231 - Praise the Lord and Pass the Dictionary!
This delicious map is the Europa Polyglotta, published in 1730 by Gottfried Hensel (or Henselius, after the contemporary fasion of latinising surnames). I’ve managed to piece together only very little information on its origin and background because I found it on a Ukranian website, describing it in an alphabet (not to mention language) I don’t understand.
Which is ironic because the full Latin title of the map is: Europa Polyglotta, Linguarum Genealogiam exhibens, una cum Literis, Scribendique modis, Omnium Gentium. Which I can translate, sort of: ‘Multilingual Europe, showing the genealogy of the languages, together with the alphabets and modes of writing of all peoples’.
In the upper left corner, the map shows severfal alphabets (left to right):
• “the Scythians, born of the Hebrews”
• the Greeks
• the Marcomanni
• Runes
• Moeso-Gothic
• Picto-Hibernic
In the upper right corner are shown Characteri Rutenicae Linguae, i.e. the Russian alphabet.
The lower left corner shows following alphabets next to each other (left to right):
• Latin
• German
• Anglo-Saxon
At the bottom, there are several other alphabets of the
• Hunnish,
• Slavonic (Cyrillic),
• Glagolitic (Illyric) and
• Etruscan (Eugubina) languages.
The map itself attempts to show the concordances and differences between all the languages spoken in Europe by spelling out the beginning of the Lord’s Prayer in each of them.
Some notable facts about this ethnolinguistic map of Europe.
• The language areas have remained remarkably stable, except where German has lost terrain in Eastern Europe (in itself a relatively recent occurrence, and solely due to the Second World War).
• Another area that has disappeared, though is the Arabic (or Berber) portion of Iberia – the Spanish completed their Reconquista in 1492, was ‘Mauritanian’ still spoken there almost 250 years later?
• Turkish is mentioned in what is now Bulgaria, still home to a sizable Turkish minority. But no Bulgarian at that time?
• Apparently, ‘Barbarian Greek’ was still spoken in Asia Minor in the mid-18th century.
• Tartaria is subscribed with the legend Vocibus Teutonicis et Sclavonicis mixta – ‘With mixed German and Slavic languages’. I don’t believe that could have corresponded with the reality of that time.
It would be interesting to hear from native speakers how much their version of the prayer has deviated from this mid-18th century form.
Click on the map to maximise; map found here.
Actually, there are reports of people speaking Gothic, which is a Germanic language, in the Crimea into the 18th century, so it’s not as far from reality as you might think.
Comment by Tim — January 7, 2008 @
One very interesting fact that you didn’t mention, is that the author of this map apparently split the languages into three families: the lightest yellow is “Celtotheotisca” (corresponding more or less to modern Germanic languages), slightly darker yellow for “Illirico-Slavonica” (Slavic languages) and dark yellow areas speak “Progenies Hellenica” (Roman languages and Greek).
The map predates modern linguistic theory, but the classification is mostly the same as we would do it, except of course for oddities like Hungarica and Finnonica, and, surprisingly, English! It apparently was seen as a Roman language, because of its French-derived vocabulary, even though the sample text is in Old English/Anglo-Saxon…
Comment by Eugene — January 7, 2008 @
The Finnish version is still very recognisable, though some of the words are quite archaic.
Comment by koloman — January 7, 2008 @
The Breton language is missing west of France (they didn’t cross the no-that-high hills to check who lived on the other side obviously). The Galician language is also missing northwest of Spain.
Methinks celtic languages weren’t considered very interesting by the author. Or, if I stop being paranoid, I guess these areas were too small to be mentioned.
Comment by Sophie — January 7, 2008 @
The Italian version is still the same (there’s only a minor euphonetic change which is still very frequent in Tuscany).
This is no surprise, since our language was born from Tuscan (Dante’s language) and is very stable.
Comment by Lopo — January 7, 2008 @
The Swedish is almost identical to the official version of the prayer until 1999, when a new Bible translation came into use (i.e. very readable).
The Rune script seems to simply be a transliteration of the Swedish which is a bit weird since the runic alphabet had fallen into complete disuse about 250 years earlier.
Comment by David — January 7, 2008 @
Well, the Portuguese version is still pretty similar, but somewhat different:
“Padre nosso que estas nos ceos. Sanctificado seia o teu nome.”
would today be
“Pai nosso que estás no céu. Santificado seja o teu nome.”
although I *think* (and only think: I’m not a religious person) that the intimate pronoun “tu” is usually replaced by the more respectful and archaic-sounding (paradoxically enough) “vós” these days, thus the prayer becoming something like:
“Pai nosso que estais no céu, santificado seja o vosso nome.”
