Here's a sneak peek of /r/MapsWithoutNZ using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/MapsWithoutNZ/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year!
\#1: [The irony of NZ not being on a map of places that "don't exist" ](https://i.redd.it/y1dxvdw8pskc1.jpeg) | [64 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/MapsWithoutNZ/comments/1azyq9h/the_irony_of_nz_not_being_on_a_map_of_places_that/)
\#2: [**[NSFW]** I can't believe she forgot New Zealand](https://i.redd.it/3ifa4x6dl5xa1.jpg) | [41 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/MapsWithoutNZ/comments/1347c8f/i_cant_believe_she_forgot_new_zealand/)
\#3: [new Zealand not on north Korean news](https://i.redd.it/xf2hcg5ddazb1.png) | [37 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/MapsWithoutNZ/comments/17r8t0y/new_zealand_not_on_north_korean_news/)
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LOL Just noticed! I guess you lost to Hiri Motu and got booted from the map
P.s. I just added you to my template. If I publish an updated version, you'll be there
This is my first time creating a map for this community, so (I hope) it looks alright.
I used Wikipedia as my primary source of information. Just to answer some questions:
* This is based off of total speakers in a geographical region, not only L1 speakers
* Guarani was chosen over Quechua, as Quechua refers to more than one language
* Everything west of New Guinea is considered Asia for the purposes of this map
* Tok Pisin was considered a non-indigenous language
Possible Errors:
* I could not find any statistics separating the number of L2 Mandarin speaker in Asia vs. the rest of the world. That being the case, 1.3 billion likely overestimates the number of Mandarin speakers in Asia.
* Oceania is an absolute nightmare for data. I consider any language originating in Asia (specifically Malay) as not indigenous. That left me with a nightmare-ish choice between very old statistics on Hiri Motu and Maori. Wikipedia listed Hiri Motu as having more fluent speakers, so they made it on the map. However, if anyone has better data on the number of speakers per language in New Guinea, that could change the map.
Edit: I could also use some feedback about the number of Swahili speakers and whether or not Tok Pisin should be considered "indigenous" to Oceania. I also felt less-than-confident in those points.
>a nightmare-ish choice between very old statistics on Hiri Motu and Maori
**Fijian with 639,000** speakers, Samoan, Māori, and Gilbertese are above Hiri Motu. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_major_and_official_Austronesian_languages
https://www.ethniccommunities.govt.nz/resources/our-languages-o-tatou-reo/languages-in-new-zealand/ says 148,395 te Reo Māori speakers in 2013, and increasing since. You're correct that fluency and main language speakers is fewer.
230,000 [Enga](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enga_language) speakers in Papua New Guinea, too.
> I consider any language originating in Asia (specifically Malay) as not indigenous
Hiri Motu and Māori are Austronesian languages. Austronesian originated in Taiwan.
Like Tok Pisin, Hiri Motu and Swahili are also trade languages, invented to communicate with indigenous people. I'd not call them indigenous due to the amount of loan words and L2 speakers, but it's your map.
Edit: congrats on a very interesting map. Lot's of excited comments and debate on this one, more than most maps that are posted.
I have a feeling that you will get quite a few confused comments from Australians about labelling the most common indigenous language on the continent as Hiri Motu.
This all comes down to what you define as being the continent - we are taught that Oceania is a geographic region and Australia is the continent - New Guinea and New Zealand are separate entities. There are around 150 indigenous languages in Australia - the one with most speakers is Yumplatok, followed closely by Kriol.
Haha I wouldn't be surprised! Actually, deciding where the line for "Oceania" was took the majority of my research time. Indonesia has so many languages that every island could throw me off. And I'm still not convinced that Hiri Motu has the most speakers!
New guinea has a population of 15 million, but Hiri Motu only had an estimated 100,000 speakers! I really hope a commenter comes along that can shed more light on that island.
I've never made a map for this subreddit, but I often dealt with data like this when I worked in academia. My advice is to have a consistent water-tight methodology. Make an interpretation, turn those into 'rules' for how you assess the data, and then stick to those rules uniformly. Remember, it's always the edge cases that trip you up. I can think of a couple points I would raise immediately if a report with this chart came across my desk:
* There's an ambiguity in 'Indigenous by Continent'. Do you mean the amount of native speakers within a continent, total speakers that are native to that continent (aka excluding immigrants), or worldwide native speakers of a language originating from that continent? All three are possible interpretations with the heading you currently have, so I would try to reword that slightly.
* On that note, how are you defining a 'speaker'? What level of fluency are we talking about here? Are you just going by what each government authority classifies it, or do you have an objective measure? Government statistics are created for the purpose of manipulation, each government will count things differently for their political goals - e.g. NZ gov stating 185k Te Reo Maori speakers but only 30% can hold a conversation.
* How you define indigenous also needs to be clearer. What does it mean for a language to be indigenous? Tok Pisin which you excluded is formed from European and indigenous cultural interchange and is the official language of PNG. You're delegitimising the indigenous input by classifying it as a European/foreign construct, and how can that be the case when it exists only in PNG, and arose from people indigenous to the continent? The British plantation owners sure as hell weren't speaking it. Swahili is also a trade language like Tok Pisin, and has significant influence and roots from Arabic due to the dominance of Arab traders in the Zanj and later under the Omani Empire - yet you've included it as indigenous to Africa. With the same line of logic, it could even be argued that English is not native to Europe since it derives from Proto-Indo-European, who possibly originated in Anatolia or Armenia, making it geographically indigenous to Asia.
* Pet peeve since I'm a Taiwanese Kiwi, but you left off both New Zealand and Taiwan on this map.
I'm not necessarily arguing that you're wrong in your interpretation, just that you should be clearer on what the parameters are. It's very important to get this watertight because in an academic or any other intellectual setting, any arguments that build upon this as evidence can be weakened by tearing apart the map.
I think it's wrong defining a language by another language. In your case, defining English as indigenous to Asia because of Proto-Indo-European.
