got geoint?

A couple of weeks ago, we ran a post about a Canadian anthropologist who created stunning maps that showcased how human beings have essentially taken over the planet. Along these same lines, we came across a story of self-described “map geek” who mapped the world’s languages on Twitter — the maps are equally as majestic by the way. As Twitter compiles millions of messages in hundreds of different languages daily, it is a virtual mine field for any linguistic professor who wants to get a sense of what languages are spoken and where.

Thanks to Eric Fischer, a mapping advocate, we now have a window into the world’s languages. Rather than developing an exhaustive and time-intensive academic study, Fischer was able to easily map out the world’s languages via Twitter and here are some of the findings.

North America
While not a huge surprise here, the majority of Americans speaks English (highlighted in grey) while there is a sprinkling of Spanish being spoken in Texas and Arizona. The Caribbean islands are a different story, with a smattering of English and French.

Europe
As expected, Western Europe is the most diverse area when it comes to language. There is a mixture of blue (Italian), red (German) and purple (French) throughout the continent. You can also see where Catalan is spoken in the Catalan region of Spain.

Be sure to check out this Big Think post that dives into these findings much more. In addition, you can glean some very interesting insights from the comments section as well.

Tags: Eric Fischer and mapping, Eric Fischer and Twitter, GEOINT, geospatial intelligence, got geoint?, Mapping Languages on Twitter, Mapping Twitter, Maps, Twitter maps