Jul 11 2009
The Best “Language Maps”
This is going to be a very short “The Best…” list of online maps that show the geographical locations of what language is spoken where.
These accessible maps can be used as an engaging way to also promote learning about geography. I’m sure there are other ways to utilize them in the classroom. Please share your ideas in the comments section of this post.
There are really only two “language maps” that I’m including in this list. I’m also adding two other supportive resources.
The Modern Language Association Language Map: A Map of Languages in the United States is an incredible site. That link will lead you to the map itself, while this link will take you to an explanation of everything that can be done with it.
The Cyberjournalist site wrote a good and short description of the the MLA site, and I’m just going to quote it here:
“Want to know how many people speak Yiddish or Creole in your neighborhood? The Modern Language Association’s new Language Map displays the locations and numbers of speakers of the 30 languages most commonly spoken in the United States. You can search by language and state and the tool produces a map of how many people speak that language by county or zip code.”
The second site on this short list is an excellent world map of languages created by the language-learning site Bab.la.
As I mentioned, I’m also including two other language map “related” resources here.
One is a Voice of America report (that includes audio support for the text) on the MLA language map of the United States.
The other is a simple chart representation showing the actual number of people who speak specific languages worldwide.
Feel free to share additional suggestions.
If you found this post useful, you might want to look at previous “The Best…” lists and also consider subscribing to this blog for free.
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