More on the Languages of Europe:
Cripes howdy, but I’m getting a lot of private mail on this one from that earlier post. Let me say that I was in a hurry to post, but that I had my own set of problems with all of those maps.
Here’s some new maps that have been pointed out to me:
This is an odd one, mostly focusing on the Romance Languages (if you include English as one from its heavy French influences, which I gather that they are. Here’s another view of what looks like the same map, with some more English stuff and more of a descriptive note on the languages noted. (It’s from some pro-Galician cultural outfit.) What it seems to be useful for is in finding the small Romance-based dialects and languages around in Western and Southern Europe. Further parts focus on the Iberian peninsula, specifics on Galicia, subdialects of Galician, and so on.
This isn’t a map, but it may help a lot with figuring out the odd languages in Russia - it’s a list and information about each. There’s similar information on France, Germany, Greece, Spain, Italy, the UK, Sweden, Austria, the Netherlands, and so on.
Here’s a nice layout of the Indo-European family for reference. And a crude map as to where to find them.
Here’s the Wikipedia map for the European Languages.
Some kind of German referent on the same. Hate the map. If you want a good general site for German information, try this site.
This is a nice but a little dated map on the German dialects and spread of colonies of German-speakers in Central Europe, but WW2 made this obsolete.
A map and discussion of Dutch and West German languages and dialects/similar languages (such as Frisian, etc). And a map of the language divisions in Belgium. (Yes, I have Dutch and Belgian readers. Why do you ask? *grin*)
A really detailed map set on Swiss languages and their forms.
A very nice collection of maps and links on the general subject of maps of language use is here. I liked this map of the Ancient Italian peninsula and the languages there…