File talk:African language families.png
African studies
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(comments below copied from en:Image talk:African language families.png)
Just want to note that this map is now being used in African studies at the University of Trondheim, Norway. The lecturer is a real fan of Wikipedia, probably much because of the good african coverage! :-) --Dittaeva 11:44, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
- Thanks Dittaeva, it's really nice to hear that — I'm glad that my maps are put to good use. — mark ✎ 11:12, 16 September 2005 (UTC)
Improvements
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(comments below copied from en:Talk:African languages)
I really like the layout of the thematic map (appealing colours, smooth edges). But one thing that's missing is a correct colour shading for those areas where Indo-European language speakers form the majority (i.e. western South Africa, southern Namibia, plus all off-shore islands except Socotra, Djerba, Mayotte, the Comoros, Madagascar, Zanzibar and Pemba). Also, I believe the extent of Khoisan as shown is exaggerated slightly, or refers to the extent of that family several generations ago. Similarly, much of North Africa has gone through language shift and is now primarily Arabic-speaking, although this doesn't affect the colour on the map but perhaps the placement of the language name labels? --Big Adamsky 20:37, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
- Thanks for your comments, Big Adamsky. I've been meaning to update the maps for some time now — the biggest problem is indeed Indo-European. It was omitted originally for purposes of clarity, because I only meant to sketch the approximate distribution of the four African language families. But then I probably shouldn't have included Austronesian on Madagascar either. As for Khoisan, the main source is Köhler's (1976) map, and when I update the series, I will try to find a more up to date source. Concerning the languag labels in North Africa, I actually think there's nothing wrong with that. Although bilinguality in Arabic is widespread, Berber, Hausa, Amharic and Oromo are very much alive and have many speakers.
- Currently, my wikitime is quite limited (or should be) so I don't know how long it will take me before I can update the maps. I'll take care of it, eventually. Thanks for your thoughts! — mark ✎ 11:01, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
- One more suggestion for the language map: Apparently 60%, or so, of Angolans use Portuguese as their maternal language. I would speculate that the Lusophone Angolans are concentrated in and near urban and coastal areas, but I can't really know for sure. Also, Maputo, over on the other side of Southern Africa, is also solidly Lusophone. And I have read somewhere that the dominant home language in both Yamoussoukro and Abidjan is French, so those two cities should probably also be shown on the next edition of your map as Indo-European-speaking zones. --Big Adamsky 18:27, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
- Noted. — mark ✎ 18:42, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
- One more suggestion for the language map: Apparently 60%, or so, of Angolans use Portuguese as their maternal language. I would speculate that the Lusophone Angolans are concentrated in and near urban and coastal areas, but I can't really know for sure. Also, Maputo, over on the other side of Southern Africa, is also solidly Lusophone. And I have read somewhere that the dominant home language in both Yamoussoukro and Abidjan is French, so those two cities should probably also be shown on the next edition of your map as Indo-European-speaking zones. --Big Adamsky 18:27, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
To me, the boundary between Bantu and the rest of Niger-Congo is nearly invisible. Could you make them a bit different? -PierreAbbat 14:30, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
Where is Zulu?--138.75.40.159 11:56, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
