19

Thanks a lot to all the users who took the time to answer the poll!

I was curious about the site users' distribution of native (and other known) languages.

I made a poll using SurveyMonkey (now closed). I hope you find the results interesting.

29
  • The results will be publicly available, of course Mar 4, 2014 at 20:08
  • Google chrome: "This page is in Spanish, would you like to translate it"? I clicked no and half expected it would automatically check the Spanish box for me :P. Mar 4, 2014 at 20:27
  • @JacobAkkerboom The stup*d poll site decided the language for me and didn't let me change it. The only remaining text in Spanish is the "submit" button label, though. Mar 4, 2014 at 20:33
  • The add looks fine to me, except for the modern-style text font. The thin strokes get lost in the background. Recommend an Egyptian (slab-serif) font to make the text more legible.
    – m_goldberg
    Mar 5, 2014 at 0:19
  • @m_goldberg Thanks! I don't have your suggested font at hand, but used a bolder one. Please check it now. Mar 5, 2014 at 0:38
  • It's much easier to read now. I question the capitalization of "Language" and "Survey".
    – m_goldberg
    Mar 5, 2014 at 0:45
  • @m_goldberg That's because it's a modern ad Mar 5, 2014 at 0:48
  • Then it should have "Do We Speak" not "do we speak" to be consistent.
    – m_goldberg
    Mar 5, 2014 at 0:59
  • Will the Mathematica StackExchange username be publicly available, too?
    – xzczd
    Mar 5, 2014 at 8:12
  • @xzczd Only if we vote here to do so (and nobody opposes). You can leave it blank, of course. Mar 5, 2014 at 8:21
  • @xzczd If you filled it and had second thoughts just drop me a line and I'll wipe it. Mar 5, 2014 at 8:24
  • I myself won't mind if it's published if I have filled it :)
    – xzczd
    Mar 5, 2014 at 8:38
  • Well, I missed the native languages like C, Python and similar... Mar 5, 2014 at 10:00
  • @IstvánZachar That's going to be included in the next poll chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/14111680#14111680 Mar 5, 2014 at 11:23
  • Interesting poll! But options include Volapük but not Mandinka? Impressive selection anyway. Mar 5, 2014 at 19:49

2 Answers 2

9

Results so far (95 users):
Mathematica graphics


{{"Bulgarian", 1}, {"Greek. Modern", 1}, {"Igbo", 1}, {"Japanese", 
  1}, {"Latvian", 1}, {"Norwegian Bokmål", 1}, {"Slovene", 
  1}, {"Telugu", 1}, {"Turkish", 1}, {"Uzbek", 1}, {"Hindi", 
  2}, {"Hungarian", 2}, {"Dutch", 3}, {"Finnish", 3}, {"Italian", 
  3}, {"Portuguese", 3}, {"Swedish", 3}, {"Chinese", 4}, {"French", 
  4}, {"Polish", 4}, {"Russian", 5}, {"Spanish; Castilian", 
  8}, {"German", 10}, {"English", 27}}

Mathematica graphics

{{"Afrikaans", 1}, {"Bihari", 1}, {"Bulgarian", 1}, {"Croatian", 
  1}, {"Esperanto", 1}, {"Estonian", 1}, {"Igbo", 1}, {"Kannada", 
  1}, {"Latvian", 1}, {"Malayalam", 1}, {"Norwegian Bokmål", 
  1}, {"Norwegian Nynorsk", 1}, {"Romanian", 1}, {"Slovak", 
  1}, {"Slovene", 1}, {"Telugu", 1}, {"Turkish", 1}, {"Uzbek", 
  1}, {"Welsh", 1}, {"Wolof", 1}, {"Catalan; Valencian", 
  2}, {"Danish", 2}, {"Greek. Modern", 2}, {"Hungarian", 
  2}, {"Finnish", 3}, {"Hindi", 3}, {"Norwegian", 3}, {"Chinese", 
  4}, {"Polish", 4}, {"Japanese", 5}, {"Portuguese", 5}, {"Italian", 
  6}, {"Dutch", 7}, {"Latin", 7}, {"Russian", 7}, {"Swedish", 
  7}, {"Spanish; Castilian", 20}, {"French", 24}, {"German", 
  26}, {"English", 84}}

Mathematica graphics

You may want to correlate these results with the "real people" world's population:

Mathematica graphics

8
  • No one speaks English as their first language? How interesting!
    – m_goldberg
    Mar 5, 2014 at 0:06
  • @m_goldberg Our sample is still very small Mar 5, 2014 at 0:14
  • It isn't clear whether or not to include one's first language in one's answers to second question.
    – m_goldberg
    Mar 5, 2014 at 0:17
  • @m_goldberg You're right. Edited asking to include also the first language Mar 5, 2014 at 0:41
  • 2
    Is this a ploy to weed out the monoglots amongst the group? Mar 5, 2014 at 13:57
  • @bobthechemist :) Mar 5, 2014 at 14:13
  • The fonts on the last two diagrams are tiny :(
    – Yves Klett
    Mar 16, 2014 at 8:06
  • 1
    @YvesKlett Better now? Mar 16, 2014 at 22:12
7

Some additional statistics:

Mathematica graphics Mathematica graphics

Where in the world could you find users?

Mathematica graphics

Number of users per country:

Mathematica graphics

How many users are in countries where the "Official Language" is different from his/her first language?

Mathematica graphics

12
  • very nice. I presume the timezone and location data from the user ids?...i guess you can add {long,lat,tz}={153,-27.5,+10}...
    – ubpdqn
    Mar 9, 2014 at 8:28
  • @ubpdqn I didn't know that when I posted the poll, but it reports the IPs (in a very awkward format, though). The rest is easy to get from there. Mar 9, 2014 at 8:32
  • @belisarius I deleted a comment that in my mind was reflective as I thought it might have been ambiguously perceived. I think these analytics are interesting (with sampling issues acknowledged) and you are publicly sharing them for all.
    – ubpdqn
    Mar 10, 2014 at 6:20
  • @m_goldberg Take a look now Mar 11, 2014 at 12:13
  • I feel that my IP has been used.., don't know why. mhmm :D
    – Öskå
    Mar 11, 2014 at 12:53
  • @Öskå If you really feel bad about that please refer to the edit I've done in the question. But I guess the usage is anonymous enough to be on the safe side ;) Mar 11, 2014 at 13:04
  • 1
    I just saw the edit & I don't mind of course :) Waldo is here to protect us anyway.
    – Öskå
    Mar 11, 2014 at 13:08
  • I never knew that survey monkey collected and provided the IP to poll creators. I suppose it is useful for fraud prevention, but that is probably something that needs to be done by the software. If you were also a moderator, you would easily be able to match a user with a response with the IP information from both data sets...
    – rm -rf Mod
    Mar 11, 2014 at 15:52
  • @rm-rf I didn't know either. In addition, the platform really sucks. I think we need a better one for the next poll. Mar 11, 2014 at 16:20
  • @belisarius Ok, I can make something for that and run it on my app server. I need to first learn some SQL sanitization techniques :)
    – rm -rf Mod
    Mar 11, 2014 at 17:04
  • @rm-rf of course, BobbyTables Mar 11, 2014 at 17:41
  • @belisarius nice 'heat' map of world...look forward to more polls... καληνύχτα
    – ubpdqn
    Mar 13, 2014 at 13:53

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