Confederacy of a Dunce - Language maps

Monday, April 24, 2006

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The Modern Language Association (MLA) has recently launched a new version of their US Language Map which displays language information from the 2000 US Census at variously fine levels of detail (main page here; map page here). One of the most important developments of this map is the ability to display speaker information as a percentage of the population (previous versions just showed raw numbers which gave excessively high weights to urban areas). The percentage-based maps give a very nice impression of linguistic distributions (although note that maps for different languages use different scales:

German:

Italian:

French:

You can also get details of where various languages are spoken (complete list of languages reported to the US Census, LINK). For example, Shawnee is spoken by 490 respondents in the entire US: 140 in Oklahoma, 110 in Ohio, 65 in West Virginia, 25 in Ohio and the rest in other states. Or Luxembourgian which is apparently spoken by 834 respondents (more in Wisconsin and Iowa than anywhere else). Surprisingly, neither Jedi nor Klingon appear on the list.

language

Monday, April 24, 2006 12:29:53 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

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Monday, April 24, 2006 1:30:10 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

I love these kinds of things! Though I must admit, I'm curious as to why there are small pockets of francophones in central Colorado and the tip of Minnesota. The others make sense.

Heather-in-law | hfbwilliamsAT NOSPAMcomporium dot net

Monday, April 24, 2006 2:44:44 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Let me give you a hint: the greatest concentration of francophones in Colorado is in Aspen (Pitkin County is the darkest red bit in the state). I bet they're mostly on the slopes.

As it turns out, that especially dark red bit still contains only a small number of French speakers: 219 out of the 14,024 respondents from Pitkin County. 1.56% is just barely red.

The Dunce

Monday, April 24, 2006 3:00:53 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

I also wonder which county has the highest proportion of English speakers. It's an interesting challenge; so far my best find has been 98.98% (Benton County, Mississippi) but I'm sure there are higher counties out there as I haven't tested very many of them.

The Dunce

Monday, April 24, 2006 5:05:10 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

I'm surprised at the glaring omission of Jedi, Klingon, and ELVISH!

The Thief