquest played a significant part in their dispersal. Chinese, Arabic, etc are left out of the statement for some reason.
German language is missing Austria
TIL China is located in Asia Minor
I think those are old-timey terms that have been retired from academic and popular language. And anyway, Asia Minor means/meant Anatolia—basically modern-day Turkey.
10 million native Urdu speakers in Pakistan? there’s 11 million in Lahore alone and I’ve never met someone there who doesn’t speak Urdu
