06 November 2014

Second-Language Reciprocity

Here is a fascinating infographic presentation posted at Lovely Little Lexemes (hat tip to Mrs. B!). A curious (and probably unique) relationship can be observed between the United Kingdom and Poland: the most common second language in the UK is Polish, and the most common second language in Poland is English.

Click here to see an enlarged version.


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11 comments:

  1. Piotr Gąsiorowski6 November 2014 at 13:52

    P.S. I am, however, completely mystified by the legend of the map, where the "Parent Languages" are listed. What the heck is "Amerind-Nostratic", for example? Why are "English Creole", "Portuguese Creole" and just "Creole" (sans adjective) treated on a par with language families (real or otherwise)?

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    Replies
    1. ibarrere6 November 2014 at 16:47

      Agreed. And Turkic (or even Turkik)? Just like, some generic Turkic language for Mongolia?

      Delete
    2. Piotr Gąsiorowski6 November 2014 at 16:50

      Well, most of these labels are problematic. I wonder where they came from.

      Delete
    3. Unknown6 November 2014 at 17:47

      Reading those labels caused me to do so much angry ranting on facebook...

      Delete
  2. David Marjanović9 November 2014 at 18:14

    What the heck is "Amerind-Nostratic", for example?

    Merritt Ruhlen thinks Amerind and Nostratic are sister-groups, apparently based on one word he finds throughout "both" (it's milk). But several levels of subgroups of that are also used on the map...

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  3. jparada19 January 2015 at 21:14

    wonder whether for colombia would be english, or perhaps wayuu like venezuela?

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  4. The Loser10 June 2015 at 15:34

    This blog will come back to life one day, I hope! I remember you from the Cybalist mailing list and really liked reading your posts.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Piotr Gąsiorowski10 June 2015 at 22:34

      Thanks! This blog is not dead, just seasonally dormant. The summer vacation is approaching, and I may find the time to start another cycle of posts (including my long-overdue reflections on "linguistic function").

      Delete
  5. The Loser14 June 2015 at 19:08

    That's good news!

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  6. dainichi21 April 2017 at 04:48

    > "the most common second language"

    Yeah, that's what I thought too when I saw "second language". But I think it's obvious when looking at the values that what is meant is "the second most common (native?) language".

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  7. Legal Translation Company in Dubai28 March 2022 at 14:06

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    ReplyDelete

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