How to use the atlas
The atlas shows all 7,967 languages of the world after Glottolog on an interactive globe. This guide describes every feature and how to use it with a mouse, touch or the keyboard.
The globe
Rotate: drag with the mouse or one finger. Zoom: mouse wheel, pinch with two fingers, the + and − buttons at the top right of the globe, or the + and − keys.
Each dot is one language, placed where Glottolog locates it, usually in the middle of the area where it is spoken. Click a dot to open the language card. The selected language and its relatives are named next to their dots; names of all languages from 2× zoom can be switched on in Settings (Names).
Clicking a country away from the dots highlights the country and all its languages and shows their number according to Glottolog.
The Whole world button and the Language Atlas logo in the top left return the globe to its initial view.
The language card
164 selected languages have a detailed card: an illustration of the region, a greeting with approximate pronunciation and a Play pronunciation button (it uses the device's speech synthesis). Below are the number of speakers, the language family and vitality, and the tabs Note (note, distribution, official status, script, dialects), Vitality, Structure and Relatives.
All other languages have the tabs Overview (vitality, distribution, official status, script, dialects, speaker numbers, sample text), Structure (WALS typology, PHOIBLE sound inventory, documentation) and Relatives.
Official status lists the countries where the language is official – nationally, de facto (without explicit legal status) or regionally (in part of the country only). Script lists the scripts the language is usually written in, the most common first. Both come from Unicode CLDR and are available for about 800 languages.
The Structure tab gives the exact value for each WALS feature; click a feature name to open its typology map.
Arcs on the globe lead from the selected language to its closest relatives. The language family tree line shows its classification in the Glottolog tree.
The chain button copies a link to the language. On a phone the card sits at the bottom of the screen: drag it up to enlarge it, down to shrink or close it.
The language list
You can search for a language, a country or a dialect. The cross in the search box clears it.
You can also type a question in plain words: “languages spoken in Brazil” (languages of a country), “Slavic languages” (a family or branch in Glottolog), “German and Italian” (comparing two languages) or “where is Persian spoken”. The top of the list shows what the search understood and the list shows the matching languages; the button or the Enter key shows them on the globe. Answers come only from the atlas data.
If the search does not understand a question, it offers Ask the AI: an AI (Claude by Anthropic) looks up the atlas data, searches the web for what is not there (listing the sources), and answers in a few sentences, showing the result on the globe. It answers only questions about languages and may be wrong. Website only.
Sort by language family, alphabetically or by continent. Languages with a detailed card are shown as large tiles, the others below them.
The Language of the Day changes at midnight and always states why it was chosen: either a day associated with that language (see the Calendar of language days) or the journey around the world to the next nearest language. On the European Day of Languages (26 September) all European languages of the atlas are shown instead.
Medallions below the globe
The round buttons below the globe (in two rows on a phone) open the main parts of the atlas: Ancient languages, Language stories, Family tree, Maps, Vitality and Settings. Random language sits in the header of the language list, next to the language count, and opens the card of a randomly selected language.
Family tree shows the fan-shaped tree of a language family: with a language selected, its family, otherwise the family chosen in the menu at the top. Drag to move, use the wheel or two fingers to zoom, click a branch to focus on it and click a language to select it. The Circular overview button offers another view of all families at once: the width of a segment is the number of languages; click a segment or a row of the list to go deeper, and click the centre of the circle to go back up. Families with fewer than 25 languages are under Smaller families; isolates, sign and artificial languages and pidgins under Outside families. Back to the tree or Open the family tree returns to the fan.
Vitality opens a page on language endangerment: the number of languages in each degree of the UNESCO scale, the breakdown by world region and by the fifteen largest language families (with a link to the family tree), endangered languages in the atlas, awakening languages, and the method with sources. From there you can colour the globe and the family tree by vitality – the tree then shows which branches of a family are endangered or extinct – and tick which degrees stay visible (a filter). While the colours are on, a key sits below the globe; click it to open the page again. The page also opens from a link on the language card and from the address #vitality.
Maps opens an overview of all colour maps with previews: script, vitality and 24 typological features from WALS. Choosing a map closes the window and colours the globe.
Settings: automatic rotation, language names and sign languages (all, none or only these).
Zoom in and out (+ and −) and the Whole world button sit discreetly at the top right of the globe, below the help question mark; on a phone, pinch with two fingers to zoom.
Typology maps (WALS)
In the Maps window you can choose one of 24 features in five areas (phonology, morphology, word order, clause structure, lexicon). The languages take the colour of their value and a key appears at the bottom right with the number of languages, a description of the feature and a link to the relevant WALS chapter.
After a choice the window closes; Another map… in the key or the Maps medallion opens it again. Clicking a value in the key highlights only the languages with that value. WALS describes a sample of about 2,600 languages; the other dots stay grey.
Map of scripts
The Script map (in the Maps window) colours languages by their main script: Latin, Cyrillic, Arabic, Brahmic scripts (India, Southeast Asia, Tibet), Chinese characters with kana and bopomofo, and other scripts. The legend at the bottom right gives the number of languages; tapping a group highlights it alone.
The script map also shows the areas of 36 living scripts and their names with a sample written in the script itself (Abc, Абв, अआइ…). Tapping a name or a coloured area opens the script card (with a group highlighted, only scripts from it): type (alphabet, abjad, abugida, syllabary, logographic), writing direction, a short note on its origin, the atlas languages written in it and the countries where it writes an official language; the Language at this spot button opens the language you tapped. A link such as thelanguageatlas.com/#pismo-latn opens the card as well.
