Languages of Europe Map Draft (feedback request)

[jycee]

As others have noted, this is very impressive. I always like linguistic maps! One thing I can personally see that could do with some improvement here is the representation of Fleming in France. It has declined a lot, and the actual situation nowadays is more like this. So the areas should both be smaller and striped since French is edging out Flemish throughout French-Flanders.

Another thing, although I'm far less certain about that, is that Franco-Provencal variations seem to have historically predominated in a somewhat different area than the one you place them in. That is, you seem to extend the region a little to far south, and don't include French Switzerland and some more north-western areas. A search in google easily shows what the area where these dialects historically prevailed looks like. (But as I said, I'm far less sure about the current situation. For all I know, those dialects could be all but extinct in the areas I mention...)

Snip...

Speaking of Belgium, if @jycee wants to make a dialectal map in addition of a broader one,, let's remember that Picard (and much more superficially Lorrain and Champenois) were deprived of the semi-identitarian promotion of Wallon (which doesn't mean it's widely used as well).
The map is a bit crude, but can be helpful.

I meant French, as in Revolutionary and Imperial France, followed by Belgian Kings, who pushed for French and got the throne partially because of France basically invading the Netherlands during the Belgian Revolution, so that the Dutch would have to open fire on them if they wanted to suppress it. I am usually more careful with my wording, but see I messed up a bit this time.

*Flemish not Fleming..
but yeah you're right here.

Also true, Walloon is all but gone. The Walloons now speak French with a slightly different vocabulary but basically it's the same thing. as for Limburgish I think @jycee has just misidentified the Meuse-Rhenish Dialectgroup.
Actually, Picard is probably used more than Walloon.

Thanks everyone for your feedback, I’m already working on the next draft. And it is looking good.

I did make some mistakes in France but I wouldn’t have expected it to be the language causing all the debate/controversy; I would have assumed the Balkans instead . Regarding Walloon, I know wiki is a terrible source but it supposedly has 300,000 active speakers in rural Wallonia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walloon_language). If this is mistaken I don’t mind changing it, and looking into it I will add Picard in there as well:

For version 2.0, so far these are some of the fixes I’m implementing in French-speaking regions:

• Editing the Occitan borders to cover a broader “Occitania” but eliminated areas where usage is negligible following this map provided by @LSCatilina : http://portal-lem.com/images/fr/occitan/carte_de_l_occitan.jpg
• Giving the Occitan region its own color separate from Catalan
• Striping the Basque, Catalan, and Corsican speaking regions
• Trimming the Breton and Flemish areas in France
• Re-aligning the Franco-Provençal region to better reflect its geographic distribution including Switzerland.
• Getting rid of the additional Lemburgs color (this was probably a mistake anyway) so it appears as Low or Central German
• Trimming the amount of German spillover into Belgium (possibly France as well).

As for the multiple dialects de Oil, after some consideration, I have what could be a potential solution as not to drown all of France in labels (unless it is warranted). I’m thinking of relabeling Françias as Francien as to include all Francien-dialects within the same label without officially denoting Standard French. (I’d love to get some input in this decision), while adding labels for the following non-Francien dialects: Normand, Galo, Angevin, Poetevin, Picard, Champaignat, Bregogon, Frainc-Comtou (Guernesais and Jersais will be deleted and included within the larger Normand group). However, I am unsure if all these dialects deserve a label or if this is a reasonable list; suggestions are welcome!

