US language maps
The US Census Bureau has put together an interactive map of languages other than English spoken in the US — you can look at all speakers of the language, or just those who are not fluent in English, for a range of languages.
Here’s the map for (preferentially) French speakers, showing concentrations in Maine (near French Canada) and Louisiana (Cajun) that I’d expect, groups in the major cities, and a cluster I don’t understand in northwestern Georgia
Thomas Lumley (@tslumley) is Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Auckland. His research interests include semiparametric models, survey sampling, statistical computing, foundations of statistics, and whatever methodological problems his medical collaborators come up with. He also blogs at Biased and Inefficient See all posts by Thomas Lumley »
There seems to be a cluster around Atlanta for all the languages. The only thing I could think of particularly is 1) result of exposure via the Olympics and 2) an airline hub.
Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport is the busiest single airport in the United States according to wikipedia. Delta has a hub there and someone joked that the names meant “Delivering every living person through Atlanta”. Maybe if there is a strike or really long delay people look around the city and decide to move there.
I was lucky enough to be asked to do fill in a survey form after viewing the graph about the quality of the data and website so I left a querey asking why there was all these clusters around Atlanta. I wonder if they get back to me. :->
11 years ago
Also: “You can’t even get to heaven without changing at Hartsfield”
11 years ago
Nice indeed, but (unless I’ve missed it) omitting “English” as an option seems an odd decision. Although I suppose at a resolution of 1 dot per 100, 2.7 M dots?, it could be solid blue.
11 years ago