LINGUISTIC ATLAS OF THE WORLD.

July 6, 2004 by 11 Comments

The Linguistic Atlas of the World is a clever idea: each country is labeled with its name in its own language and writing system. I’ve already found one glitch (on the Asia map, Kazakhstan is labeled “Qazaq” rather than Qazaqstan, the official name being Qazaqstan Respublikasy), so I wouldn’t use it to settle bets, but it’s a lot of fun. (Via AskMetaFilter.)

Comments

  1. William says
    July 7, 2004 at 5:14 am

    There seems to be a minimum size for countries to be included. Greenland is there (listed as a danish province? North-American?), but the Faroe Islands seem to have gone missing. Pitty, that.

  2. Zizka says
    July 7, 2004 at 7:27 pm

    The report on Papau New Guinea is worth a look, but the C. Asian Turkish Republics are very poorly done. Singapore and Malaysia distinguished Chinese dialects, which is good. Mixed review.

  3. Anders Ringström says
    July 8, 2004 at 8:42 am

    I had a glance at India. About half a dozen Indian states are missing, and the letter between Jammu and Kasmir is an “n”, not the correct “w”. But I sure will have fun when looking through the maps.

  4. Dave says
    July 8, 2004 at 9:26 pm

    “Zaire”?!

  5. Cryptic Ned says
    July 9, 2004 at 6:10 pm

    I’ve never seen Morocco listed as “Marrakesh” before. I think it should be “al-Maghrib”.
    And what about Eritrea and Djibouti?

  6. Cryptic Ned says
    July 9, 2004 at 6:16 pm

    Yes, that N between Jammu and Kashmir is puzzling. Is that the Urdu “and”, by any chance?
    I’d also never seen the Arabic character that I guess is representing the “ng” in Xinjiang. Is that standard in the Uighur alphabet or any other?
    This is one of those websites that takes me back to six or seven years ago, when there was a finite number of websites. It probably would have had a bunch of blurbs and medals for being “Top Site of the Day”. Great link.

  7. Zack says
    July 9, 2004 at 10:21 pm

    Ned: The “n” in Jammu Kashmir is the wrong “n”. It should be the “n” without the dot which has a nasal sound.
    “Pakistan” is also missing an alif (a) between “p” and “k”.

  8. Tim May says
    July 10, 2004 at 8:04 am

    I’d also never seen the Arabic character that I guess is representing the “ng” in Xinjiang. Is that standard in the Uighur alphabet or any other?
    Apparently so. It’s in Unicode as U+06AD ARABIC LETTER NG – Uighur, Kazakh, old Malay, …
    The Uighur alphabet is laid out here.

  9. anders says
    July 12, 2004 at 11:17 am

    Zack,
    The “ng” puzzles me. I expected wa or aur for and in Urdu. Kashmiri seems to have and = ti. Is it English “and”?

  10. anders says
    July 12, 2004 at 7:51 pm

    Kashmir question solved! In Urdu – but not in Hindi – the final letter of Jammu is indeed “ng”, but there should also have been a “wa” for “and” between the two names.

  11. Ashwini says
    July 13, 2004 at 10:38 am

    Linguistic Atlas has a mistake in the India entry.
    Marathi is not the most commonly spoken language in Goa!!! It’s Konkani, and is recognised as one of the 18 national languages in India’s Constitution.
    Konkani is also listed as the most commonly spoken language of Goa in the 1991 Linguistic Census of India. Big mistake, considering the language movement that took place in Goa so that it could be recognized as a language on its own and not just a dialect of Marathi.

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