The placing of the language for the Kven might give the wrong impression, and connect the Sami areas to it. I do like that there isn't some big blob like I see on many maps about independent groups though, showing a massive Lapland despite the Sami being a minority almost everywhere [1]. And doing well enough for themselves, all things considered. I would say have the French in Romandy (French Switzerland) its own color or to relate it more to Provence, as they haven't had a century and a half of Paris trying to wipe out alternative forms of the language group . By that same token, sad to say, but perhaps Walloon should be removed, as the French and then the Belgians kings did a good job in usurping and wiping out Walloon. Might want to do somethign about the Low Coutries, as you give Limburg a rather large area, despite linguistic maps referring to it as one of the subgroups for what you have as Dutch and Flemish [2]. Going with Hollandic rather than Nederlandist might fit better [3]. And perhaps something showing Flemish as separate. You should also consider splitting the South German into two parts, as the Swabian, Wurtenburgers, and Voralburgers are more closely related to German Swiss than they are to Austria and Bavaria [4]. Maybe also change the letters to black when they are above water [5]. Seems there is also a minor issue where you show the Angolan Heights as Israeli and the Gaza Strip as Egyptian [6]. Ossetian looks a bit blotchy, but that comes when trying to show groups in the Caucaus, considering the amount of unpopulated mountains, such as those separating Georgia from Russia [7]. Ahh, and you have Bornholm as Swedish, though it was only non-Danish for maybe a decade over the past six hundred years. If you are going with dialects you should also consider multiple Norwegians. Most speak the Danish derived Bokmal, but in Western Norway they create Nynorsk based upon local dialects, and those form those areas are often able to understand people from Iceland and the Faroes Islands, who have their own languages based mostly in unchanged old Norse. May also want to consider special dialects for the South of Sweden, which had been Danish for centuries and still have many dialect similarities to their close neighbor. [8] Ahh, and is Bosnian/Bosniac/Bosniak the striped areas in B-H? [9] Oh, and you gave Iran the small bit of Azerbaijan unattached to the rest. [10]

Thanks again for all the feedback really appreciate it, to answer some of your concerns questions:

1. In the next iteration, I’ll recolor some (actually most) languages, hopefully solving issues like the Kven appearing related to Saami areas. Hopefully, it is clearer when I change the color scheme.
2. See above, I will be doing some trimming here and fixing color/location issue. Hopefully, I do get something more accurate.
3. I am trying to use endonyms for the labels. Nederland seemed the way to go and the reason Vlaams is labeled as such as well (rather than both just as "Dutch"). If there is a better way to do it I'm all for it.
4. I might add more nuance to South German as one color but will add more labels to denote local dialects, I know the entire group has quite a bit of dialect nuances since the region is mountainous enough and has been/is divided between multiple countries. But I think we're going to end up with the same debate as in France.
5. I'll see if it works, or maybe use a light gray for the water and shade the letters?
6. Mistake will add borders to Gaza and Golan Heights
7. The Caucasus is a mess overall, it also looks blotchier because I added some spill over. I will also be adding more colors in the next version (especially to divide Daghestan's language families), and hopefully it will be clearer.
8. Very interesting! Will add some nuance to the dialects of Norse and Swedish. Bromholm was a mistake, I will revert it to Danish and it gets its own dialect label: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bornholmsk_dialect
9. While I know that Serbian, Bosniak, and Croatian are a single language, I separated them over the way they are written; it is my understanding that Croat uses exclusively Latin script, Bosniak usues Latin and Cyrilic almost interchangeably, and Serbian mostly officially uses Cyrillic though Latin is used in some media. If folks think this is not the way to go, I might change it. But for now, I will keep it as is.
10. The Azrbaijan border is a mistake and it will be fixed.

You put Asturllionés and Estremeñu separate, but they are the same language, in addition the Asturllionés is also spoken in a small part of Portugal under the name of Mirandés
https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Língua_mirandesa

Also, you miss Fala de Xàlima in Extremadura, a very small language of the same family of Galego and Portuguese:https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fala_(valle_de_Jálama)

Also, in the corner of Catalonia is spoken Occitan: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aranés

In the Balkans, there are more latin languages, even if various are in very bad health: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Romance_languages, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Istriot_language

Very interesting and complete map

I was aware of some of these border languages between Spain and Portugal, but not entirely; I will add them in in the next version. I might also include some Spanish dialects aside from Castellano (unless it gets too crowded).

 

[fluttersky]

most of those regions which are marked as being monolingual in favor of a minority- Karelian in Russia; Magyar in Serbia, Romania, Ukraine, and Slovakia; Belarusian in Belarus; Turkish in Bulgaria; Catalan in Spain; Kurdish in Turkey... it seems generous to mark them as monolingual when striped bilingual would likely be more accurate. I don't know the exact details, but instinctively the borders in general look a bit iffy, as if they're displaying the situation 60 years ago.

