File talk:Germanic languages in Europe.png

  Why does the image show that Frisian and respectively Danish are the majority languages in the German region of Schleswig? They are only minority languages (roughly 10k Frisian speakers, 50k Danish speakers, 350k total population) --Beliar (talk) 19:32, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

They are not necessarily the majority, but are significant and dense enough to be shown with a full colour. Marking North Frisian and Danish in Southern Schleswig with dots would render them almost invisible to the eye. The map is only roughly approximate. Hayden120 (talk) 05:31, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

What I don't quite like about this map compared to the original (File:Lenguas germánicas.PNG), is that it has completely gotten rid of any continuum between the languages. The original map isn't perfect in that regard either, since it doesn't show that some Low German varieties extend into the Netherlands and vice versa, but at least you get a sense of the dialect continuum within Western Germanic (in the traditional dialects, there is no sharp language border anywhere between southern Switzerland and the North Sea). Granted, these traditional dialects are being spoken less and less, something this map illustrates quite well with regards to Low German (even though it still marks Scots as being spoken everywhere throughout its historic territory, which clearly isn't the case). So maybe it would be a good idea to have two maps: one showing the traditional distribution of the dialect continuum (i.e. looking more like Lenguas germánicas.PNG) and a second one showing the present-day situation (i.e. one looking more like this one). --Terfili (talk) 10:01, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

I also want to add here, that the new map is missing the distincion between Low-, Central- and Upper German varieties. Also Nynorsk is not indicated on the map. Also the red line that indicates the border of western germanic languages and northern germanic languages is not present here. Who ever made the spanisch map did quite a good job, although it is right, that there are always minor things that could be done better. In the German article de:Westgermanische Sprachen I will therefor reset the last edit and put back the spanisch map, hence it is still more acurate, or let's say more fitting the content of the article. --El bes (talk) 18:30, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

This map shows languages, not dialects. Central German is not a language, but a group of dialects within High German. Nynorsk is also not a language, but an orthography. What is the point of the red line between North and West Germanic? This map simply shows all of the Germanic languages in Europe. The distinction is shown in the legend. Scots is shown mixed with English through all of Scotland. Hayden120 (talk) 15:47, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

The Germanic languages are a classic example of the difficulty in distinguishing between languages and dialects. Where exactly between Switzerland and the Netherlands does High German end and Low German or Dutch start? Strictly linguistically, there are no clear language borders within West Germanic, which is why distinguishing between Upper- Central- and Low German is a useful distinction. The same goes for the Scandinavian languages, which are an even more obvious example of a dialect continuum being divided into languages based on political divisions. --Terfili (talk) 20:50, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

My thoughts

1. It wrongly assumes that Cornish is extinct
2. It wrongly assumes a sharp line between Scots and English that starts in the frontier (I frankly researched about far northern English dialects, and find them quite distant from standard English to not be somewhere in-between it and Scots, perhaps closer to the latter). The frontier of Scots would be represented somewhat more southerly as bilingualism is already indicated anyway.
3. The little neon green balls in Low German representing bilingualism made it invisible in my PC. It would be nice if the background of Low German was the light neon one, and the darker green balls were of a healthy leafy tone rather than this deep moss-like colour.
4. I know it is something hard to do and I'm not asking it, but it would be way closer to reality if German was shown in a gradation from the darkermost Switzerland and less vivid dark Austria to the lighter green northern Germany. Maps widely used for Romance language that people find on Commons often represent continua of dialects rather than too clear-cut uniform languages. If you intend to do so, this would also be extremely good for Swedish.

Thank you. Lguipontes (talk) 20:33, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

G'day, thanks for the interest.

1. Cornish is essentially extinct. It was revived only relatively recently, and has less than 10 native speakers. Since this map represents Germanic languages, it would be difficult visually to include such a minor language. The great majority (~99%) of Cornwall speaks English.
2. The "sharp line" is only an approximate line and is by no means definitive. Even though there is a dialect continuum over the border from Scotland to England, "Scots" generally just refers to the Germanic language varieties in Scotland and Ulster (remembering that the definition of a "language" is essentially political). This map is in-line with many other Scots language maps, such as ScotsLanguageMap.png and History of Scots in Scotland and Ulster.png. Admittedly Scots is probably visually overrepresented and needs to be tweaked.
3. The two shades of green appear fine on my monitor, but perhaps a different pattern and/or colours could be used for better contrast.
4. For the sake of simplicity, this map was created with the intent to display only languages, not dialects. Low German is often considered a separate language to [High] German, hence it having its own colour. For the purpose of this map, there is no need to break [High] German into Central German, High Franconian and Upper German dialects.

Best regards, Hayden120 (talk) 01:30, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Germanic on the British Isles

As per discussion at [1] about Scotland and Wales, I have updated the map. The only areas of Wales to have a majority of Welsh speakers are Anglesey and Gwynedd (Speaking Regions) I have included the areas of Wales that have welsh speakers in the minority with grey dots. The only area of Scotland with a majority of Scottish Gaelic|Gaelic speakers is the outer Hebrides (Speaking Regions), but again the areas with a modern day minority of Scottish Gaelic|Gaelic]] speakers are included with grey dots. There are also few areas of Ireland with a majority of Irish speakers (Gaeltacht regions), but again the areas with a minority of Irish speakers have been included with grey dots depicting a non Germanic speaking minority. One thing I have not addressed is the Scots/English question asked above about what is the majority language spoken in the Scottish lowlands. VanguardScot 13:30, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

It is English in the vast majority of the lowlands. See File:Scots speakers in the 2011 census.png, which shows a much smaller area with >50% Scots speakers. Rob984 (talk) 09:55, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

The UK as whole

If the other countries are shown as whole Then The UK should be shown as whole not as administrative divisions.139.216.235.151

Suggested improvements: Tweak lowlands of Scotland, perhaps undue weight to include Scots at all given the variety of High German dialects not included?

If anybody has the time to work on this file, I would suggest modifying the Lowlands of Scotland to show areas with less then 50% Scots speakers (File:Scots speakers in the 2011 census.png) as English predominately, with Scots dotted. This better reflects the reality with most Lowland Scots today speaking Standard English (like Standard German in the German Plain). There is however small areas of Scotland (for example en:W:Moray) where Scots is very predominant (see en:W:Doric dialect (Scotland)).

Alternatively we could remove Scots on the basis that there are many High German dialects not shown, some of which are also considered distinct languages from Standard German (i.e. Luxembourgish, Bavarian, etc.). Or perhaps add more German dialects as dotted?

Thoughts?

Rob984 (talk) 19:17, 22 July 2018 (UTC)