Comment by Jorge — January 7, 2008 @
Interesting to see that Norway is allowed it’s own language and name at a time when it was still under Danish rule. The differences are slight, though.
Funny - Bornholm is larger than Fyn.
Comment by Sili — January 7, 2008 @
La Europa multilingüe del siglo XVIII (mapa)
Curioso mapa etnolingüístico de Europa, publicado en 1730 por Gottfried Hensel bajo el título Europa Polyglotta, que muestra la ubicación geográfica de los principales pueblos europeos de entonces y sus respectivas lenguas mediante el piadoso mét…
Trackback by meneame.net — January 7, 2008 @
As someone previously said, English seems to have been considered Romance, but it is also clearly printed on England the words “Anglo-Saxon”, which seems like a recognition of a Germanic root in language.
Also, Imperial Germany lost lands during WWI as well, while although some Eastern lands were considered German, it was mostly due to urban areas being mainly German, but rural ones were usually Slavic.
In any case, great blog. Glad I’ve stumbled on it.
Comment by oster — January 7, 2008 @
in modern basque language (euskera batua), -bifcaina -cantabrica in the map- north of the iberian peninsula:
Gure Aita zeruetan zerana
santu izan bedi zure izena
is very similar
Comment by Napartheid — January 7, 2008 @
I’m not sure what “Barbarian Greek” is - since barbarian originally meant “not Greek”! - but Greek was spoken in Turkey not just in the 18th century but up until 1923, when the (Greek-speaking) Turkish Christians were expelled.
Comment by Chris Cooke — January 7, 2008 @
The Dutch on the map is incorrect. There is no verb in the first sentence. But apart from that, it’s the same version that is still used in The Netherlands. In Flanders (Belgium) a more modern version is used:
On the map:
Onze Vader, die in de hemelen. Uwen Naem werde geheiligt.
Currently used in The Netherlands:
Onze Vader die in de hemelen zijt, Uw Naam worde geheiligd.
Version from Flanders:
Onze Vader die in de hemel zijt, geheiligd zij Uw Naam.
Version from the most recent Bible translation in The Netherlands:
Onze Vader in de hemel, laat uw naam geheiligd worden.
Comment by Tijl — January 8, 2008 @
while the arabic alphabet had died in southern spain by the end of the 16th century, the alphabet was used to write castillian and valencian well into the 17th century.
Comment by Ali Hassan — January 8, 2008 @
Answering comment 4 by Sophie. The Galician language is not missing, because it was the same language as Portuguese (many claim it still is). I guess that the basque text spreads through all the northern coast of the Iberic Peninsula just because of lack of space.
Comment by ventomareiro — January 8, 2008 @
The German version is pretty much the same. on the map it reads:
Vater unser der du bist im Himmel. Geheiligt werde dein Nahme.
the current ecumenical version goes:
Vater unser im Himmel
Geheiligt werde dein Name.
love your blog!!!
Comment by benq — January 8, 2008 @
I suggest posting a full link would help and there is some more info there.
http://litopys.org.ua/files/map_hensel_1741.htm
Cyrillic version is hardly understandable. I could recognize only a couple of words.
Comment by sim — January 8, 2008 @
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What is very interesting about the two Greek versions is that the prayer on mainland Greece is written in the ancient Greek, specifically in the language used during the appearance of Christianity. This version of the prayer in fact is the one still used today in liturgy and as recited by practicing Greek Orthodox Christians. The text on Anatolia [this area wasn't Turkey yet at a time but the core of the Ottoman Empire in which Greeks and Turks, along with other ethnic groups, were liberally dispersed] which is denoted as “barbaric Greek” is actually very close to the modern demotic Greek- the word “demotic” meaning the popular spoken language. It’s closer to a dialect than the mainstream modern Greek however. Because of the geographical positioning of the text [south coast of the Black Sea] I am wondering whether that corresponds with the Pontic dialect though my first reaction would be that it could really be any form of idiomatic Greek.
Comment by GeorgeK — January 8, 2008 @
Apparently this is one of a set of 4 such maps of the continents - http://www.pbagalleries.com/search/item.php?anr=142433&PHPSESSID=5dfa976363cb6187d127b9342f009428&PHPSESSID=5dfa976363cb6187d127b9342f009428
Comment by Jennifer in BC — January 8, 2008 @
also
http://www.raremaps.com/cgi-bin/gallery.pl/archivedetail/7865
you sure find some fascinating maps!!
Comment by Jennifer in BC — January 8, 2008 @
Where did you get this map? I’m curious…
Comment by trademark registration — January 8, 2008 @
cool name for a blog!!!!!!!!!