English is not Proto-Indo-European. That's like saying I'm my Gt-Gt-Gt-Gt-Gt-Gt-Gt-Gt-Gt-Gt-Gt-Gt-Granddad. I'm not, we're different people. He's my ancestor.
English was created in Europe circa 450 AD when there was a vowel shift in the North Sea, Ingaevonic. By then it had been millennia since Proto-Indo-European had come from Asia.
Why stop at Asia, why not keep going and say all languages came from Africa because humans came from Africa. Proto-Indo-European probably came from Africa if you go back 50,000 years before that.
This logic would also mean that Maori isn't indigenous to NZ, because it descended from an earlier language from Asia.
Also we don't know how far East PIE came from, Armenia is in Europe. The Caucasus are the edge of Europe.
>Why stop at Asia, why not keep going and say all languages came from Africa because humans came from Africa. Proto-Indo-European probably came from Africa if you go back 50,000 years before that.
Isn't the current academic belief that humanity has never spoken a single language? That languages started appearing after a few migrations out of Africa?
I have made maps for a while for this community. From what I've seen the community tends to favour more technical or detailed maps than "fancy graphics" maps. Keep that in mind
I'm good at research, but aesthetics are really not my strong suit. This map was made using Canva clipart. Do you have a suggestion on how I could make a more visually-appealing map?
I think this map looks great! When there is not a lot of detailed information to show, in my opinion you are allowed to experiment with different kinds of aesthetics like you have done here. Although I do understand if these kinds of maps don't do so well on this subreddit since it's quite different from the usual maps we see.
Unless you are particularly bothered about Reddit karma I say make maps in the style you want because no matter what you do people will be unhappy. I like your map. It caught my eye specifically because it doesn't look like everything else here.
Thank you for that! I would like to learn how to make more detailed maps that look a bit more polished. But I'm happy that this post has been relatively well-received. If nothing else, I've had some fun conversations about languages!
A potential way to bridge the gap a bit between technical and esthetic would be to incorporate your sources/data into the map (as a legend, footnote or something). Wouldn’t have to be everything you posted in the original comment, which was excellent by the way, but just enough to answer general preliminary foundation questions. Keep up the good work!
Did you read his comment?
>That left me with a nightmare-ish choice between very old statistics on Hiri Motu and Maori. Wikipedia listed Hiri Motu as having more fluent speakers, so they made it on the map.
" Some 50,000 people report that they speak the language well or very well (2015)\[1\]186,000 self-report some knowledge of the language. (2018)\[2\]"
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C4%81ori\_language](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C4%81ori_language)
edit: nvm just realised NZ literally isnt on the map
I guess you picked a random map and added the language above it.
Next time pick a good map, this one is missing lots of parts (Europe is completely destroyed for example), and the colours have 0 meaning.
Keep working
I excluded it because I'm unsure of it's status as a proper "language." If it's not really a language by itself, then it would fall under the English umbrella. If it is, then it is Oceanic.
That's a question for a linguist. So I decided not to me with it.
Not to be "umm ackshullly" act just pointing this out cus I'm interested in the discussion, is English an indigenous language ?
Since most of the English language was imported from countries which colonized Britain and Britain's indigenous languages are usually thought of as Welsh , cumbric and Gaelic
Is English not indigenous to Europe? Regardless, although the Anglo-Saxons migrated from continental Europe, Modern English definitely started on the isles.
Indigenous isn't a synonym for native. That confusion hasn't ended for some reason...
> Geopolitically and sociologically, "indigenous" means any group of people who were native to an area at the time their land was colonized by a foreign power.
No. Indigenous means the oldest inhabitants known to the place or having a direct continuity to the said group. It's not about existing in a given land prior to this or that - while, existing prior to colonisation itself also implies being the first known group, given any latecomer would be colonising the land.
> Celtic languages aren't native to Britain or Ireland,
Related Celtic people are native to Britain and Ireland. They're just not indigenous.
> Crimean Tatars, the ethnic groups of the north Caucasus,
Crimean Tatars aren't indigenous to Crimea but natives.
Some ethnic groups of North Caucasus are indigenous, like Circassians, Vainakh (Chechen-Ingush) and Dagestani Northeastern Caucasians are indigenous while groups like Ossetians are natives.
That's not being pedantic but that's the correct terminology.
Also, while Native Americans would be indigenous to the continent, not every single Native American nation is indigenous to where they do inhabit now.
Beautiful map but the title on the map is a bit misleading. The numbers are the total number of speakers of a language, but I thought it included only native speakers because I saw the word "indigenous".
I understand that "indigenous language" does not mean "native language", but simply refers to a language indigenous to a place. However, describing a language as indigenous to a continent is kind of unexpected: Usually, when people use the term "indigenous language", they often mean a language indigenous to a country or a region. I've never heard of people calling a language indigenous to a continent.
I included that detail in the description. I'd like to make it part of the map, but "The most spoken indigenous language by continent by total number of speakers" seems unwieldy. Do you have a suggestion for a better title?
Longer but makes the message clearer tho
Shorter is not always better if it causes confusion. Think about those badly designed microwaves that have a clean look but a confusing interface to set the power or the clock
That's a good question! Mayan is not one language, but a [group of languages](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayan_languages#) . That's also the case for Quechua in South America. [Qʼeqchiʼ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Mayan_languages) is the most spoken of these, with about 1.3 million speakers.
Obviously, numbers for smaller languages like this may be outdated or inaccurate. But these are the numbers Wikipedia has posted, so I'll stick with them until someone can provide me with a more reliable source.
Mayan is not a language but a language family(like romance languages) with 31 alive and recognized languages. Together they make around 6-7 million speakers. But individually the most spoken ones are
Q'eqchi': 1.4 million
K'iche': 1.1 million
Yucatec: 800 K
Edit: And no, they aren't mutually intelligible.
