File talk:Russian language status and proficiency in the World.svg

SVG version of File:RussianLanguageMap.png

@Jirka.h23: this is new svg, now let's find sources for other colored countries. I decided that near 1/3 of population will be good instead of 10%.--g. balaxaZe★ 02:05, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Great, thank you for your work. I have just a few comments. 1) I guess that 20% is far enough to say that this language is used in this country. 2) Who can say it is unrecongnized or occupied area, some countries does recognize it, I would prefere disputed areas, or delete this designation at all, as it is disturbing thing of the original purpose of this map and was turned into a politicised edit warring map (as debated in previous version). 3) Svalbard (Spitsbergen) islands are missing, as about 68% was of Russian ethnicity in 1990 and now it is about 31% which is still a still a high proficiency in this area. Sincerely, Jirka.h23 (talk) 09:31, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

I would like to agree with user Jirka.h23. Dispute areas is a much more appropriate and neutral term to us for this map. I also switched to the first version of the map when the shading of disputed areas were a lot more clear. In the second version you could not see Transnistria and Abkhazia and South Ossetia were also very hard to see. I also added Svalbard as per the user's suggestion. Thanks. --Forthrunner (talk) 03:59, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

Copy editing of legend

The legend needs a little copy editing to be unambiguous to English-language users. I recommend the following:

• Russian is an official language
• Russian is an official language of a claimant of a disputed territory
• Russian is not an official language but is spoken by >30% of the population

There are certainly other valid ways to approach this. Cheers! —jameslucas ^{▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄} 13:38, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

The legend was changed.Jirka.h23 (talk) 07:36, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

I clarified that ">30%" counts both L1 and L2 speakers. (Generally, numbers refer to native speakers.) Kwamikagami (talk) 21:35, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

Mongolia &c

Why is Mongolia included in this map? --118.139.61.133 04:44, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

I was surprised too, but Russian is learned in schools, and according to Arefyov 2012, there are 1.2M fluent speakers, something under 40% of the population.

However, Israel, Armenia, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan do not belong on the map. The numbers have been declining precipitously in the latter three. Poland has a higher % of Russian speakers than any of them. Kwamikagami (talk) 21:39, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

Svarlbard is also 15%. Seems to have declined since old figures of 30%. (though that's the ethnic pop, and includes Ukrainians. I can't find any figs for fluency.) Kwamikagami (talk) 22:02, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

Kwamikagami so as I see in the document L1 in Georgia is 1.5% and L2 is 20%. We should remove Georgia as well.--g. balaxaZe★ 09:23, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

The complete list of other countries with significant speakers is here ► https://imgur.com/juP7Abi. Only Mongolia has >30%.--g. balaxaZe★ 09:37, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

Sources? Jirka.h23 (talk) 12:10, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

"Sources?" didn't you read what I wrote? file has source (document), so check that source if you wish.--g. balaxaZe★ 16:04, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

Giorgi’s list is certainly not “complete”. Armenia has a significant number of L2 Russian speakers. Unsure whether their ratio is greater than of Russian-speaking Israelis, but I could bet there is more Russian language in Armenia than in Poland. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 20:11, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

There is no any "Giorgi's list" I took every data from the represented document, "my list" is only about non "post-Soviet" countries. People check the file source (Russian knowledge is required). --g. balaxaZe★ 20:44, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

Arefyev presents «Страны СНГ и Балтии» (the former USSR) in the Table I (page label 432, 433th in the file) whereas rest of the world goes under «Страны дальнего зарубежья» in the Table II (page label 433, 434th in the file). That is, Russian knowledge is required (but is not observed in some present cases). Armenia features 2.1 M Russian speakers – 58% population. Objections against inclusion of countries listed by Arefyev in the Table I? Incnis Mrsi (talk) 21:17, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