Comment by livingwordofriverside — January 8, 2008 @
the lusitanian version is allmost similar to the current galician one.
Comment by dr. rivas — January 8, 2008 @
“• Turkish is mentioned in what is now Bulgaria, still home to a sizable Turkish minority. But no Bulgarian at that time?”
It was full of Bulgarians at that time but we were under Ottoman rule for 5 centuries. In old maps the name Bulgaria is not written, but instead the Ottoman Empire is. Nowadays Turkish are 10% of the population, back than I guess a bit more.
We use Cyrillic and I have to say the alphabet looks a bit mixed up but I can still recognize 60-70% of it. Reason for that is we studied at school old cyrillic and glagolitic.
Cyrillic and Glagolitic are both slavic alphabets that were both used until Cyrillic slowly remained the only used one. Also Cyrillic was changed (in Bulgaria after 19th century) in order to be made more simple. That’s why the cyrillic shown here doesn’t make much sense to people, nowadays it is much closer to Latin than to Greek (as it was before).
Comment by Maria — January 8, 2008 @
Catalan version sounds somewhat archaic, but perfectly understandable.
Old version:
“Pare nostre que estau en lo cel”
The modern version is:
“Pare nostre que esteu en el cel”
About “Mauritan” in the Iberian peninsula: Cannot be correct. Moors where expelled from Castile in 1609 and from Arago in 1614. Actual languages should be spanish and catalan, with the territories rapidly varying between both at that time.
Comment by Manel — January 8, 2008 @
Polish version is almost identical to one we use now (except for one word). There were some changes in spelling, though. In some words ‘j’ is written instead of ‘i’ now.
Comment by Michal — January 8, 2008 @
In my opinion, this is out and away the best piece in your collection.
Do note that linguists traditionally use Lord’s Prayer to exemplify languages. Is this perhaps the first example of such use?
Comment by Catalepton — January 8, 2008 @
In 1730 there was no trace of arabic speakers in the Peninsula iberica.
Comment by Juan — January 8, 2008 @
The French version has undergone minor changes :
The map states :
‘Notre Pere, qui es ès Cieux.
Ton Nom ʃoit Sanctifié.’
The ecumenic version now is :
‘Notre Père, qui es aux cieux,
Que ton nom soit sanctifié,’
The French wikipedia features a version of the prayer in Corsican, another language not mentioned in the map :
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notre_P%C3%A8re
Wikipedia features a Chtimi version, which corresponds to the area named “Catetes” but I don’t know if it is the same language.
There’s also a Berrichon version, from the Berry area…
Comment by Sophie — January 8, 2008 @
It would be interesting to know what the author meant with the “foro-juliana” version of the Lord’s prayer in southern France: is it supposed to be Occitan? Any Occitan-speakers around?
“Forum julii” was the Latin name of what is now the Italian province of Friuli — should it be Friulian then? But then it’s definitely misplaced on the map…
Comment by davide — January 8, 2008 @
Is it necessarily the case that the map intended to reflect the languages spoken in 1730?
Perhaps it documented a previous era.
Comment by Tom — January 8, 2008 @
You wrote:
The language areas have remained remarkably stable, except where German has lost terrain in Eastern Europe (in itself a relatively recent occurrence, and solely due to the Second World War).
Let me remind you that the First World War had a far bigger influence on the spread of German in Europe than the 2nd WW. Even though areas of Germany were transferred to other nations after the 2nd WW.
The unraveling opf the Habsburger Reich in the late nineteenth century and early 20th century are the bigger drivers for the way of the German langauge.
BTW great blog.
Comment by Rob Geurtsen — January 8, 2008 @
Just wanted to let you know that I enjoy your site immensely! I’ve visited several times and you always have unique and fascinating info for us to ponder. Great work!
Comment by Odale — January 8, 2008 @
Great map.
The Irish version is close to the modern-day, with a few notable exceptions.
Old:
Ar nat4 ata ar neam.
Modern:
Ár n-athair atá ar neamh.
‘n-athair’ in the old form uses a symbol that looks like a 4. I don’t recognise it and it’s not explained on the map. I imagine it’s an abbreviated way of writing ‘air’ in one symbol.
The map doesn’t use any accent or ‘fada’ as it’s called in Irish (fada being the Irish word for long), but it does have the old way of writing ‘h’ which was a dot over the preceding consonant.
Comment by John C — January 8, 2008 @
Well the ‘Anglo-Saxon’ Lord’s Prayer is indeed actually in Old English rather than in the ‘modern’ English of the 18th century, and begins “Faether ure, thu the eart on heofenum…”.
This would suggest that while the map may have been published in 1730, it is actually an attempt to recreate the linguistic boundaries of Europe many centuries earlier - probably 1100 or before.