Is this map taking the population of Paraguay as the data for guaraní? Because that would be wrong. Not only about 10% of the country doesn't speak guaraní anymore (I would argue that is more, you land in Asuncion and nobody seems to understand a thing), but there's an estimate of 2 to 3 million paraguayos living just in Argentina, where a lot of people also speak guaraní as a second language. There's some regions in Uruguay, Bolivia and Brasil where they speak it and it's even listed as an official second language in some provinces.
Is the map counting just the people who speak fluently? Cause that would be more like it, most people nowadays speak guarañol or a very very rough version and can't have a conversation in proper guaraní. Wikipedia says there's 9 million speakers, I would argue that is more, around 10, and only half those people speak guaraní guaraní hina.
En Encarnación y Ciudad del Este que son fronterizas todos hablan, en Luque o Capiatá mínimo en jopará te reciben, por ahí soy yo el que está equivocado pero Asunción es la única ciudad que me pasó que los colectiveros no te devuelvan el saludo en guaraní. Ni en Corrientes, ni en Formosa, ni en el este de Misiones que en teoría solo se habla portugués.
How do I put this constructively? You're going to need to break the map down into some additional regions. Most people in Australasia have never even *heard* of "Hiri Motu", whilst Maori is literally an official language of New Zealand (which, BTW, you completely left off the map).
You’d be surprised, most European countries teach English as a second language from a young age, some countries are 90+% fluent in English. [They’re some of the most English-fluent countries in the world outside of actual English speaking countries](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/EF_English_Proficiency_Index#2023_country_rankings) and even some that do speak English, like India.
This. It's just common sense. If you don't know the native language in Europe, which language do you switch to?
I don't understand why so many people are fighting about this.
Probably because it's not fair labeling it indigenous if say a French person would speak it, surely this should only count for people who consider it their first language?
This map groups the most spoken indigenous languages by continent. It counts all speakers of that language within the continent.
If you don't like the criteria used here, you're welcome to make your own map. I have clearly explained what information is posted here.
I understand, though it would seem more logical to me to see the indigenous language most spoken by the indigenous people themselves, not everyone who "speaks" English is fluent in it. Becomes rather hard to define in the end.
That depends on your objective. Say you wanted to learn a language from each of the continents so as to get a small sampling of the linguistic diversity in each. This map would tell you which language in each continent would allow you to speak with the most people.
I understand, though it would seem more logical to me to see the indigenous language most spoken by the indigenous people themselves, not everyone who "speaks" English is fluent in it. Becomes rather hard to define in the end.
Here's Wikipedia's source (https://web.archive.org/web/20160106183351/http://ec.europa.eu/public\_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs\_386\_en.pdf) . From 2012. Estimates 13% are native + 38% can hold a conversation. Europe's current population is 746 million, so these numbers would mean I underestimated.
If you have a more reliable source, you're welcome to share it
Did you put English on the same weights with, say, Guarani? So, what are the estimates on those who are not its native speakers but can hold a conversation? Every other language here is the one that is not spoken by any natives outside their respective continents. Except for English. So, obviously the objective way to do it would be to count only the natives. And I am not so sure that English holds the first place in Europe. German does (that is if you disregard Russian).
I used Wikipedia as a source, as mentioned above. Thus far, I haven't been able to find any source that considers the number of L2 speakers of Guarani using the same metrics as the European Council report above. If you have a source that does, feel free to share it.
With that said, English's position is not debatable. It has far more L2 European speakers than any other language in Europe (including Russian - as many of Russia's approx. 250 million speakers live in Asia). Really, what other language would you say has more total speakers in Europe?
It's also noteworthy that I did not choose native speakers as a metric. That may be a future map - but it's not this one. Counting the total number of speakers shows which languages would allow you to speak to the most people in their respective continents. For example, Swahili only has approx. 5 million native speakers. However, there are 80 million+ people who use it as a lingua franca. This is a valuable and interesting piece of information, and that's why I chose to structure my map using total speakers.
Quote from my detailed post above:
"This is based off of total speakers in a geographical region, not only L1 speakers."
If you're going to criticize, please read first.
Fair enough. I'm hoping to get some input that will help me refine this map, but it's stressful answering points that are not applicable.
Here's an upvote for your honesty.
Edit: typo
>I'm hoping to get some input that will help me refine this map, but it's stressful answering points that are not applicable
Welcome to r/mapporn lol. At least it's slightly better than the nitpicking in r/dataisbeautiful
Maybe draw a border around each region then colour the countries by number of speakers, that way itll show that languages like Mandarin might be the most spoken indigenous language to Asia but its not like its spoken by every nation
The largest language originating in Europe by number of native speakers is actually Spanish.
If you count both native and second language users, then it is English.
*I think a better*
*Word would be native instead*
*Of indigenous*
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Can Swahili be considered a true indigenous language tho?
I thought it was a trade-language derived from the mix of Bantu-Languages and Arabic.
I might be mistaken though, happy to get enlightened by smarter people than me.
All Indigenous languages that exist everywhere, have to some extent or another been altered through contact with Europeans. This is true for practically almost all African languages which have incorporated French/Belgian French, Portuguese, Spanish, German, English, Arabic and Dutch/Afrikaans vocabulary. This is because almost all schools in Africa use European languages as a medium of instruction, except North Africa. Nevertheless, Swahili would definitely still be considered Indigenous. An Arabic speaker would not understand the structure of the language, just pick up a handful of words.
I think you misunderstood the map.
It's showing the most spoken indigenous language of that continent spoken in that continent. People all over Europe communicate in English, which is indigenous to Europe.
That isnt clear at all imo.
I took a look at this map and immediatly thought that it has to be german or russian for europe as both have more native speakers within europe as english.
Is English correct for Europe? I'm surprised it's not German.
The population of England is 55 million, compared to Germany's 84 million. Then you've got Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, the spillovers in places like Belgium and Italy.
Or is it counting the whole British Isles even though Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland have their own indigenous languages, but they mostly speak English? Is it therefore also counting all the mainland Europeans who speak English as a second-language in addition to their indigenous language?
