{"id":41985,"date":"2014-05-15T05:59:38","date_gmt":"2014-05-15T11:59:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/05\/15\/maybe-kay-should-learn-german.html"},"modified":"2014-05-16T13:06:11","modified_gmt":"2014-05-16T19:06:11","slug":"maybe-kay-should-learn-german","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/05\/15\/maybe-kay-should-learn-german.html","title":{"rendered":"Maybe Kay should learn German"},"content":{"rendered":"
My daughter plans on taking Mandarin Chinese in high school next year, but looking at this map, German might be a better alternative if she plans on sticking around in Colorado.<\/p>\n

Reshared post from +Yonatan Zunger<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

This is a great little dive into US Census data: What's the most commonly spoken language in each state? Ben Blatt looks at the most common languages other than English and Spanish (top two in most states), and other breakdowns, like most common Native American or Scandinavian languages.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In case you're wondering why Chinese doesn't show up on this map, it's because the US Census separates "Chinese" into Mandarin, Cantonese, Shanghainese, etc., and none of those languages individually is bigger than Tagalog. This is a good separation: Mandarin and Cantonese speakers can't understand one another any more than English and German speakers can.<\/p>\n

For political reasons, if you do linguistics work anywhere around China, you have to refer to these as "dialects" of Chinese; that's because the Chinese government considers it very important to highlight that the Chinese people are one people, etc. The languages do share a single writing system, but normally in linguistics it makes sense to think of a written language as being separate from its spoken languages: the two tend to be very different beasts and differ quite a lot more from one another than you would expect, even in very writing-centered worlds. In fact, when people write in a spoken mode or speak in a written mode it's often very noticed. (And decried as a "corruption of English," as though written English were the only "real" English and the spoken language which people actually use is some kind of half-language) If you look at the spoken languages, the Chinese languages are related to one another, but they're very different, and their history and relationship is fascinating.<\/p>\n

Oddly, though, the US Census didn't do the same with Arabic, which is actually about two dozen different languages. The situation here is a little different: "Classical Arabic," the language of the Koran, is universally used for written Arabic, and it's also used for very official things such as news broadcasts. It's related to all of the local Arabic languages (Moroccan, Egyptian, Libyan, etc., etc.), but it's about as different from them as Latin is from Italian, and they differ from each other like Italian from Spanish. Classical Arabic is something you learn in school, not (in general) from your mother; but if you put an Egyptian and a Moroccan in a room together, they'll probably talk to each other in Classical Arabic, because they won't understand each other's native tongues at all.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Arabic is often referred to as a single "language," and even native speakers will refer to their varieties as dialects, even while cheerfully admitting that they can't understand one another at all — which is exactly what defines different languages. However, because people aren't as widely aware of this, Arabic is even more likely than Chinese to be listed as a single language, which probably has something to do with its showing up on the map as the third-most-common language in Michigan. (It would be a perfectly good answer if we were looking at a map of language families,<\/i> in which case you would also see a lot more Chinese and Indo-Aryan languages, I'll bet)<\/p>\n

If you want to know more about the Arabic and Chinese languages, these pages have great maps and introductions:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Varieties_of_Arabic<\/a>
http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Varieties_of_Chinese<\/a>\ufeff<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\n \n <\/div>\n

What Language Does Your State Speak?<\/a>
\n Last month, I wrote about the fun and the pitfalls of viral maps, a feature that included 88 super-simple maps of my own creation. As a follow-up, I\u2019m writing up short items on some of those maps, walking through how I created them and how they succumb to (and hopefully…\n <\/p>\n

View this post on Google+<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My daughter plans on taking Mandarin Chinese in high school next year, but looking at this map, German might be a better alternative if she plans on sticking around in Colorado. Reshared post from +Yonatan Zunger This is a great little dive into US Census data: What's the most commonly spoken language in each state? … Continue reading “Maybe Kay should learn German”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106,24],"tags":[586],"class_list":["post-41985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plusposts","category-writing-and-language","tag-pluspost"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":31440,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/11\/20\/chinese-characters-in-translation.html","url_meta":{"origin":41985,"position":0},"title":"Chinese characters in translation","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 20-Nov-12 6:20pm","format":false,"excerpt":"So my #NanNoWriMo \u00a0novel \u00a0is set in San Francisco in 1952, and involves a number of Chinese characters.While this is over-simplifying things, the Romanization of Chinese characters has gone through a variety of evolutions (complicated by the various dialects of Chinese -- Cantonese vs. Mandarin, for example). \u00a0Traditionally, the Wade-Giles\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":49814,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/03\/12\/afterlife-liberty-and-the-pursuit-of-nirvana.html","url_meta":{"origin":41985,"position":1},"title":"Afterlife, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Nirvana","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 12-Mar-15 11:53am","format":false,"excerpt":"Without speaking to the merits of the case, it's always ... weird ... when governments (in this particular case, an officially non-believing government) get so entangled in religion. They are moments that future generations look back on with an incredulous chuckle, unaware of what it meant to the people of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":28581,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/07\/15\/no-doubt-kingsley-will-also-play-the-jim-rhodes-and-mrs-arbogast.html","url_meta":{"origin":41985,"position":2},"title":"No doubt\u00a0Kingsley will also play the Jim Rhodes and Mrs. Arbogast","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 15-Jul-12 9:53am","format":false,"excerpt":"With all due respect to Mr. Kingsley, it's difficult to believe that Marvel couldn't find a ... y'know ... Chinese actor to play the Mandarin? \u00a0Unless the character is no longer Chinese, which would be even more odd.Reshared post from +Comicbook.comWhat Comicbook.com reported earlier this year is now official. Ben\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/images0-focus-opensocial.googleusercontent.com\/gadgets\/proxy?container=focus&gadget=a&resize_h=100&url=http%3A%2F%2Fcomicbook.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2012%2F04%2Fthe-mandarin-300x300.jpg","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":46228,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/04\/translating-words-across-europe.html","url_meta":{"origin":41985,"position":3},"title":"Translating words across Europe","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 4-Nov-14 4:19pm","format":false,"excerpt":"This is a very spiffy little site. Enter in an English word, and see the most common translated word in a variety of European nations. Originally shared by +Yonatan Zunger: Here's an interesting site, via +Laura Gibbs: it uses Google Translate to show you the translations of any word across\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13960,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/02\/28\/its-greek-to-me.html","url_meta":{"origin":41985,"position":4},"title":"It’s Greek to Me!","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 28-Feb-09 12:01am","format":false,"excerpt":"At least that's what English-speakers say. But while Greek is a popular language for folks to colloquially attribute incomprehensibility, what do the Greeks say in the same situation? And are there languages that are more (or, perhaps, less) popular than Greek in these situations? Yes. When a Hellenophone has trouble\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Writing and Language"","block_context":{"text":"Writing and Language","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/writing-and-language"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":136826,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2018\/06\/23\/letters-and-alphabets.html","url_meta":{"origin":41985,"position":5},"title":"Letters and Alphabets","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 23-Jun-18 4:48pm","format":false,"excerpt":"We take writing and language for granted, but there's remarkable history and variability in how it's all constructed across time and space with humanity, and even large variation today -- not just in language, but in how we convey it in writing. Originally shared by +Yonatan Zunger: This is a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/DgM74CBV4AE3cXb.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/DgM74CBV4AE3cXb.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/DgM74CBV4AE3cXb.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41985"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41985\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42009,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41985\/revisions\/42009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}