If lions could talk: attempts at mapping over the borders

1. If lions could talk:attempts at mapping over the borders Keynote address by Danny Dorling University of Sheffield Borders and Identities Conference Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 8 January 2010

2. Introduction How would you draw a map of the capital city of the United States of America that represented the human geography of that city? Some of those who have been there say: “In Washington D.C. the invisible borders of segregation are now so wide that for adolescents, left on the wrong side of the tracks” …downtown does not exit. “There is no talking over the border. The life experiences are so sharply different that it is not clear what the residents of the two sides could talk to each other about were they to meet and stop to converse. It is becoming again as if one side were animals, lions, suddenly given the ability to speak and”(*) …if lions could talk, we would not understand them. Tourists maps of Washington exist with areas shaded to suggest you don’t go there. (*) as Ludwig Wittgenstein apparently remarked, expanded upon in: Bauman, Z. (2000 (2nd edition)). Globalization: the human consequences. Cambridge, Polity Press. (page 86).

3. Introduction This talk concerns mapping lives to try to make them comparable across borders. Globally, and within particular cities, people’s lives can be so different today that it is unlikely that two people taken from different sides of the border could easily understand each others’ concerns. Maps of mortality worldwide, of cultural divides along the English midlands, and of wealth divides within the heart of London are discussed in this talk which asks how we can better portray the extent and existence of both perceived and actual socio-political boundaries in ways that people from different sides of the divides can understand. The talk concludes with a justification for attempting to produce new world maps of what we think most people speak everywhere (taken from the website www.worldmapper.org).

4. Introduction The territory size in the following series of maps shows the proportion of the displayed language that are spoken there. The maps are sorted in an order going from languages with the least native speakers towards the ones with the most native speakers, covering a total of 106 languages. All maps are part of the worldmapper project, which is a collaborative work between the following people: Danny Dorling, University of Sheffield Mark Newman, University of Michigan Graham Allsopp, University of Sheffield Anna Barford, University of Sheffield Ben Wheeler, University of Sheffield John Pritchard, University of Sheffield Benjamin Hennig, University of Sheffield All language maps shown here as well as further notes can be found online at: http://www.worldmapper.org/extraindex/text_language.html

5. Basemaps: Land area Map of the territories of the world as used in the worldmapper project (c) www.worldmapper.org

6. Basemaps: Population Map of the distribution of the world’s population (c) www.worldmapper.org

7. "A language is a dialect with an army and a navy.“ (Unknown associate of Max Weinreich) Mapping languages

8. A journey through the world of mouth Map of the world’s language families Basemap modified from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Human_Language_Families_%28wikicolors%29.png

9. This map uses data from 'Ethnologue: Languages of the World', and shows the number of languages considered indigenous to each country that are still spoken there. Due to issues of language identification, it is possible to dispute the data used here, and a review of Ethnologue by Campbell and Grondona (2008) does just that; they claim "... the number of indigenous ('living') languages of different countries is inflated ...". Indigenous living languages

10. Indigenous living languages The map presents a good picture of linguistic diversity. Papua New Guinea has nearly 10% (820) of the world's indigenous living languages, so that there are only an average of 7000 speakers per language living there. Indonesia (737), Nigeria (510), and India (415) also have a large number of native languages. At the other end of the scale, Belarus, Maldives, DPR Korea and Holy See each have only one indigenous living language. 8,592 native speakers are represented in this map. (c) www.worldmapper.org

11. Tuvaluan: 12,000 native speakers The red star indicates the region where this language originates or the main place where the native speakers of this language are located. Basemap modified from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Human_Language_Families_%28wikicolors%29.png

12. Tuvaluan is a language of Tuvalu. Roughly 90% of the population there speak it as a first language. Tuvaluan (c) www.worldmapper.org

13. Tuvaluan Tuvaluan is spoken by roughly 11 thousand people, most of them on the islands of Tuvalu in the south-central Pacific. The language has also been taken in small numbers to Nauru, New Zealand, Kiribati, Fiji and Australia. (c) www.worldmapper.org

14. Tongan: 142,000 native speakers Basemap modified from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Human_Language_Families_%28wikicolors%29.png

15. Tongan is a language of Tonga. Roughly 98% of the population there speak it as a first language. Tongan (c) www.worldmapper.org

16. Tongan Tongan is the national language of Tonga. It is a member of the same language family (Polynesian) as Niuean, Hawaiian, Maori, Samoan and Tahitian. It is spoken by roughly 130 thousand people in at least 7 territories. After Tonga, the largest population (around 24 thousand) is in the United States. Other smaller populations are in New Zealand, Fiji, the United Kingdom, Samoa and Australia. (c) www.worldmapper.org

17. Icelandic: 315,000 native speakers Basemap modified from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Human_Language_Families_%28wikicolors%29.png

18. Icelandic is a language of Iceland. Roughly 97% of the population there speak it as a first language. Icelandic (c) www.worldmapper.org

19. Icelandic Icelandic is spoken by just over 3 million people, in at least 7 territories. Outside Iceland, speakers are also recorded as living in Denmark, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Norway, mostly through relatively recent emigration. (c) www.worldmapper.org

20. Samoan: 384,000 native speakers Basemap modified from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Human_Language_Families_%28wikicolors%29.png

21. Samoan is a language of Samoa. Roughly 100% of the population there speak it as a first language. Samoan (c) www.worldmapper.org

22. Samoan Sāmoan (or Samoan) is spoken by around 380 thousand people in total, most of them in Samoa and American Samoa. There are also nearly 100 thousand speakers in New Zealand, nearly 30 thousand in Australia, and a small number in Fiji. (c) www.worldmapper.org