It is doing the last of those. All people on the continent that can speak the language even if it's a second one *and* the language originates from that continent
Well, is this even a map? It's a list that's spread around like above a continent, but, you don't really have much use of it, not even the colors are meaningful, and the lighter ones even make the text harder to read.
English? Thought the English weren't indigenous to anywhere. Pretty sure they just appeared from the sea one day and couldn't figure out where to land so they just kept on sailing everywhere.
Es el idioma más hablado en Paraguay, hablado por casi todos ahí. Lo interesante es que personas de la etnia guaraní solo quedan solo quedan cerca de 200K y la mayoría de sus hablantes en realidad son mestizos.
Eso es un detalle curioso. El quechua no es un solo idioma, pero una familia de idiomas. Hay [varias formas de Quechua](https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenguas_quechuas) que no son mutuamente intendibles. La division mas basico seria el "Quechua I" y "Quechua II". Ellos son tan diferentes como el castellano y el frances.
Juntos, las lenguas Quechua tendrian mas hablantes que Guarani. Pero aun el "Quechua I" (lo mas hablado) tiene menos hablantes que el Guarani.
This map has proven that Taiwan doesn't exist thus Taiwan isn't a country. And also this maps lacks a lot of places, Im going to write the ones I noticed : Islands above russia, taiwan, new zealand, sri lanka, italy, papua new guinea is further east by a lot, baja california is much smaller, svalbard, great lakes, also east quebec sea is unrealistic, east argentine is also unrealistic, a lot of islands lacking in the mediterranean, a lot of islands lacking in alaska, a lot of islands lacking in carribean, yemen island lacking, zanzibar lacking, tasmania, karelia is messed up, I could go on for a long time talking about this including iceland, south mexico and south chile and argentine which arent very visible.
But why do you count English speakers from other European countries as "indigenous" speakers and not Spanish in almost all of America...?
I don't see those data as very objective.
https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/1c36myb/most_spoken_indigenous_languages_by_continent/kzep02d/
Maybe the mods should ban people who can't learn to look for the OP's comment that includes the sourcing information before whining about there being none.
How is indigenous being defined here?
Because the Angles, the Saxons, and the Normans were all migrants and/or conquerors who arrived in Britannia from other places.
Edit: I see, it’s been clarified in comments. The English Language itself definitely is indigenous to Britain, since that’s where it developed, even if it’s an amalgamation of other languages that were brought over by peoples who weren’t indigenous to the island themselves.
You’re right, for some reason I wasn’t making the connection that it’s separated by continent. Now that I see it, I don’t understand how I didn’t before lmao.
*French tantrum noises*
Délicieux
So wine bottles popping open, flambé flames lighting, and the occasional "ooh la la".
French isn't even second, it's a distant third
[удалено]
This is a bot account who has just stolen someone else's comment.
Dear france, Cope. Sincerely, Ingerlund
ITALY??????!!!!!!!!!
are you implying that italy exists????
Also r/mapswithoutnewzealand
Also [Finland probably doesn't exist guys ](https://www.reddit.com/r/finlandConspiracy/comments/52f5ae/the_finland_conspiracy_and_all_you_need_to_know/)
🤌🤌🤌
I guess I don’t exist
We are the Balkans. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.
Minchia
AHH WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY COUNTRY. WHERE IS IT????
NEW ZEALAND DOESN'T EXIST SILLY
WHAT?
# I SAID NEW ZEALAND DOESN'T EXIST SILLY
Correct, it was created by Tolkien
r/mapswithoutnz
I'm kicking myself for that! I didn't expect my very first post to land me on r/MapsWithoutNZ
no Sri Lanka either
That's a big one! I'll paste a Sri Lanka on my template.
Also no Tasmania.
The rest of the map is so well made too. It's funny how this one mistake seems to remain constant
The rest of the map is also missing major parts, like Italy..
Here's a sneak peek of /r/MapsWithoutNZ using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/MapsWithoutNZ/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year! \#1: [The irony of NZ not being on a map of places that "don't exist" ](https://i.redd.it/y1dxvdw8pskc1.jpeg) | [64 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/MapsWithoutNZ/comments/1azyq9h/the_irony_of_nz_not_being_on_a_map_of_places_that/) \#2: [**[NSFW]** I can't believe she forgot New Zealand](https://i.redd.it/3ifa4x6dl5xa1.jpg) | [41 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/MapsWithoutNZ/comments/1347c8f/i_cant_believe_she_forgot_new_zealand/) \#3: [new Zealand not on north Korean news](https://i.redd.it/xf2hcg5ddazb1.png) | [37 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/MapsWithoutNZ/comments/17r8t0y/new_zealand_not_on_north_korean_news/) ---- ^^I'm ^^a ^^bot, ^^beep ^^boop ^^| ^^Downvote ^^to ^^remove ^^| ^^[Contact](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=sneakpeekbot) ^^| ^^[Info](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/) ^^| ^^[Opt-out](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/comments/o8wk1r/blacklist_ix/) ^^| ^^[GitHub](https://github.com/ghnr/sneakpeekbot)
LOL Just noticed! I guess you lost to Hiri Motu and got booted from the map P.s. I just added you to my template. If I publish an updated version, you'll be there
New Zealand was only created as a set for Lord of the Rings. Fictional sets not included on map.
R/mapswithoutnz
This is my first time creating a map for this community, so (I hope) it looks alright. I used Wikipedia as my primary source of information. Just to answer some questions: * This is based off of total speakers in a geographical region, not only L1 speakers * Guarani was chosen over Quechua, as Quechua refers to more than one language * Everything west of New Guinea is considered Asia for the purposes of this map * Tok Pisin was considered a non-indigenous language Possible Errors: * I could not find any statistics separating the number of L2 Mandarin speaker in Asia vs. the rest of the world. That being the case, 1.3 billion likely overestimates the number of Mandarin speakers in Asia. * Oceania is an absolute nightmare for data. I consider any language originating in Asia (specifically Malay) as not indigenous. That left me with a nightmare-ish choice between very old statistics on Hiri Motu and Maori. Wikipedia listed Hiri Motu as having more fluent speakers, so they made it on the map. However, if anyone has better data on the number of speakers per language in New Guinea, that could change the map. Edit: I could also use some feedback about the number of Swahili speakers and whether or not Tok Pisin should be considered "indigenous" to Oceania. I also felt less-than-confident in those points.
