Wikipedia:Graphics Lab/Map workshop/Archive/Apr 2018

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Indo-European languages

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  Present-day native distribution of Indo-European languages, within their homeland of Eurasia.

Article(s)

Indo-European languages (and numerous others)

Request

The map contains a pretty major flaw. The Balto-Slavic family is shown with different colors, as the Baltic and Slavic languages are not "one" language today. The Indo-Iranian branch, which, similar to the Balto-Slavic family, also contains several independent branches (i.e. three), is wrongly represented on the map as if it was "one" language. I'm therefore looking for someone who could split the dark blue "area" into an Iranian, Indo-Aryan and Nuristani area.

Perhaps light blue, dark blue, and another blue-mix colour could do the trick. For comparison; the Baltic languages are shown in light green, whereas the Slavic langauges are shown in dark green. -- LouisAragon (talk) 18:34, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

@Maproom: Thanks for raising that up. Yes, it seems that the same thing is going on for the Romance languages. I agree that the map doesn't make the specific "claim", but often, things aren't needed to be explained "explicitly" for people to erroneously assume things. To the common user, who just often look at colours/patterns, I believe it may definitely appear as such. I think splitting all branches up would definitely raise the overal EV of the map. - LouisAragon (talk) 19:18, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

@Auguel: Exactly. I'd say go ahead, Maproom - LouisAragon (talk) 01:18, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Graphist opinion(s)

The map does not claim that each colour contains only one language. Spanish, French, Romanian and other languages are all shown in the same colour. Maproom (talk) 19:00, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

Indo-European family tree in order of first attestation

It seems the problem is the inconsistency. Every other group corresponds only to a level 1 division of the Indo-European language tree, whereas Balto-Slavic is further divided into level 2 divisions. At least according to the article (see tree to the right). The solution is either to subdivide all the other groups to level 2, or combine the Balto-Slavic groups into one. Auguel (talk) 23:20, 10 March 2018 (UTC)