Since languages move with people, language mapping is complex, in both print and digital form. Identifying and representing languages in linguistically diverse urban centres is especially challenging on account of patterns of migration and mobility.
A failure to appreciate linguistic diversity can result in poor public service delivery particularly in marginalized communities. Engaging with this challenge, the New York-based Endangered Language Alliance has produced a series of popular print maps of the world’s most linguistically diverse city. Municipal leadership in New York are using these maps to shape public policy.
Over the last two years, we’ve been engaged in a collaborative partnership to transform print maps into generalizable digital tools that can support community-based language mapping anywhere in the world. In today’s Brown Bag presentation, we discuss the goals and challenges of this project, and showcase a free and interactive map of one of the world’s most linguistically diverse metropolitan areas: New York City.