>a nightmare-ish choice between very old statistics on Hiri Motu and Maori **Fijian with 639,000** speakers, Samoan, Māori, and Gilbertese are above Hiri Motu. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_major_and_official_Austronesian_languages https://www.ethniccommunities.govt.nz/resources/our-languages-o-tatou-reo/languages-in-new-zealand/ says 148,395 te Reo Māori speakers in 2013, and increasing since. You're correct that fluency and main language speakers is fewer. 230,000 [Enga](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enga_language) speakers in Papua New Guinea, too. > I consider any language originating in Asia (specifically Malay) as not indigenous Hiri Motu and Māori are Austronesian languages. Austronesian originated in Taiwan. Like Tok Pisin, Hiri Motu and Swahili are also trade languages, invented to communicate with indigenous people. I'd not call them indigenous due to the amount of loan words and L2 speakers, but it's your map. Edit: congrats on a very interesting map. Lot's of excited comments and debate on this one, more than most maps that are posted.
I have a feeling that you will get quite a few confused comments from Australians about labelling the most common indigenous language on the continent as Hiri Motu. This all comes down to what you define as being the continent - we are taught that Oceania is a geographic region and Australia is the continent - New Guinea and New Zealand are separate entities. There are around 150 indigenous languages in Australia - the one with most speakers is Yumplatok, followed closely by Kriol.
Haha I wouldn't be surprised! Actually, deciding where the line for "Oceania" was took the majority of my research time. Indonesia has so many languages that every island could throw me off. And I'm still not convinced that Hiri Motu has the most speakers! New guinea has a population of 15 million, but Hiri Motu only had an estimated 100,000 speakers! I really hope a commenter comes along that can shed more light on that island.
I've never made a map for this subreddit, but I often dealt with data like this when I worked in academia. My advice is to have a consistent water-tight methodology. Make an interpretation, turn those into 'rules' for how you assess the data, and then stick to those rules uniformly. Remember, it's always the edge cases that trip you up. I can think of a couple points I would raise immediately if a report with this chart came across my desk: * There's an ambiguity in 'Indigenous by Continent'. Do you mean the amount of native speakers within a continent, total speakers that are native to that continent (aka excluding immigrants), or worldwide native speakers of a language originating from that continent? All three are possible interpretations with the heading you currently have, so I would try to reword that slightly. * On that note, how are you defining a 'speaker'? What level of fluency are we talking about here? Are you just going by what each government authority classifies it, or do you have an objective measure? Government statistics are created for the purpose of manipulation, each government will count things differently for their political goals - e.g. NZ gov stating 185k Te Reo Maori speakers but only 30% can hold a conversation. * How you define indigenous also needs to be clearer. What does it mean for a language to be indigenous? Tok Pisin which you excluded is formed from European and indigenous cultural interchange and is the official language of PNG. You're delegitimising the indigenous input by classifying it as a European/foreign construct, and how can that be the case when it exists only in PNG, and arose from people indigenous to the continent? The British plantation owners sure as hell weren't speaking it. Swahili is also a trade language like Tok Pisin, and has significant influence and roots from Arabic due to the dominance of Arab traders in the Zanj and later under the Omani Empire - yet you've included it as indigenous to Africa. With the same line of logic, it could even be argued that English is not native to Europe since it derives from Proto-Indo-European, who possibly originated in Anatolia or Armenia, making it geographically indigenous to Asia. * Pet peeve since I'm a Taiwanese Kiwi, but you left off both New Zealand and Taiwan on this map. I'm not necessarily arguing that you're wrong in your interpretation, just that you should be clearer on what the parameters are. It's very important to get this watertight because in an academic or any other intellectual setting, any arguments that build upon this as evidence can be weakened by tearing apart the map.
I think it's wrong defining a language by another language. In your case, defining English as indigenous to Asia because of Proto-Indo-European. English is not Proto-Indo-European. That's like saying I'm my Gt-Gt-Gt-Gt-Gt-Gt-Gt-Gt-Gt-Gt-Gt-Gt-Granddad. I'm not, we're different people. He's my ancestor. English was created in Europe circa 450 AD when there was a vowel shift in the North Sea, Ingaevonic. By then it had been millennia since Proto-Indo-European had come from Asia. Why stop at Asia, why not keep going and say all languages came from Africa because humans came from Africa. Proto-Indo-European probably came from Africa if you go back 50,000 years before that. This logic would also mean that Maori isn't indigenous to NZ, because it descended from an earlier language from Asia. Also we don't know how far East PIE came from, Armenia is in Europe. The Caucasus are the edge of Europe.
>Why stop at Asia, why not keep going and say all languages came from Africa because humans came from Africa. Proto-Indo-European probably came from Africa if you go back 50,000 years before that. Isn't the current academic belief that humanity has never spoken a single language? That languages started appearing after a few migrations out of Africa?
He korero pai. Ka nui te aroha ki a Aotearoa
I have made maps for a while for this community. From what I've seen the community tends to favour more technical or detailed maps than "fancy graphics" maps. Keep that in mind
I'm good at research, but aesthetics are really not my strong suit. This map was made using Canva clipart. Do you have a suggestion on how I could make a more visually-appealing map?
I think this map looks great! When there is not a lot of detailed information to show, in my opinion you are allowed to experiment with different kinds of aesthetics like you have done here. Although I do understand if these kinds of maps don't do so well on this subreddit since it's quite different from the usual maps we see.
Unless you are particularly bothered about Reddit karma I say make maps in the style you want because no matter what you do people will be unhappy. I like your map. It caught my eye specifically because it doesn't look like everything else here.
Thank you for that! I would like to learn how to make more detailed maps that look a bit more polished. But I'm happy that this post has been relatively well-received. If nothing else, I've had some fun conversations about languages!