Does this make more sense given some of the issues raised above?
Comment by Nick Hare — January 8, 2008 @
fantastic find
Comment by Rich — January 8, 2008 @
These are fantastic
Comment by L — January 8, 2008 @
Polish text is practically the same currently. Only “in Heavens” now is ” w Niebie” not “w Niebiesiech” but you still can say it. The language designation and border line, however, are seriously misplaced. North of Bohemia (Czech Republic now) there is something called “Antique Saxonica”. In all these areas from Silesia to Pommerania there were people speaking Slavic dialects and German settlers of the previous several hundred years who spoke some sort of German but it was not antique Saxon for sure. Western border of “Polonica” are shown so far East and Eastern ones moved even farther East that Polish language extends far into Belarus and Ukraine but excludes both Greater and Lesser Poland which is historically untrue. In XVIII century Prutenian (Old Prussian) language was already extinct.
Comment by Kris Rybak — January 8, 2008 @
I think the map is quite explicitly atemporal: it simply records some of the languages
spoken in various places without regard to date. For example, Gothic was extinct in Europe by
the 8th century (well, depending on whether you think the Crimea is in Europe, and the Gothic text appears up near Iceland anyhow), but Hungarian is shown in place even
though the Magyars did not arrive until the end of the 9th century. So there is no time when both Gothic and Hungarian are spoken in Europe.
Comment by John Cowan — January 8, 2008 @
Interesting that though the Romanians were majorities in most of the territory that they now occupy, they were politically subjugated and thus don’t appear at all on the map!
Comment by Stephen — January 8, 2008 @
Apart from the main topic - have you noticed there’s something wrong with the rivers? In Western Europe, there’s no Rhine, but Garonne is shown. In areas corresponding to modern-day Poland, you won’t find Vistula, but small Pasłęka is shown. It’s almost like Gottfried Hensel was drawing the rivers in random places. Great map nonetheless.
Comment by ArCgon — January 8, 2008 @
Confirmation…
Here is proof positive this map shows what existed in reality.
Italia, did not exist as a legal entity.
ERGO..How can one claim Chrisbol Colon, was an Italian? There are no Italian Birth Certificates.
Anonymous
Comment by anthonyfgonzalez — January 8, 2008 @
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Pingback by “the Scythians, born of the Hebrews”??? « Thoughts En Route — January 8, 2008 @
Belarusian is not mentioned, and ukrainian as well. On Baltics, mostly extinct as of now Baltic and Finnish languages are seen: Curland, Litland, Ingermanland.
Btw, could you give a link to the page (not to the image) which featured the map? I can read Ukrainian.
Comment by Mirritil — January 8, 2008 @
Wow, nice map!
The Finnish version hasn’t changed much, really (even though the ancient orthography might lead you to think otherwise). But anyway:
“Finnonica”:
Isa meiden joca olet taiwaisa. Pyhittetty (st)olcon sinum Nymes.
“Lapponica”:
Isa meidhen joko oledh tajuahiz(?)a. Puhetta olkohon siun Nimesi.
Modern Finnish:
Isä meidän, joka olet taivaissa. Pyhitetty olkoon sinun nimesi.
BTW, Finnish is one of the most conservative languages in the world - the modern Finnish word for king, “kuningas”, differs only slighty from the reconstructed Proto-Germanic word for king, “*kuningaz”!
Comment by Bo — January 8, 2008 @
http://sageboy117.wordpress.com/
now
you have a lot of visits
Comment by sageb0y117 — January 9, 2008 @
46 — is “kuningas” a German loan to Finnish, then?
I notice no one’s commented on the Spanish yet. I’m not a native Spanish speaker, but I did learn the Lord’s Prayer a long time ago, and I can use Google pretty well. So:
On the map:
Padre nuestro que estas en los cielos. Sanctificado sea el tu Nombre
Version I learned:
Padre nuestro que estás en el cielo, sanctificado sea tu nombre.
Although when I googled to check if I remembered right, I did find some versions still in use today saying “los cielos” (”the heavens”
instead of “el cielo” (”heaven”). The only substantial difference is “el tu nombre”, a construction I hadn’t realized existed in archaic Spanish. Always fun, philology . . .
Comment by undeadgoat — January 9, 2008 @
“the Scythians, born of the Hebrews”
Sounds like a stupid attempt to blame the Scythian threat on the Jews. These Bush haters will stop at nothing!
Comment by Cappy — January 9, 2008 @
Interesting… I like old maps
Comment by Paul Salahuddin Armstrong — January 9, 2008 @
«It would be interesting to know what the author meant with the “foro-juliana” version of the Lord’s prayer in southern France: is it supposed to be Occitan?»
