The MLA Language Map is a cool color-coded and "zoomable" census map that unveils the linguistic and cultural composition of the United States. The level of detail is remarkable, and I bet any foreign language teacher would have a field day with this search engine. I was able to learn, for example, that 39 speakers of German reside in my town. My wife -- who is one of them -- will be astonished!

Playing around on the MLA map reminded me of the NationMaster statistical site (blogged back in September), which I found has related information on languages around the world (and interesting trivia derived from it). NationMaster also has global educational data and also a page of lesson plans that might generate some ideas for classroom use.

If you're really into linguistics, you likely find the language map collection a lot of fun to browse through.

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