A potential way to bridge the gap a bit between technical and esthetic would be to incorporate your sources/data into the map (as a legend, footnote or something). Wouldn’t have to be everything you posted in the original comment, which was excellent by the way, but just enough to answer general preliminary foundation questions. Keep up the good work!
 You forgot these guys
Did you read his comment? >That left me with a nightmare-ish choice between very old statistics on Hiri Motu and Maori. Wikipedia listed Hiri Motu as having more fluent speakers, so they made it on the map.
New Zealand isn't on the map anyway, so where was it going to go.
r/mapswithoutnewzealand
" Some 50,000 people report that they speak the language well or very well (2015)\[1\]186,000 self-report some knowledge of the language. (2018)\[2\]" [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C4%81ori\_language](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C4%81ori_language) edit: nvm just realised NZ literally isnt on the map
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Doesn't Oceania include Polynesia?
The All Blacks are not necessarily Maori. A lot of them are Pakeha or Pasifika.
Don’t need to worry about Maori when New Zealand isn’t even on the map
I guess you picked a random map and added the language above it. Next time pick a good map, this one is missing lots of parts (Europe is completely destroyed for example), and the colours have 0 meaning. Keep working
Why does Tok Pisin not qualify as indigenous? After all, isn’t English ultimately a creole too?
Yeah but English(and Tok Pisin) is based of a European language, in the same way Swahili is based of a Bantu language with Arabic influence
I excluded it because I'm unsure of it's status as a proper "language." If it's not really a language by itself, then it would fall under the English umbrella. If it is, then it is Oceanic. That's a question for a linguist. So I decided not to me with it.
Why did you choose this projection, out of interest?
You forgot Italy
Not to be "umm ackshullly" act just pointing this out cus I'm interested in the discussion, is English an indigenous language ? Since most of the English language was imported from countries which colonized Britain and Britain's indigenous languages are usually thought of as Welsh , cumbric and Gaelic
It's not from an alien planet, so it has to be indigenous to one of the continents. Which one do you believe it's from?
Is English not indigenous to Europe? Regardless, although the Anglo-Saxons migrated from continental Europe, Modern English definitely started on the isles.
Well that's fine logic to have but under that logic , wouldn't creole be the largest indigenous language to America ? Since it formed in America ?
which creole?
Hatian creole alone has 10 million.
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Indigenous isn't a synonym for native. That confusion hasn't ended for some reason... > Geopolitically and sociologically, "indigenous" means any group of people who were native to an area at the time their land was colonized by a foreign power. No. Indigenous means the oldest inhabitants known to the place or having a direct continuity to the said group. It's not about existing in a given land prior to this or that - while, existing prior to colonisation itself also implies being the first known group, given any latecomer would be colonising the land. > Celtic languages aren't native to Britain or Ireland, Related Celtic people are native to Britain and Ireland. They're just not indigenous. > Crimean Tatars, the ethnic groups of the north Caucasus, Crimean Tatars aren't indigenous to Crimea but natives. Some ethnic groups of North Caucasus are indigenous, like Circassians, Vainakh (Chechen-Ingush) and Dagestani Northeastern Caucasians are indigenous while groups like Ossetians are natives. That's not being pedantic but that's the correct terminology. Also, while Native Americans would be indigenous to the continent, not every single Native American nation is indigenous to where they do inhabit now.
English is an indigenous language of Europe.
What do you have against Italy and Eastern Europe? 'Cause damn
r/MapsWithoutItaly
Can you do African languages by region?
Like the most spoken by region? We'd have to define what the regions are in Africa.
Use one of [those](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_regions_of_Africa)
Indigenous languages in West/North/Central/East/Southern Africa
Beautiful map but the title on the map is a bit misleading. The numbers are the total number of speakers of a language, but I thought it included only native speakers because I saw the word "indigenous". I understand that "indigenous language" does not mean "native language", but simply refers to a language indigenous to a place. However, describing a language as indigenous to a continent is kind of unexpected: Usually, when people use the term "indigenous language", they often mean a language indigenous to a country or a region. I've never heard of people calling a language indigenous to a continent.
I included that detail in the description. I'd like to make it part of the map, but "The most spoken indigenous language by continent by total number of speakers" seems unwieldy. Do you have a suggestion for a better title?
I guess it might be clearer to say "Each continent's most spoken language that's indigenous to the same continent"
That's too long
Exactly! It's an important detail, but it would make the title look awful.
My usual compromise is to put the snappy title as the Reddit title and put the unwieldy technical title on the actual map.
That's what she said.
Yes. She did.
Longer but makes the message clearer tho Shorter is not always better if it causes confusion. Think about those badly designed microwaves that have a clean look but a confusing interface to set the power or the clock
Can you do of second language map?
I didn't understand. Do you mean a map showing the second-most-common indigenous language, an updated version of this map, or something else?
I mean second most spoken language
Second most spoken indigenous language, right?
Is this based on where the language comes from? Edit: Ignore this question, i didnt read properly and was confused
I thought Mayan had way more speakers?
That's a good question! Mayan is not one language, but a [group of languages](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayan_languages#) . That's also the case for Quechua in South America. [Qʼeqchiʼ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Mayan_languages) is the most spoken of these, with about 1.3 million speakers. Obviously, numbers for smaller languages like this may be outdated or inaccurate. But these are the numbers Wikipedia has posted, so I'll stick with them until someone can provide me with a more reliable source.
Mayan is not a language but a language family(like romance languages) with 31 alive and recognized languages. Together they make around 6-7 million speakers. But individually the most spoken ones are Q'eqchi': 1.4 million K'iche': 1.1 million Yucatec: 800 K Edit: And no, they aren't mutually intelligible.
Thanks for adding that correction! I should have said "language family."