Yes, southern france spoke several dialect of occitan (among them the “provençal” is the most known). I never heard about foro julia before.
I found a webpage showing the “pater noster” for different occitan dialects : http://www.christusrex.org/www1/pater/JPN-occitan.html
Nothing close to this “foro-juliana” (at least not more than spanish or italian).
A search on google gave me this page : http://www.fromoldbooks.org/Brown-OratioDominica/pages/orationis-p35/ which is a page of the “Oratio Dominica: The Lord’s Prayer in above 100 Languages, Versions and Characters” (1713)
Comment by gyhelle — January 9, 2008 @
The Hungarian suffers from a faulty copying, where an original t was wrongly taken for an l. This results in a nonsense word Alyanc, instead of Atyanc (today Atyank) (our father).
Comment by Michael — January 9, 2008 @
“Finnonica” and “Lapponica” are simply two different representations of Finnish. “Puhetta” is probably meant to be a syncopated form of “pyhitetty” (”pyhitty” maybe, cf. “löytty” from “löydetty”?).
And yes, the “st-” in “stolcon” is a copyist’s error.
Comment by Panu — January 9, 2008 @
[...] xente de Strange Maps achegounos esta semana un novo mapa, o Europa Polyglotta no que se amosa un mapa publicado por Gottfried Hensel en 1730 cunha Europa separada en diferentes [...]
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A minor correction to the Spanish modern version: it’s “santificado”, not “sanctificado”, so the modern version goes like this: “Padre nuestro que estás en [el cielo / los cielos], santificado sea tu nombre.”
Comment by Carlos Weiss — January 9, 2008 @
Lapponica most certainly isn’t one of the Saami languages, either; just a variety of something related to Finnish, either Kven, Meänkieli or just a Northern Finnish dialect. Hmm!
Comment by Ryan — January 9, 2008 @
The Russian is hard to decipher, due to mistakes of the map-maker and the use of old Russian orthography (pre-1708, the year Peter the Great introduced the civil script).
Comment by Victor — January 9, 2008 @
The catalan version is quite similar to modern catalan. In the map says…
“Pare Nostro que esteu en lo cel”.
Now we say “Pare Nostre que esteu en el cel”. So the small changes come from the regularization of the catalan at the begining of XX Century by Pompeu Fabra.
Comment by Salvador — January 9, 2008 @
I can perhaps explain the “mistery” of “foro-juliana lingua”.
There were two “Forum Iulii”: one in Italy (now Cividale del Friuli), another in southern France (now Frejus). From the name of the “italian” Forum Iulii comes the name of the region of “Friuli”, in which is spoken furlan, a Romance language belonging to the Rhaetian family. Perhaps our Hensel, seeing the text of Brown (1713), thought to the “french” Forum Iulii, and assumed that it was an example of Occitan language.
Isn’t it?
Comment by Catalepton — January 9, 2008 @
By the way, Dan Brown’s (not that Dan Brown!) Oratio Dominica: The Lord’s Prayer in above 100 Languages, Versions and Characters, London 1713, is definitely the source of all the four linguistic maps drawn by Hensel.
Comment by Catalepton — January 9, 2008 @
In other words, it seems that Hensel tried to apply the four “classes linguarum” of Brown (”Asiaticae et Orientales”, “Africanae et Meridionales”, “Europaeae et Occidentales ut et Septentrionales”, “Americanae seu Novi Orbis”: except “Confictae linguae”, that obviously can’t be shown on a map), without considering chronological differences and with some mistakes of “location” (e.g. for furlan and “Graeca barbara”).
because… there was no space.
Some languages don’t find place on the map (e.g. the Brown’s two variants of “Sardica lingua”
A few mistakes went from Brown (e.g. the distinction between “Lapponica” and “Finnonica”).
Hensel takes from Brown also the “graphic appearance” of each language, and even the various alphabets shown on the borders.
Comment by Catalepton — January 9, 2008 @
Re #2, #36: I suspect that the dark yellow area on the map is an attempt to represent the boundaries of the Roman Empire, rather than any sort of Romance isogloss. Besides, I don’t see any difference between the colors of the Germanic and Slavic areas.
Comment by Nyx — January 9, 2008 @
The dark yellow on the map isn’t the Roman Empire necessarily. It’s labelled “Progenies Hellenica”, which roughly translated would be “descendants of Greece.”
It’s a bit odd. A lot of places were keen to find some link back to the golden ages of ancient Greece e.g. the myth of Britain being founded by Trojan War refugees. But given the author is assumedly Germanic, he has included none of those areas as part of that intellectual/cultural descendancy of ancient Greece.
