Linguistic Diversity in Northern California

May 29, 2014 by

Linguistic Diversity in Northern California

In 1929, anthropologist and linguist Edward Sapir wrote: “Few people realize that within the confines of the United States there is spoken today a far greater variety of languages … than in the whole of Europe. We may go...

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Mapping Heritage Languages

May 15, 2014 by

Mapping Heritage Languages

As geographers know, major patterns on a map often conceal more subtle – and often more interesting – configurations. This is often the case with language maps: mapping a majority language often masks the extent of various minority...

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Language Referendum in Latvia

Feb 20, 2012 by

On February 18, 2012 Latvia held a referendum on the issue of Russian as a second official language. A turnout of more than 70 percent underscored the extent that this issue has stirred the public, and the results were overwhelmingly...

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Linguistic diversity in Africa and Europe

Jun 16, 2011 by

As can be seen from the map below, Sub-Saharan Africa is one of the world’s hotbeds of linguistic diversity. Indeed, the Niger-Congo language family, spoken in the largest part of Sub-Saharan Africa, is the largest language...

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Does bilingualism make you smarter?

Aug 23, 2010 by

In the last posting I mentioned that many of today’s parents believe that growing up with a second language makes children smarter. Does it? It depends on your definition of “smarter”. In recent years, there has...

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The languages of Malta

Mar 24, 2010 by

Malta, a small island 93 km south of Sicily, is a fascinating place from a linguistic point of view. It is the only country in Europe where a Semitic language is spoken and it also boasts one of the highest levels of multilingualism...

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