Language Map of Europe

1. Harry Poker
   October 22nd, 2009 at 2:45 pm

   That's terrible unaccurate, mainly because it ignores bilingial areas.

2. hedwig
   October 22nd, 2009 at 2:50 pm

   fantastic! Europe's history can be traced in the languages spoken in any given place. The effect of the Soviet Union also totally altered the distribution of Russian. As a native Eng speaker in Eastern Europe, I find this kind of thing fascinating.

3. Skipweasel
   October 22nd, 2009 at 3:40 pm

   Great stuff - but being colour blind I can't really make out the differences between the shades. I can just about do it on the key, but which is which on the map is beyond me.

4. malena
   October 22nd, 2009 at 3:57 pm

   its either serbian or croatian btw...

5. Morz
   October 22nd, 2009 at 6:22 pm

   That's really cool. I really like how it shows different languages in the same family with different shades.

   Malena:"its either serbian or croatian btw…"
   Nope, it's perfectly acceptable to use serbo-croatian.

6. Douglas2
   October 22nd, 2009 at 6:44 pm

   So happy to see that my favourite: "Maltese" made the list. But what's with "Basque" -- every other language gets family classifications to catalogue it, but Basque is just "Basque".

7. ByrdBrain
   October 22nd, 2009 at 7:38 pm

   Yes, it is just "Basque, and that is why the Spaniards hate them and vice-versa.

8. Kaz
   October 22nd, 2009 at 7:58 pm

   Basque is just Basque because it is of unknown origin and it is not related to any language spoken today. Many, many theories have been made, but all have flaws, including that one that said they came from Atlantis (yeah, it's out there).

9. Ricardo Tavío
   October 23rd, 2009 at 2:50 am

   Totally agree with Harry Poker. The map ignores bilingual areas and considers that some territories only speak a language that is absolutely less spoken for the population. A more accurate approach should include the usage of the language by the population and not only it's existance.

10. SSD
    October 23rd, 2009 at 4:13 am

    This is soooo inaccurate.Especially the southern part of Greece (Peloponisos) that shows something like Albanian spoken community.
    I don't know in what stats is based this but, to my
    knowledge (I come from this area ,and i know it pretty well) there is no significant percentage of Albanian speakers in any part of it.
    Also Albanian immigrants tend to perfectness their Greek language, their kids attend Greek schools, and using their mother tongue less and less,so there is no way that there will be a significant accumulation of Albanian speakers in any part of Peloponissos up to now.

11. stripofil
    October 23rd, 2009 at 5:09 am

    The borders are not accurate and serbian and croatian are 2 languages plus some language colors are overstreched...

12. Rowan Duffy
    October 23rd, 2009 at 6:03 am

    Conflating Serbian and Croatian is somewhat understandable. At least they're obviously in the same language family. However, conflating Ingush and Georgian? That's just bizarre.

13. boohoo
    October 23rd, 2009 at 7:23 am

    In Scotland, more people speak Urdu than Gaelic.

    This map is pish.

14. Shasta
    October 23rd, 2009 at 9:05 am

    People in the basque country speaks mostly spanish.
    We do not hate spaniards...

15. Shasta
    October 23rd, 2009 at 9:06 am

    We are spaniards.

16. Pernan
    October 24th, 2009 at 6:25 am

    Basque language is also spoken in a part of France. As many other places, it is in billingual areas (Basque + Spanish in Spain and Basque + French in France). Some Basques hate Spain, some feel they are Spaniards. Same Spaniards hate Basques, some don't. The same in the French part. I speak Basque language, and also Spanish, and a little bit English. I blog comics in Basque language. I don't feel myself Spaniard, neither Basque. But it would be a pitty that these small languages would lost, don't you think so?

17. Jas
    October 24th, 2009 at 12:52 pm

    Elementary geography books (yes, they still exist) have done better job than this, and already pointed out the self-evident border/language system. There's just so much wrooong, and if it was supposed to be something new at least it should've been done way more accurately.

18. R
    October 24th, 2009 at 1:35 pm

    A little insight from Brittany here : breton is not spoken anymore ! Yes sure, some old people can spoke, and a few schools still teach it. But really, people speak French... And in the east-est part of France, German is not the predominant language. 'Alsacien' is not uncommon, people usually take German in school, but it's not a mother tongue...

    Reading the other comments it seems like the part of Europe I don't know well enough aren't accurately represented either...

19. serena
    October 24th, 2009 at 6:38 pm

    it was nice but i need something a little better

20. Me
    October 24th, 2009 at 8:35 pm

    Fanciful, e.g. Welsh is a first language in only a small part of Wales, not the whole country. This map is obviously not based on any genuine research, just lazy assumptions.

21. Andrey
    October 25th, 2009 at 2:04 am

    Russia, like several other countries - a multinational country.
    On your map of Russia is almost totally black. However, if you consider the spread of languages - Russia should be like a mosaic.

22. digi
    October 25th, 2009 at 12:17 pm

    Almost all of Belarus' and almost half of Ukraine is for Russian. Thus, Russian is underestimated.

23. marquinos
    October 26th, 2009 at 3:06 am

    Asturies in the north of Spain has the Asturian, Romance language

24. AlfeG
    October 26th, 2009 at 9:10 am

    Bullshit... 80% of Ukraine is speaking russian...

25. Roarmerly
    October 27th, 2009 at 9:41 am

    OMG...serbo-croatian...be nice, people... it's CROATIAN...

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