Also... the Arabic language is common in parts of Israel (e.g. Umm el-Fahm), and there's a German minority in Poland.

 

[The Professor]

Perhaps varying the striping may help?
Equal stripes for more or less equal bilingualism but thick-thin ones for majority-minority bilingualism?

I'm finding this all rather interesting!

 

[ctesiphon]

Pole here. Some things that I know for a fact are wrong:

1. Ranges of Kashubian anf Silesian are exagerated, unless just a couple speakers is enough to stripe a place and even then are too much. Here's a map, of Kashubian based on the 2002 census. Forgive me putting the whole link here, I'm posting from a crappy mobile.
https://pl.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plik:Cassubia1238_Język_Kaszubski_2002.png
I didn't manage to find a similar one for Silesian (it being a language separate from Polish is a controversial issue), but this map:
https://pl.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plik:Gwary_śląskie_wg_Zaręby.png
is a fair representation I think, for Poland at least - the eastern border is the Polish - Silesian border basically from the middle ages to WWI, and the western border divided a mixed Slavic and German population from an almost entirely German one before WWII.

2. There is a German minority in Opole voivodship - here's a map, same census.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b7/Gminy_zamieszkane_przez_Niemców.png

3. There are two Sorbian languages, not one. There are less than 7000 native speakers of Lower Sorbian in Brandenburg and 13000 native speakers of Upper Sorbian in Saxony. In Poland, there are no Sorbs to speak of.

4. Wileńska and Lwowska aren't a thing, it's just Polish. And its range in Ukraine and south western Belarus at least seems way too much. I checked Wiki and it said Poles make up less than 1% of L'viv oblast', for instance.

 

[jycee]

most of those regions which are marked as being monolingual in favor of a minority- Karelian in Russia; Magyar in Serbia, Romania, Ukraine, and Slovakia; Belarusian in Belarus; Turkish in Bulgaria; Catalan in Spain; Kurdish in Turkey... it seems generous to mark them as monolingual when striped bilingual would likely be more accurate. I don't know the exact details, but instinctively the borders in general look a bit iffy, as if they're displaying the situation 60 years ago.

Perhaps varying the striping may help?
Equal stripes for more or less equal bilingualism but thick-thin ones for majority-minority bilingualism?

I'm finding this all rather interesting!

I didn't use set rules on how to mark the amount of monolingual-bilingualism in each area; more than solidly monolingual the areas in solid color means anything ranging from protected / semi-official language (even if it is a minority) and the striping means anything from some bilingual presence to "you might find some elderly people in villages still speaking it". I fully understand that this is not perfect by any means; the biggest issue being is that most reference maps either give you a historical range (which you then have to trim) or broad ranges.

I will be fixing/editing where I think it is worth it and hopefully, it ends up as something more accurate/understandable. But for the most part, we can assume very few communities are actually 100% monolingual. I might try @The Professor 's idea and use varying stripes (I tried dots but didn't look that clear) to denote more nuance.

Also... the Arabic language is common in parts of Israel (e.g. Umm el-Fahm), and there's a German minority in Poland.

Thanks will add! I was unaware there were still German communities in Poland.

Pole here. Some things that I know for a fact are wrong:

1. Ranges of Kashubian anf Silesian are exagerated, unless just a couple speakers is enough to stripe a place and even then are too much. Here's a map, of Kashubian based on the 2002 census. Forgive me putting the whole link here, I'm posting from a crappy mobile.
https://pl.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plik:Cassubia1238_Język_Kaszubski_2002.png
I didn't manage to find a similar one for Silesian (it being a language separate from Polish is a controversial issue), but this map:
https://pl.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plik:Gwary_śląskie_wg_Zaręby.png
is a fair representation I think, for Poland at least - the eastern border is the Polish - Silesian border basically from the middle ages to WWI, and the western border divided a mixed Slavic and German population from an almost entirely German one before WWII.

2. There is a German minority in Opole voivodship - here's a map, same census.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b7/Gminy_zamieszkane_przez_Niemców.png

3. There are two Sorbian languages, not one. There are less than 7000 native speakers of Lower Sorbian in Brandenburg and 13000 native speakers of Upper Sorbian in Saxony. In Poland, there are no Sorbs to speak of.

