{"id":36561,"date":"2023-04-10T23:04:51","date_gmt":"2023-04-11T03:04:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/infovis\/?p=36561"},"modified":"2023-04-10T23:04:54","modified_gmt":"2023-04-11T03:04:54","slug":"endangered-languages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/infovis\/visualization\/endangered-languages\/","title":{"rendered":"Endangered Languages"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Introduction<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am exploring, and visualizing, critically endangered languages with around 0-50 speakers  around the world. I am contrasting these data points with the first official language of each country. I am then forming conclusions and making generalizations based on the data. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Explanation, Inspiration<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was inspired by duolingo; I had been heavily anticipating duolingo\u2019s launch of Yiddish and was mildly disappointed when it was released. I was reading the discussion forums regarding its launch and who would contribute and there was some discussion of how it\u2019s hard to get exact spelling or an agreed upon definition because most of the people contributing had only had some of the language passed down. In 2019 duolingo announced their endangered language course for Navajo and Hawaiin <\/a>and I wondered how much power an app could have when it comes to both preserving and then encouraging users to revive nearly extinct languages. The Endangered Languages Project has this map <\/a>but it didn\u2019t list the name of the language anywhere, just grouped the dots by region. I wanted to kind of reverse their map and have the names listed with the color representing a range of the number of speakers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Datasets and tools<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I used two datasets, one CSV and one Shapefile to create this map. The two datasets I used were:\u00a0 Endangered languages: the full list <\/a>and Resource Watch data<\/a> 2015 I used QGIS to manipulate the files into looking how I envisioned my map (kinda, sorta!)\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Methods and process<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I gave myself time to understand or try to understand the little quirks of QGIS and I think it helped a bit, I wanted to represent the world and the most critically endangered languages in the most comprehensive way possible. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I played around with the world languages color scales as well as the color for the dots that represent the number of speakers. I consulted my peer reviewer about colors and sizing of the dots. While I appreciated their advice I continued to change things because this was a visualization I felt strongly about and therefore am not sure I will ever be satisfied with! I had to hide many labels because the labels were messed up. I\u2019m not sure how to explain it concisely but I tried to represent a 0-200 range and yet even with every other range unchecked there were labels for languages whose number of speakers fell outside of the selected range. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Visualizations and interpretation <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Legend:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Legend to use for the following visualizations<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Extinct Languages Visualizations:<\/em><\/h2>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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North America<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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South America<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Africa<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

From the visuals I can conclude that each continent seems to have lost a similar amount of indigenous languages over the years. North America’s are, however, less evenly dispersed than the extinct languages around South America and Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Critically Endangered Languages<\/em>:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Africa and the languages that are critically endangered. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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North America and its critically endangered languages.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

It was surprising to me that North America still had so many indigenous languages that were still being spoken as of 2015, even by 5-50 people. It appears that the same places where languages have gone extinct in North America also contain a myriad of endangered languages on the brink of extinction. The endangered languages are more concentrated in Africa, for the most part.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I thought it was interesting that the largest concentration of endangered points were in South Asia, nearing the top of Australia. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Europe & Asia’s endangered languages.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Reflections<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I think for what I know and what I learned it was successful! I liked it. I think learning how to delete things and studying the documentation more closely or knowing exactly what to look up would change some things for me. I would like to keep working on this visualization though, I find the topic really interesting and the information seems relevant to some extent, with the rise of language learning apps and programs (mango languages, lingoda, etc.). I would also spend more time checking the languages are correct and trying to separate the dots. Finally, I would like to have a way to ensure the dots are landing in an exact location. I wasn’t sure how to go about checking that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are snippets of some initial visuals, trial and error stage:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I wanted this to show the number of people who still spoke the language but I couldn’t center the number under the tag for the life of me.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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This was made with the world languages data set\/ shape file. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Citations <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Endangered languages: the full list | News | theguardian.com<\/em>. (2011, April 15). The Guardian. Retrieved April 10, 2023, from https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/news\/datablog\/2011\/apr\/15\/language-extinct-endangered#data<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Home<\/em>. (n.d.). YouTube. Retrieved April 10, 2023, from https:\/\/resourcewatch.org\/data\/explore\/soc_071_world_languages?section=Discover&selectedCollection=&zoom=3&lat=0&lng=0&pitch=0&bearing=0&basemap=dark&labels=light&layers=%255B%257B%2522dataset%2522%253A%252220662342-dcdd-4a42-9f58-bcc80217de71%2522%252C%25<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Knowledge sharing<\/em>. (n.d.). Endangered Languages Project. Retrieved April 10, 2023, from https:\/\/www.endangeredlanguages.com\/userquery\/<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wen, A. (2019, November 6). Duolingo Preserves Endangered Languages \u2014 Business Today Online Journal<\/em>. Business Today Online Journal. Retrieved April 10, 2023, from https:\/\/journal.businesstoday.org\/bt-online\/2019\/duolingo-preserves-endangered-languages<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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