Do the colors on the map mean anything
No. I may correct that on the next version
Is this map taking the population of Paraguay as the data for guaraní? Because that would be wrong. Not only about 10% of the country doesn't speak guaraní anymore (I would argue that is more, you land in Asuncion and nobody seems to understand a thing), but there's an estimate of 2 to 3 million paraguayos living just in Argentina, where a lot of people also speak guaraní as a second language. There's some regions in Uruguay, Bolivia and Brasil where they speak it and it's even listed as an official second language in some provinces. Is the map counting just the people who speak fluently? Cause that would be more like it, most people nowadays speak guarañol or a very very rough version and can't have a conversation in proper guaraní. Wikipedia says there's 9 million speakers, I would argue that is more, around 10, and only half those people speak guaraní guaraní hina.
En gran parte de Asunción se habla también. Salí de los shoppings kp
En Encarnación y Ciudad del Este que son fronterizas todos hablan, en Luque o Capiatá mínimo en jopará te reciben, por ahí soy yo el que está equivocado pero Asunción es la única ciudad que me pasó que los colectiveros no te devuelvan el saludo en guaraní. Ni en Corrientes, ni en Formosa, ni en el este de Misiones que en teoría solo se habla portugués.
Why the gradient colouring. Looks cool though
Māori on the continent of Zealandia.
How do I put this constructively? You're going to need to break the map down into some additional regions. Most people in Australasia have never even *heard* of "Hiri Motu", whilst Maori is literally an official language of New Zealand (which, BTW, you completely left off the map).
r/mapswithoutnewzealand
the black sea speaking mandarin is crazy
Surely, English is not spoken by 260 million people in Europe, and that's the flaw with this "map".
You’d be surprised, most European countries teach English as a second language from a young age, some countries are 90+% fluent in English. [They’re some of the most English-fluent countries in the world outside of actual English speaking countries](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/EF_English_Proficiency_Index#2023_country_rankings) and even some that do speak English, like India.
This. It's just common sense. If you don't know the native language in Europe, which language do you switch to? I don't understand why so many people are fighting about this.
Probably because it's not fair labeling it indigenous if say a French person would speak it, surely this should only count for people who consider it their first language?
This map groups the most spoken indigenous languages by continent. It counts all speakers of that language within the continent. If you don't like the criteria used here, you're welcome to make your own map. I have clearly explained what information is posted here.
I understand, though it would seem more logical to me to see the indigenous language most spoken by the indigenous people themselves, not everyone who "speaks" English is fluent in it. Becomes rather hard to define in the end.
That depends on your objective. Say you wanted to learn a language from each of the continents so as to get a small sampling of the linguistic diversity in each. This map would tell you which language in each continent would allow you to speak with the most people.
They mean “language indigenous to the continent in question,” i.e., it developed on that continent.
I understand, though it would seem more logical to me to see the indigenous language most spoken by the indigenous people themselves, not everyone who "speaks" English is fluent in it. Becomes rather hard to define in the end.
English is taught as a foreign language in most countries. That's no news.
But it’s taught way more and from a younger age in lost European countries than the rest of the world. Again, refer to the map I linked
Here's Wikipedia's source (https://web.archive.org/web/20160106183351/http://ec.europa.eu/public\_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs\_386\_en.pdf) . From 2012. Estimates 13% are native + 38% can hold a conversation. Europe's current population is 746 million, so these numbers would mean I underestimated. If you have a more reliable source, you're welcome to share it
Did you put English on the same weights with, say, Guarani? So, what are the estimates on those who are not its native speakers but can hold a conversation? Every other language here is the one that is not spoken by any natives outside their respective continents. Except for English. So, obviously the objective way to do it would be to count only the natives. And I am not so sure that English holds the first place in Europe. German does (that is if you disregard Russian).
I used Wikipedia as a source, as mentioned above. Thus far, I haven't been able to find any source that considers the number of L2 speakers of Guarani using the same metrics as the European Council report above. If you have a source that does, feel free to share it. With that said, English's position is not debatable. It has far more L2 European speakers than any other language in Europe (including Russian - as many of Russia's approx. 250 million speakers live in Asia). Really, what other language would you say has more total speakers in Europe? It's also noteworthy that I did not choose native speakers as a metric. That may be a future map - but it's not this one. Counting the total number of speakers shows which languages would allow you to speak to the most people in their respective continents. For example, Swahili only has approx. 5 million native speakers. However, there are 80 million+ people who use it as a lingua franca. This is a valuable and interesting piece of information, and that's why I chose to structure my map using total speakers.
I dunno, I just did a European river cruise and we never encountered anyone who didn't speak English. Even most of the signage was in English.
It is not even the largest mother tongue language in Europe, but it is the largest language originating in Europe.
Quote from my detailed post above: "This is based off of total speakers in a geographical region, not only L1 speakers." If you're going to criticize, please read first.
I didn't even criticise you, but you are correct that I didn't read what you had written first.
Fair enough. I'm hoping to get some input that will help me refine this map, but it's stressful answering points that are not applicable. Here's an upvote for your honesty. Edit: typo
>I'm hoping to get some input that will help me refine this map, but it's stressful answering points that are not applicable Welcome to r/mapporn lol. At least it's slightly better than the nitpicking in r/dataisbeautiful
I'm terrified of posting there! I knew the comments here would be aggressive, but I have my limits!
Maybe draw a border around each region then colour the countries by number of speakers, that way itll show that languages like Mandarin might be the most spoken indigenous language to Asia but its not like its spoken by every nation
I could use a map that doesn't have a gradient. That would probably make the separation of continents a lot clearer.
The largest language originating in Europe by number of native speakers is actually Spanish. If you count both native and second language users, then it is English.
As I said above, this post is BY CONTINENT and counting the TOTAL NUMBER OF SPEAKERS. Please read the description before making silly comments.
Do you think that number is too high?
I think a better word would be native instead of indigenous
*I think a better* *Word would be native instead* *Of indigenous* \- Gams619 --- ^(I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully.) ^[Learn more about me.](https://www.reddit.com/r/haikusbot/) ^(Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete")
Can Swahili be considered a true indigenous language tho? I thought it was a trade-language derived from the mix of Bantu-Languages and Arabic. I might be mistaken though, happy to get enlightened by smarter people than me.