Actually, it only has 0,9M speakers -- the other 1,2M have passive knowledge, which means they don't actually speak the language (or at least not well). That's 25%, as confirmed by Table 2.82 on p166, which for Владели свободно как вторым языком (speak fluently as a second language) -- L1 speakers are insignificant these days -- has 25,0% for 2011. But that was 7 years ago, and the number is declining at about 1% a year. So it should be about 18% by now. Okay, that's a violation of CRYSTAL, but there's no reason to think Armenia meets our cut-off. Kwamikagami (talk) 02:53, 24 February 2018 (UTC)

Looks like all 4 of the disputed states qualify by %. Shouldn't we add the Donbass as well? Both Donetsk PR and Luhansk PR are officially bilingual, and under Minsk that would presumably remain the case even if they were reintegrated into the Ukraine (in which case they would be solid blue). I don't know how to add striping. Kwamikagami (talk) 19:27, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

Kwamikagami I could add striping but it is hard to determine their exact borders, the situation there changes daily.--g. balaxaZe★ 20:49, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

The de facto border has been fairly static for a couple years now, and at the scale of this map the variation would not be visible. And we'd be approximating a larger map such as at Donbass War anyway, so we already wouldn't be terribly precise. I think a decent copy of that map would be adequate for our purposes. Better than ignoring the issue, anyway. Kwamikagami (talk) 02:53, 24 February 2018 (UTC)

I added the Donbass from the inset at File:Map_of_the_war_in_Donbass.svg. The skewing isn't perfect, but given that all the borders in this map are off, that shouldn't matter. The striping needs to be redone, though, and I don't know how to do that. Kwamikagami (talk) 22:58, 22 December 2018 (UTC)

Recent editing

User:Giorgi Balakhadze, why would a map displaying "Russian language status and proficiency in the World" ignore countries with such a substantial minority that is above 10%. There is no set-out rule that it has to be above 30%. Equivocating those regions with countries where Russian is barely spoken on a map that is meant to show the extent of the Russian language makes absolutely no sense at all. Just look at all of these maps depicting a language being spoken in a region and how prominent the 10% colour is. File:Knowledge of French EU map.svg File:Hispanophone global world map language 2.svg File:Knowledge of German EU map.svg File:Knowledge of Spanish EU map.svg File:Knowledge of Italian EU map.svg

Some maps, like this map of the Ukrainian language, which is obviously spoken a lot less frequently than Russian, goes even further to include even more countries.--Soundingsol (talk) 03:53, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

Your edits significantly change map's previous version. Original version speaks about the language's official status and its usage as the 1st or 2nd language, it shows very concrete level of measurement. Changing it to 10% and showing where it is spoken is very blurred concept, because it doesn't show exact level of knowledge (someone can know only 300 words in Russian and that will be counted as "spoken", but it won't be enough to use that language as 1st or 2nd language).--Ⴂ. ႡႠႪႠႾႠႻႤ★ 07:10, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

10% is 1/10 of a whole that is very low number in a population, that's why, while creating the map, I preferred 30% it is 1/3 and this number is really significant and shows that the language is very popular and important there.--Ⴂ. ႡႠႪႠႾႠႻႤ★ 07:25, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

The map displays what it refers to in its title, the “Russian language status and proficiency in the World”. As demonstrated by the multiple examples I have provided you with, 10% has always been considered a significant enough minority to be shown on maps with a prominent colour. How is 10% of a population not considered a significant minority when its covering a foreign cultural aspect in a nation. If you just leave it at 30% and above then you are leaving a huge 30% gap to encapsulate both the countries that have 0% speakers and 29%. If a country has 25%, 20%, 15%, or 10% of a minority then those are all very significant numbers for a minority and should not be equivocated with those that have 0% of speakers. --Soundingsol (talk) 11:30, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

Okay, that is a good argument. But I do see flaws in some maps provided by you. I'll rework the map scrupulously (including wording) but please in the future maintain similar approach (I mean discussion and provision of good arguments) and don't edit war, every significant change must be discussed.--Ⴂ. ႡႠႪႠႾႠႻႤ★ 12:37, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