The data come from Unicode CLDR. For languages about which CLDR keeps detailed data the script is attested; for the rest it is a CLDR estimate (the script in which the language is written, if it is written at all), and the language card marks it as such. The script map and a typological map are not shown at the same time.
Comparing two languages
On a language card choose Compare with another language and select the second language on the globe, in the list or by searching. The comparison shows the relationship and the closest common ancestor, shared and differing WALS features, sound inventories, speaker numbers and script.
Languages of antiquity
The Ancient languages medallion below the globe opens the menu of civilizations; the search also finds them, for example “egypt”. Each item opens a civilization page focused on language and script: history, sample signs, the story of decipherment, related words, grammar, a timeline, photographs and literature. Two overviews come first in the menu: the family tree of scripts (where each alphabet came from, with a table of the word “king” in twenty scripts) and a glossary of terms (abjad, abugida, determinative, boustrophedon…). Pages on Sumer and Akkad, Ancient Egypt, Elam and Urartu, Ancient India, the Hittites, Ancient China, the Phoenicians, the Hebrews and Arameans, Ancient Greece, the Celts, the Etruscans, Ancient Persia, Ancient Rome, the Armenians and Georgians, the Germanic peoples and runes, Aksum, Korea and Hangul, the Göktürks and the Orkhon script, Japan and kana, the Slavs and Great Moravia, the Maya, the Aztecs and the Incas are ready so far.
The page opens above the globe; close it with the cross, the Escape key or by tapping outside it. The “‹ Languages of antiquity” button at the top left returns to the list of civilizations, and the end of each page links to the others. The buttons in the section on languages on the globe show the extinct languages concerned on the globe. The page can also be opened from the language card (for example of Egyptian, Coptic, Hittite or Luwian) and with the links thelanguageatlas.com/#egypt and #hittites; on the website it is also a separate page.
Language stories
The Language stories medallion below the globe opens the menu of stories: thematic pages in the same style as Languages of antiquity, grouped into Travelling words, Journeys of languages, Languages through time, People and languages, and Mysteries. Ready so far: Tea and other travelling words (why the world says either “cha” or “tea”), From Latin to the Romance languages, Languages coming back (Welsh, Māori, Manx, Hebrew) and Linguistic mysteries (undeciphered scripts, language isolates and disputed families).
The Show on the globe button on the tea page closes the page and colours the globe with the WALS map of the origin of the word for tea. The search finds the stories too (for example “tea”); links look like thelanguageatlas.com/#tea, and on the website each story is also a separate page under /stories/.
The page about tea has a section Word journeys on the globe with buttons for tea, coffee, sugar, orange, chocolate, tomato, check and mate, alcohol, zero and cipher, and shampoo. The globe flies over the area the word travelled through and arcs are drawn step by step from the source language; the word form and the language appear at each dot. A dashed arc marks a disputed route. The panel at the top right (below the globe on a phone) lists the steps with dates and notes; tapping a step opens the language card. Play again repeats the animation and the other buttons switch to another word. Close it with the cross, the Escape key or the Whole world button; links look like #cesta-caj.
Journeys of languages
Journeys show on the globe how one language developed from its proto-language to the present: coloured streams spread across the map stage by stage, areas fill in, and earlier stages stay faintly visible as layers of history. Disputed interpretations are drawn dashed. There are journeys of English, Aramaic, Czech, French, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Kurdish, Maltese, Māori (with a detour to Madagascar), Navajo, Romani, Spanish, Turkish and Yiddish. The journey of the alphabet follows a script instead of a language: how an Egyptian picture of an ox head became the letter A via the Phoenicians, Greeks and Romans; each stage shows the letter of its time on the map. It also opens from the legend of the Script map and from a script card.
A journey opens from the Journeys of languages group in Language stories, with the button on a language card named after the journey, such as The journey of English (Interesting fact tab), or with a link such as thelanguageatlas.com/#journey-english.
The panel on the right (below the globe on a phone) has a play and pause button, a timeline slider and a list of stages with their dates and text; tapping a stage shows it in full and pauses playback. Sources are listed below the stages. A journey is closed with the cross, the Escape key, the Whole world button or by selecting another language.
Keyboard
Tab moves between controls. One Tab enters the language list; the arrow keys move between tiles, Home and End jump to the start and end, and Enter selects a language.
The + and − keys zoom the globe. Escape closes a window, the card or a panel.
About, sources, contact, guide and calendar
At the end of the language list (on a phone, at the end of the page) there is a folded line: About, sources, contact, guide and calendar. Click it to expand it.
Calendar of language days: the days of the year associated with a particular language (language days, public holidays, anniversaries). It opens at the nearest day; click a language to show it on the globe.
About the data: the sources (Glottolog, WALS, PHOIBLE, Wikidata, Unicode CLDR and others), their versions and licences, and why the list has more entries than there are dots on the globe.
Full guide: this text.
Languages with a detailed card (website only): all 164 languages on one page. Each opens as a card; use the arrows to move to the next one.
Contact: comments and corrections to info@atlasjazyku.cz. Below are the data sources and their licences.
More
In the top right you can switch the interface language (Česky) and the light or dark theme. Your choices are saved.
Search also knows languages constructed for literature and film (such as Quenya or Klingon); they are shown separately from natural languages.