Unless Greek was thought to be the parent language of Latin in those days?
Comment by Chadders — January 10, 2008 @
Also on the Scythian/Hebrew question, it could be conflating Scythians with the Khazars, who were converts to Judaism in the 8th and 9th centuries?
Comment by Chadders — January 10, 2008 @
According to this paper* by Hans Goebel, Hensel used an “authoritative” rather than an “empirical” approach when he drew this map:
Für die um etwa 1800 überwundene Zeit der autoritativ (und nicht empirisch) erstellten Parallel-Texte ist eine Karte als typisch anzusehen, die man
als die wahrscheinlich älteste “Sprachatalas-Karte” bezeichnen kann. Es ist das eine kartographische Synopse der verschiedenen Versionen (bzw. Schriftrealisierungen)
des Vaterunsers, die 1741 von Gottfried Hensel für Europa erstellt worden war (…
This may explain why certain languages were omitted while others were overrepresented .
* Accessible through Google Books, see
http://books.google.com/books?id=2sxXdTzb_EUC&pg=PA295&lpg=PA295&dq=gottfried+hensel+sprachen&source=web&ots=ITQ7jK1Mc5&sig=vCzl3VoX6aBvIIjK7EQNSysAmuM#PPA295,M1
p. 295
Comment by monarch — January 10, 2008 @
Danish version on the map:
Vor Fader i Himelen Helligt vorde dit Nafn.
Danish version until recently:
Fader Vor, du som er i himmelen. Helliget vorde dit navn.
Modern Danish version:
Far i himlen. Lad dit navn blive helligt.
Comment by Kristian — January 10, 2008 @
The Icelandic version is the same, although I must admit that I am not too familiar with the Bible translation published a few weeks ago.
Comment by Hoessi — January 10, 2008 @
“The Rune script seems to simply be a transliteration of the Swedish which is a bit weird since the runic alphabet had fallen into complete disuse about 250 years earlier.”
In fact runes extended to be a transliteration of the Swedish alphabet, including runes for Å, Ä and Ö was in widespread use in parts of Sweden up until the 19th century, especially in Dalarna (so the map puts it in the right place), so they are known as Dalarunor or Dalicarlian runes.
They weren’t used on books though, but for markings on wood, which is of course what runes with their lack of curves are designed for from the beginning.
Comment by Lennart Regebro — January 11, 2008 @
“Another area that has disappeared, though is the Arabic (or Berber) portion of Iberia – the Spanish completed their Reconquista in 1492, was ‘Mauritanian’ still spoken there almost 250 years later?”
NO. You can be sure of that… In fact, during the Middle Ages, spanish people under muslim rule spoke “mozárabe” (a latin language with arabic elements)
Comment by Antonio Márquez — January 11, 2008 @
You write that our map was published in 1730. But your source (and others: e.g. see comments # 17, 65) speaks of 1741. How is it that?
Comment by Catalepton — January 12, 2008 @
This link is perhaps obvious, but it contains a reference to our map: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord%27s_Prayer_in_different_languages
Comment by Catalepton — January 13, 2008 @
I think this 18th century linguistic map is very interesting. It seems to reflect an effort to classify language based both on what was known (or thought) by geography and applying Linnean taxonomy.
In the early 18th century (possibly earlier) Germans moved into the region of the lower Volga, and Slavs had been there and in Crimea for centuries, following the Russian conquest of the Tartar lands. The Volga flows into the Caspian sea just north and east of the Crimean peninsula, so that Germans would certainly have been in this region, mixed with Slavic speaking groups. In the 19th and early 20th centuries many of these Russian Germans emigrated to Canada and United States. Modern linguistic maps of the region show small pockets of German speakers yet today. It is interesting that this much detal and knowledge was conveyed on this rather small map.
Comment by Ken Grabach — January 14, 2008 @
This map is supremely interesting. It’s a pity, though, that the Russian Cyrillic version is very poorly rendered (it seems to me the author simply tried to copy it graphically from a manuscript he did not understand). Also, it’s too bad there’s no Czech version, I would have been curious about that. By the way, the area labeled “Bohemia” has a very weird shape here - perhaps it shows the Lands of the Czech Crown with Silesia still intact, but then Germany shouldn’t extend that far east, and Bohemia proper has been dramatically downsized (and it wasn’t too big to begin with :)).
Other than that, I really love the detail that went into the various writing systems and typefaces/manuscripts.
Comment by Mata Hara Kiri — January 15, 2008 @
There have been some other changes since the time of this map. Irish Gaelic has largely disappeared, despite the revivalism of the Irish Republic. Russian and Ukrainian have spread down to the Black Sea, and to its east. (In 1730 the Crimea was populated exclusively by Tatars.)