Soundingsol In search of better sources (Arefyev (2012) isn't reliable enough, e.g. it claims that in 2009-12 population of Abkhazia was 525k that is extremely wrong, same with other numbers), I've found the map file:Proportion of Russian speakers by country in 2014 (0-50% gradation).svg, I think there is no need to make a duplicate of it and I'll keep the current file unchanged. --Ⴂ. ႡႠႪႠႾႠႻႤ★ 14:11, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

The gradient version is much better but for some reason it isn't accepted on en:W:Russian Language. Perhaps we could agree to add gradients to this map so that countries with 50%+ don't appear the same as countries with 10%-15%? It wouldn't be too hard to do I don't think, though I have trouble understanding the source myself. Rob984 (talk) 14:04, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

Rob984 also, I think we should underline difference between knowledge of the language and spoken language. E.g. someone can speak 5 languages but in everyday life he/she can use only 2 or 1 of them. So knowledge doesn't mean that it is spoken.--Ⴂ. ႡႠႪႠႾႠႻႤ★ 07:33, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

At 10%, it's not really a Russian-speaking country. You couldn't go there speaking only Russian and expect to get by very well. But a lighter green for 10-30% would be okay IMO. Kwamikagami (talk) 04:30, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

Verifiability

The use of data for this map unclear or inconsistent. The only source currently cited is Arefyev (2012) (https://www.civisbook.ru/files/File/russkij_yazyk.pdf), which is a 483-page document in Russian about a wide range of Russian-language issues, mainly involving Russian-language education and schools. It discusses data from a wide range of other sources from various countries and years; it is therefore unclear which year in time this map purports to show. Without referring to specific page numbers, it is very hard to verify the data visualised in this map. As a test, I looked up everything the Arefyev says about Estonia, and the closest he gets to saying anything about it is on pages 214 and 215, where he makes three statements (autotranslated by Google):

• "According to the 1989 census, Russian was the native language for 35% of Estonian citizens (544.9 thousand people), and for almost 25% (371.3 thousand people) people) called it their second language. In other words, they were free Russian 60% of Estonian citizens."
• "According to the census results 2000, the proportion of the population who were fluent in Russian (including both native and second languages), not only did not decrease, but even increased to 72%, although the proportion of those for whom Russian was native decreased in Estonia to 30% (i.e., to 411 thousand people)."
• "At the same time, according to the complex research conducted in 2006 in Estonia by the Heritage Foundation Eurasia” (project “Eurasian Monitor”), were fluent in Russian only 39% of the adult population, while among the Estonian youth, only 23% of adolescents and children under 18 spoke Russian well."
  

Now, which of these statements have been used to conclude that "[Russian is] Spoken by >30% of the population as either 1st or a 2nd language" in Estonia? If it is the third statement, how has been concluded that the average of "39% of the adult population" and "23% of adolescents and children under 18" is above 30%? This requires us to know the total population, which is not stated by Arefyev.

Regardless of which of the three has been taken, the map will represent the linguistic situation in Estonia in 2006 at most. That is long before the territories in Georgia (from 2008 on) and Ukraine (from 2014 on) were disputed. The fact that the only stated source is Arefyev (2012) means that one cannot show data that is collected after 2012, unless one cite the source(s) for those data. The discussions between various users on this talk page above also show that other data have been used for creating and changing the map, but these sources are not stated up front in the description next to Arefyev (2012) (which is a problematic source in itself as I have shown above). Both the original uploader and later editors have been unclear and inconsistent in this regard. This poor sourcing of data is allowed to exist in a file on Commons per Commons:Verifiability, but until these issues are fixed, this map cannot be used on English Wikipedia, because it does not comply to several verifiability policies such as en:WP:OR, en:WP:SYNTH, en:WP:UNSOURCED, and en:WP:CALC. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 08:19, 4 September 2022 (UTC)