mapping languages

09May07

It’s fortunate that the two languages that I speak are both analytical. I can never understand the need for so many verb conjugations in Spanish. And the difference between subjunctive and conditional tense? But then, perhaps I should not complain too much, at least it doesn’t have declensions like German, which really did drive me nuts.

Despite all the moaning and groaning, languages have always been fascinating to me since they highlight our differences and limitations more than anything else. Ljuba from Sweden has an interesting site with a good collection of language maps, the most complete that I’ve seen so far. Mark Rosenfelder’s map of worldwide language families also come in handy. However, some of the maps seem to be based upon questionable data. Arabic is being treated as one single language while in fact folks from Egypt and the Gulf states are mutually unintelligible in their own dialects. The same is also true for the various southern Chinese dialects. Take it with a grain of salt, this is still interesting stuff.

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