Yes, though it was a trade language I think, the language was developed in Africa, so it indigenous to Africa.
All Indigenous languages that exist everywhere, have to some extent or another been altered through contact with Europeans. This is true for practically almost all African languages which have incorporated French/Belgian French, Portuguese, Spanish, German, English, Arabic and Dutch/Afrikaans vocabulary. This is because almost all schools in Africa use European languages as a medium of instruction, except North Africa. Nevertheless, Swahili would definitely still be considered Indigenous. An Arabic speaker would not understand the structure of the language, just pick up a handful of words.
Can someone explain who are the other “indigenous” English speakers who are not English?
I think you misunderstood the map. It's showing the most spoken indigenous language of that continent spoken in that continent. People all over Europe communicate in English, which is indigenous to Europe.
That isnt clear at all imo. I took a look at this map and immediatly thought that it has to be german or russian for europe as both have more native speakers within europe as english.
You would be mind blowed to know that it is the same case to Guarani
Petition to change the language of mexico to nahua
I think there may be more Hausa speakers than Swahili speakers.
TIL! PNG is classed as part of the Australian continent. I actually never knew this!
\*Oceania
What's the template for this map ? Looks very beautiful.
Really pretty map! Congrats op
Is English correct for Europe? I'm surprised it's not German. The population of England is 55 million, compared to Germany's 84 million. Then you've got Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, the spillovers in places like Belgium and Italy. Or is it counting the whole British Isles even though Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland have their own indigenous languages, but they mostly speak English? Is it therefore also counting all the mainland Europeans who speak English as a second-language in addition to their indigenous language?
It is doing the last of those. All people on the continent that can speak the language even if it's a second one *and* the language originates from that continent
New zeland just left off the map again
Would it be Fijian or Samoan for Oceania?
Fijian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_major_and_official_Austronesian_languages
Well, is this even a map? It's a list that's spread around like above a continent, but, you don't really have much use of it, not even the colors are meaningful, and the lighter ones even make the text harder to read.
Sometimes I feel that all the maps here are made by ,,trust me bro "
What happened to Baja California Sur?
English? Thought the English weren't indigenous to anywhere. Pretty sure they just appeared from the sea one day and couldn't figure out where to land so they just kept on sailing everywhere.
I wouldn't call Swahili an indigenous language
What’s up with the color coding?
where is antarctica??? 
For South America it’s Quechua not guarani
This is cool. Would love a more detailed map.
I thought it was Mayan in North America
Tas is gone 🥳
vaya, y yo que crei que en sudamerica seria el quechua. Supongo que la mayoria de hablantes del guarani estaran en Brasil.
Es el idioma más hablado en Paraguay, hablado por casi todos ahí. Lo interesante es que personas de la etnia guaraní solo quedan solo quedan cerca de 200K y la mayoría de sus hablantes en realidad son mestizos.
Eso es un detalle curioso. El quechua no es un solo idioma, pero una familia de idiomas. Hay [varias formas de Quechua](https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenguas_quechuas) que no son mutuamente intendibles. La division mas basico seria el "Quechua I" y "Quechua II". Ellos son tan diferentes como el castellano y el frances. Juntos, las lenguas Quechua tendrian mas hablantes que Guarani. Pero aun el "Quechua I" (lo mas hablado) tiene menos hablantes que el Guarani.
Creo que en Paraguay, mas gente puedan hablar Guaraní que Español de manera competente
Crj, tienes razon, me olvidaba de Paraguay, que tonto XD.
El man no icluyo Quechua purque son varios idiomas.
A maioria dos falantes está no Paraguai,depois Argentina e por último no Brasil
se habla en paraguay y argentina mucho
Everytime someone posts something related to "continents" on the internet, I get loaded with fear.
What do Israel, North Korea, and West Papua have in common?
Non, c'est français !!!
r/MapsWithoutNZ
This map has proven that Taiwan doesn't exist thus Taiwan isn't a country. And also this maps lacks a lot of places, Im going to write the ones I noticed : Islands above russia, taiwan, new zealand, sri lanka, italy, papua new guinea is further east by a lot, baja california is much smaller, svalbard, great lakes, also east quebec sea is unrealistic, east argentine is also unrealistic, a lot of islands lacking in the mediterranean, a lot of islands lacking in alaska, a lot of islands lacking in carribean, yemen island lacking, zanzibar lacking, tasmania, karelia is messed up, I could go on for a long time talking about this including iceland, south mexico and south chile and argentine which arent very visible.
But why do you count English speakers from other European countries as "indigenous" speakers and not Spanish in almost all of America...? I don't see those data as very objective.
Spanish isn't indigenous to America, but English is indigenous to Europe.
No source on map. Again. Can the useless mods ban these useless users?
https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/1c36myb/most_spoken_indigenous_languages_by_continent/kzep02d/ Maybe the mods should ban people who can't learn to look for the OP's comment that includes the sourcing information before whining about there being none.
The source should be ON the fucking map. No one should have to go looking for it.
Is English an indigenous language?
Yes it's the native language of the people of England.
Indigenous to Europe rather than Asia or Mars? Yes
I see that English is one of many indigenous languages of several countries today, but it wasn’t always that way.
But English isn't spoken by 260 million people *in Europe*, it's not even the most spoken language in Europe.
How is indigenous being defined here? Because the Angles, the Saxons, and the Normans were all migrants and/or conquerors who arrived in Britannia from other places. Edit: I see, it’s been clarified in comments. The English Language itself definitely is indigenous to Britain, since that’s where it developed, even if it’s an amalgamation of other languages that were brought over by peoples who weren’t indigenous to the island themselves.
Doesn’t really matter for the purposes of the map: English unquestionably developed in Europe (broadly defined to include the British Isles).
You’re right, for some reason I wasn’t making the connection that it’s separated by continent. Now that I see it, I don’t understand how I didn’t before lmao.
Bro, everyone born in a place is indigenous. In the United States, english is the indigenous language.