Besides those, and the general roll-back of German in the east, no notable changes.
Comment by Rich Rostrom — January 16, 2008 @
Ones depicted in “Rutenian” symbols are in “Church Slavonic Language”, how it is called in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, and in fact as recent surveys claim was a kind of old Bulgarian language and was never spoken among people who lived there. It was kind of a “literary language” of the Medieval Orthodox Eastern Europe (like Latin in Western Europe). Though this version of “Our Father” prayer basically was in use until 19th century. Ukrainian and Belarussian are not mentioned at all. I think the author had a copy of 17th century Bible from Russia and just copied unfamiliar symbols
Comment by Vlad — January 16, 2008 @
The official Spanish version of the Lord’s Prayer changed not so long ago, but the first two lines are still as in the map, with the minor differences mentioned in previous comments.
As for Galician, also mentioned in one of the initial comments, it was the same language as Portuguese until the XVI century. Maybe some people in the early XVIII still considered it just a variation on Portuguese.
Comment by Gorpik — January 16, 2008 @
[...] políglota Grazas a Berto, descubrin este post onde se comenta sobre este mapa creado en 1730 por Gottfried Hensel. Neste mapa, segundo a súa [...]
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[...] políglota Gracias a Berto, descubrí este post donde se comenta sobre este mapa creado en 1730 por Gottfried Hensel. En este mapa, según su [...]
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I was astounished that map wiped off Ottoman Empire and Turkish, inaccurately reduced it to region of Thrace. An accurate map of that time would be showing entire Balkans including Greece, Egypt, Cyprus and of course Anatolia (modern Turkey)as Ottoman Empire where Turkish was spoken by the vast populations. The map is cartographically is fairly accurate but the political and linguistic information is hideously biased.
Comment by oa — January 18, 2008 @
Bulgarian did exist at that time- but probably under the generic name as ‘Church Slavonic’ which was applied to most South Slavic languages which used the script which would develop into the Cyrillic later on.
Is this map by any chance from a book called ‘Typographia’ by John Johnson?
Comment by mehmet12 — January 19, 2008 @
Replying to comment 31 (It would be interesting to know what the author meant with the “foro-juliana” version of the Lord’s prayer in southern France):
The “foro-juliana” language is of course Friulian, a language spoken in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region (Italy). The word “Friuli” comes in fact from Latin “Forum Iulii”, a Roman town in the area, named after Julius Caesar.
I guess it is written in souther France because it was not possible all that text did not fit in the Nort-West corner of Italy. But it could also be that the author confused Friulian with Occitan: they are both lesser-known western romance languages which are seldom used in written form, so it is quite possible that a German speaker could have confused then.
I am not fluent in Friulian (and I certainly never heard the Pater Noster in it!), but I would say that apart curios spellings as “cyl” and “sanctificaat”, the language on the map is still quite similar to modern Friulian.
Comment by Cingar — January 19, 2008 @
Sorry for all the typos in my previous message… I was in a hurry.
BTW, Friulian is of course spoken in the North-*East* corner of Italy, not in the “Nort[h]-West” one.
Comment by Cingar — January 19, 2008 @
Replying to previous comment: Dear Cingar, you can read in comment #51 my explanation of that odd position of your furlan…
Comment by Catalepton — January 19, 2008 @
In Spain, “aljamia” (writing foreigns languages using arabic characters) was used until XVII century (it was forbidden by Felipe II in XVI century), only 300 years ago. It was widely used for wrinting “mozarabe” and “ladino. 26 & 29 are wrong.
This historic aspect of “andaluz” ancestor has been banned from history school books in Spain, making people thinks that “andaluz” was only an uneducated deformation of Spanish, coming from nowhere. This idea is the heritage of 40 years of dictatorial education: visigoths were heroes, and arabs were bad persons with no remarkable impact in Spanish culture.
Comment by Julio — January 21, 2008 @
So sad - the map shows the ignorance of Western Europe of the situation in Eastern Europe (which has not changed much since).
@mehmet12 Bulgarian, of course, did exist. The Cyrillic alphabet was formed to fit it in the 9th century already. Actually it is 16-17 centuries when certain changes appeared in Bulgarian, such as cases disappearing, that makes modern Lord’s Prayer sound different right now.
And come on - that particular text in Turkish and Arabic!?
Comment by пламен — January 21, 2008 @
The prayer written on Illyrian part is basically Oldslavonic (Church Slavonic) which was used in Ortodox church up to 19th century. It has changed quite a bit since then in Croatian (belonging to Catholic church), but “oche nash” - first two words remained the same. I believe Serbian Ortodox church uses the same prayer even now.