4. Wileńska and Lwowska aren't a thing, it's just Polish. And its range in Ukraine and south western Belarus at least seems way too much. I checked Wiki and it said Poles make up less than 1% of L'viv oblast', for instance.

Glad to have local input! I was going with a very broad map for Poland and most of the Baltics.

1. I'll fix the Kashubian; that map seems pretty good (even if it is 2002 census). For Silesian, I will certainly trim, and I understand it is a bit controversial whether it is Polish or not, but it is my understanding that depends which side of the Polish-Czech border you are on. Like Franco-provencal, I think I'm going to go with the different coloring but, I will trim the are for it to be more acurate.
2. I'll add the German minorities across Poland / Easter Europe for next draft.
3. Did not know that. Guess I will fix, and the Sorbian spill into Poland was a mistake, I will edit that out.
4. I will trim the Polish spill as well, as for the dialects I was referring to Northern and Southern Kresy dialects (not sure why or where I found them labeled as Wileńska and Lwowska). If they don't deserve a mention I'll delete the labels. As far as other Polish dialects, would you consider any other dialect worth lableing.

 

[ctesiphon]

Regarding both Silesian and the Eastern dialects, Poland is not like Italy or Germany, with very distinct regional dialects / languages. Other than Silesian, the dialects of Polish are very much mutually understandable - the Eastern ons distinguished by their accent, but definitely not enough tolabel them separately. Silesian, meanwhile, is in that area where it could be considered a separate language, or a Polish dialect - it's a political decision, basically.

For the record, I don't care either way but I think this decision should rest with its users.

E: Also, your original source might have had "gwara wileńska" and "gwara lwowska", but these names refer to urban slang type things. And they need the noun ("gwara") to even make sense, they look weird without because they're feminine.

 

[jycee]

Here is version 2.0

I'm not 100% convinced on border shading and new color scheme; let me know your thoughts there as well.

This version includes pretty much every label that's been discussed on the thread. IMHO it's getting crowded in places where it might not warrant it, but as always I'd love to know everyone's thoughts on the issue.

 

[LSCatilina]

• Editing the Occitan borders to cover a broader “Occitania” but eliminated areas where usage is negligible following this map provided by @LSCatilina : http://portal-lem.com/images/fr/occitan/carte_de_l_occitan.jpg

I really don't think that's a good idea making a difference between local usage on the basis of this map (which is from 1994, so I'd wouldn't use it directly myself) : I basically posted it to point the relative difference between relatively conserved and monolinguism. As I tried to say above, we're talking more about a better teaching structure and identitarian relevance than common use strictly speaking. From experience and a bit of knowledge on this question, I'd rather advise you to put strips for all the linguistical territory, maybe using wider stripes to point this.

The same goes, IMO, for the Breton region while in reverse (keeping in mind that Rennes isn't and was never a Breton-speaking region)


I think you may have very slightly exagerated the extension of Basque in France, at the expense of Gascon and Bearnais, as well as possibly simplying a bit too much the situatin in Alsace-Moselle
(Also you put Fenouillèdes in Catalan speaking zone instead of occitanophone zone)

Other than that the map is great and most of the changes are precise and correct.

 

[Md139115]

I’m suprised. I wasn’t aware German was still so prevalent in Alsace.

 

[LSCatilina]

I’m suprised. I wasn’t aware German was still so prevalent in Alsace.

It is not really actually : actual regional bilinguism disappeared in France since the 50's at latest, french monolinguism with surviving regional language use (either trough older generations, or education) being the norm.
Keeping in mind that Alsatian is one of the dialects/languages getting the best of the situation compared to other, we have 1/3 of the population claiming to understand it, but it falls to 1/5 once you consider only the people below 30 years old.
When we consider the actual use of Alsatian, it falls below 10% very quickly. While 8% of Alsatians are working in Germany, they generally use taught German rather than basing themselves on Alsatian speech

The one language that does relatively well in metropolitain France is Corsican, and it doesn't escape this general tendency.