23. Maltese: 451,000 native speakers Basemap modified from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Human_Language_Families_%28wikicolors%29.png

24. Maltese is a language of Malta. Roughly 93% of the population there speak it as a first language. Maltese (c) www.worldmapper.org

25. Maltese Maltese is the language of Malta. It is a Semitic language, with some of its vocabulary borrowed from Italian and English. It is spoken by at least 440 thousand people in at least six territories. As well as Malta, it is spoken (roughly in order of descending numbers of speakers) in Australia, Italy, Canada, the United Kingdom and Tunisia. (c) www.worldmapper.org

26. Welsh: 482,000 native speakers Basemap modified from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Human_Language_Families_%28wikicolors%29.png

27. Welsh is a language of the United Kingdom. Roughly 0.8% of the population there speak it as a first language. Welsh (c) www.worldmapper.org

28. Welsh Welsh is a Celtic language, spoken by roughly half a million people as their first language. The majority of those are in Wales, where an effort has been made to revive the language. There are also thought to be around 200,000 in England, many of them in London or near the border with Wales. There is a Welsh community in the Chubut Valley in Argentine Patagonia, descendents of a group who left Wales in 1865. There are also Welsh speakers recorded in the censuses of the United States, Canada and Australia. (c) www.worldmapper.org

29. Yiddish: 506,000 native speakers Basemap modified from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Human_Language_Families_%28wikicolors%29.png

30. Yiddish is a language of Israel. Roughly 3% of the population there speak it as a first language. Yiddish (c) www.worldmapper.org

31. Yiddish Yiddish has its routes in tenth-century Germany, where Jews from France and Northern Italy established communities, developing a language with elements of German, Laaz, Hebrew, and Aramaic. The language spread and changed as Jews migrated eastward to escape persecution. Before World War II there were 11 to 13 million Yiddish speakers (Jacobs, 2005), but The Holocaust led to a dramatic reduction in the number of speakers. There are now roughly 500,000 people speaking Yiddish as their first language, in at least 15 territories. (c) www.worldmapper.org

32. Estonian: 958,000 native speakers Basemap modified from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Human_Language_Families_%28wikicolors%29.png

33. Estonian is a language of Estonia. Roughly 67% of the population there speak it as a first language. Estonian (c) www.worldmapper.org

34. Estonian Estonian is spoken by approximately 950 thousand people, in at least 9 territories. It is the official language of Estonia, and spoken by the majority of the population there. After Estonia, the largest number of speakers are in Russia. There are also smaller numbers of speakers in Canada, the United States, Finland, Latvia, Sweden and the United Kingdom. (c) www.worldmapper.org

35. Chokwe: 1,057,000 native speakers Basemap modified from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Human_Language_Families_%28wikicolors%29.png

36. Chokwe is a language of Democratic Republic of Congo. Roughly 1% of the population there speak it as a first language. Chokwe (c) www.worldmapper.org

37. Chokwe Chokwe is the language of the ethnic group by the same name in the Central African area of Angola (where it is one of six national languages), south-east Democratic Republic of Congo, North-western Zambia, and a small number in Namibia. Many speakers are bi-lingual, also speaking French, Portuguese or English. (c) www.worldmapper.org

38. Mandinka: 1,286,000 native speakers Basemap modified from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Human_Language_Families_%28wikicolors%29.png

39. Mandinka is a language of Senegal. Roughly 6% of the population there speak it as a first language. Mandinka (c) www.worldmapper.org

40. Mandinka Mandinka (or Mandingo), is part of a group of languages of West Africa known collectively as Manding. it is the main language of Gambia. It is spoken by roughly 1.2 million people in total; also in Senegal and the central-northern part of Guinea-Bissau. There is also a small number of speakers in the United Kingdom. (c) www.worldmapper.org

41. Tibetan: 1,312,000 native speakers Basemap modified from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Human_Language_Families_%28wikicolors%29.png

42. Standard Tibetan is a language of China. Roughly 0.1% of the population there speak it as a first language. Tibetan (c) www.worldmapper.org

43. Tibetan Standard Tibetan (or Central Tibetan) is the language of the Tibet Autonomous Region of China. It is spoken by roughly 1.3 million people in total. Most speakers are in Tibet, but many refugees have settled in India (mostly in the state of Sikkim), Nepal, the United States and Canada, since China took control of Tibet in 1959. (c) www.worldmapper.org

44. Latvian: 1,324,000 native speakers Basemap modified from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Human_Language_Families_%28wikicolors%29.png

45. Latvian is a language of Latvia. Roughly 61% of the population there speak it as a first language. Latvian (c) www.worldmapper.org

46. Latvian Latvian is the official language of Latvia, and spoken by around 1.4 million people there. The only other territories where speakers number over 20,000 are Australia and Russia. Other small populations mean that it is spoken in around 12 territories in total. (c) www.worldmapper.org

47. Soninke: 1,416,000 native speakers Basemap modified from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Human_Language_Families_%28wikicolors%29.png

48. Soninke is a language of Mali. Roughly 6% of the population there speak it as a first language. Soninke (c) www.worldmapper.org

49. Soninke Soninke is spoken by just over a million people in West Africa, over half of them in Mali. The remainder, in descending order of number of speakers, are in north-east Senegal, Cote d'Ivoire, Gambia, south-central Mauritania and Guinea-Bissau. Soninke is a national language of Senegal and of Mali. (c) www.worldmapper.org

50. Afar: 1,521,000 native speakers Basemap modified from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Human_Language_Families_%28wikicolors%29.png