As for Scythians nad Hebrews - nothing to do with antisemitism. In the region of Tartaria on this map, there used to ba a people called Khazars who were actually Jewish by religion (search Wikipedia).
Comment by CRO magnon — January 22, 2008 @
Oh yes, on the map on the Illyria there is only Cyrillic text, although in western part (nowdays Croatia and Bosnia) Glagollics and Bosnian Cyrillics were also used. Glagolic letters are obviously drawn from different sources, since they differ in style (some double strokes are in fact embelishments, not the basic forms of letters).
Comment by CROmagnon — January 22, 2008 @
First of all, congratulations for the blog ! I love maps, all kinds.
And this map is interesting, although my country, Romania, seems to not exist. The XVIII century inhabitants used a Latin language with a Slavonic alphabet.
Comment by Fonin — January 24, 2008 @
Today’s Norwegian version of the lines:
Fader vår, du som er i himmelen,
la ditt navn holdes hellig …
Comment by Thomas Berg — January 28, 2008 @
No love for Romanian? You didn’t mention it as missing…
Comment by Gabe — January 28, 2008 @
[...] Europa Polyglotta map, published in mid-1700s, tries a completely different kind and even more fascinating mapping [...]
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[...] Languages of Europe: Praise the Lord and Pass the Dictionary [...]
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I think it’s pretty obvious that this map doesn’t reflect the linguistic situation in the mid-18th century. For one thing, the English is wildly outdated. For another, the Cyrillic script is middle-period Glagolitic rather than the more modern Cyrillic we’d see if this was from 1741. There are a ton of other contextual clues, but if we’re assuming that this was in fact supposed to be reflective of one single period, the best guess is the 1360’s - the extent of Turkish in southeastern Europe - but not in Anatolia - suggests it’s from the very short period between the initial Ottoman incursions into Europe around 1350 and the conquest of most of the Balkans in the 1370’s-1420’s. My guess based on the extent of Turkish in the area would be around 1365. The apparent disarray in Anatolia would fit that, with the collapse of the Byzantine Empire. That would also allow the “Mauritanian” (Moorish) to make sense, as well as the archaic English, the Glagolitic script, and a number of other things.
Comment by Andrew — March 27, 2008 @
Glorious map. Makes me think of two posts on my blog:
http://transubstantiation.wordpress.com/2007/11/18/meeting-of-cultures/
and
http://transubstantiation.wordpress.com/2007/01/24/language-imperialism/
Keep up Strange Maps. I’m an avid fan!
Zak
Comment by transubstantiation — April 8, 2008 @
Look in the firts line of the alphabets: “Hunorum elementa”. This was an old Hungarian alphabet of runes, which origins from the ancient Central-Asian turk runes, but 3-4 characters are from slavic or greek origin. It was used at latest in the Hungarian-speaking part of Transsylvania, by the so called ethnic group of Szekelys.
Comment by Szabo Pal — April 25, 2008 @
NAGY MAGYARORSZÁG MINDÖRÖKKÉ!
Hiszek egy Istenben!
Hiszek egy Hazában!
Hiszek az Isteni Örök Igaszságban!
Hiszek Nagy Magyarország feltámadásában!
Comment by omagyarorszag — April 25, 2008 @
It is visible unambiguous that he is this on the map only the considerable,there are big languages on him.this explains why the Slav languages are not apart making a choice.
The Romanian language is not because of that on him,because the folk,the language did not exist in those days!
Comment by Magyar — April 25, 2008 @
“the Scythians, born of the Hebrews”
hahahahaha….NON!
Comment by zoli — April 25, 2008 @
The statement “Hunnish” alphabet is not true. Its ancient Hungarian runic alphabet being used unofficially to the early XX. century, but at that time (and novadays again) it was considered the two languages and people are relatives(Huns and Hungarians).
What shows that Henschel was a German that he separated Transsylvania(german:Siebenbürgen) from Hungarica, but there were only few German settlers and was linguistically part of Hungary.
reply for No.40: in fact new studies show that Hungarians lived in the Carpathian basin before the 9th century so its not so nonsense to suggest Gothic and Hungarian speakers lived near each other.
Comment by Peti — April 25, 2008 @
for Zoli: The kazars were Judaic, as we know from our studies, do we?
At least the tribal chiefs and the Kagan were; the ordinary people were Sun worshippers like the Magyars.We lived under them, too.
Comment by Peti — April 25, 2008 @
Under their rule for a time-period I mean :))
Comment by Peti — April 25, 2008 @
[...] LH reader kattullus sent me a link to this post at strange maps: it reproduces an amazing 18th-century map by Gottfried Hensel (the post says 1730, [...]
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