Culture
Mapped: Second Primary Languages Around the World
Mapped: Second Primary Languages Around the World
After the primary language, what second languages are used as native tongues in your country?
The answer reveals a lot about history and location. Whether through immigration, colonization, or local culture, a primary language can either spread around the world or remain rooted in place.
This map from MoveHub shows the second most commonly spoken primary language in most countries, using data from the CIA World Factbook and Wikipedia as of February 2021.
The Difference Between Primary and Secondary Languages
First, it’s important to differentiate between primary languages and secondary languages.
A primary language—also known as a first or native language—is the language we use most frequently to communicate. These are languages we are usually born with, have a lot of exposure to, and use at home.
On the other hand, a secondary language is one we learn or pick up after our primary language. In many countries, English is the most commonly learned, with close to 1 billion speakers.
But a map of common second languages can simply show just how many countries prioritize learning English, the de-facto international language in many organizations. Instead, this map highlights the movement of people by showing the second-most common primary language.
The Second Most Common Primary Languages by Country
Even when filtering by primary language use, however, English and other Indo-European languages dominate the world.
With 55 countries speaking it as the second-most common primary language, English came out on top.
| Top 10 Most Popular Second Primary Languages | Number of Countries |
|---|---|
| English | 55 |
| French | 14 |
| Russian | 13 |
| Spanish | 8 |
| Creole | 8 |
| Arabic | 6 |
| Kurdish | 4 |
| Portugese | 4 |
| Italian | 3 |
| Quechua | 3 |
The use of English as a second primary language was primarily concentrated in Western Europe, Northern Africa, and Southeast Asia and Oceania.
Similarly to second-place French with 14 countries and third-place Russian with 13 countries, English was most common in proximity to English-speaking countries or where there was a history of immigration.
Other second-most common primary languages highlighted different cultures within countries, such as China’s second-most common language Cantonese. Alternatively, they showed the primary indigenous language before colonization, such as the Quechua languages in South America.
What other interesting or surprising language patterns can you spot in the map above?
Culture
Visualized: The Daily Routines of Famous Creatives
The daily routines of 16 famous creatives—poets, thinkers, scientists and even politicians—are charted for comparison with each other.
Creator Program
Visualized: The Daily Routines of Famous Creatives
What is the best daily routine to unlock creativity, or is there such a thing?
Many modern suggestions for optimizing creativity—like scheduling time for “deep work,” and building small, sustainable “atomic habits”—can be traced back to famous creatives in many different eras. And though they all found success, they employed different methods as well.
In this unique visualization, RJ Andrews from InfoWeTrust has charted how notable creatives in different fields spent their days. He picked 16 of the 161 “inspired minds” covered by Daily Rituals: How Artists Work, a book by writer and editor Mason Currey published in 2013.
How Much “Creativity Time” in Famous Daily Routines?
Dividing the day into 24 hours, Andrews denoted certain categories for daily activities like working creatively, sleeping, and other miscellaneous endeavors (meals, leisure, exercise, and social time).
For the creatives with a separate day job—Immanuel Kant and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart—their ordinary labor is also counted in miscellaneous activities.
Below is a breakdown of the daily routine of all 16 people featured above:
| Name | Occupation | Creative (hrs) | Sleep (hrs) | Miscellaneous (hrs) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maya Angelou | Writer/Poet | 9 | 7.5 | 7.5 |
| W.H. Auden | Poet | 11.5 | 7 | 5.5 |
| Honoré de Balzac | Novelist | 13.5 | 8.5 | 2 |
| L.V. Beethoven | Composer / Pianist | 8 | 8 | 8 |
| Le Corbusier | Architect | 8.5 | 7 | 8.5 |
| Charles Darwin | Naturalist / Biologist/ Geologist | 7 | 8 | 9 |
| Charles Dickens | Writer | 5 | 7 | 12 |
| Gustave Flaubert | Novelist | 10.5 | 7 | 6.5 |
| Sigmund Freud | Psychologist | 12.5 | 6 | 5.5 |
| Benjamin Franklin | Writer / Inventor / Scientist / Statesman | 8 | 7 | 9 |
| Victor Hugo | Writer | 2 | 8 | 14 |
| Immanuel Kant | Philosopher | 7 | 7 | 10 |
| Thomas Mann | Novelist | 8 | 8 | 8 |
| John Milton | Poet | 8 | 7 | 9 |
| W.A. Mozart | Composer / Pianist | 8 | 5 | 11 |
| P.I. Tchaikovsky | Composer | 4.5 | 8 | 11.5 |
The average and median amount of time spent on creative work for these individuals was just over 8 hours a day. At the extremes were two French novelists, Honoré de Balzac with 13.5 hours daily spent on creative work, and Victor Hugo with only 2 hours.
Interestingly, the allocation of creative work time was different in almost every daily routine. Maya Angelou’s routine resembles the modern work day, with the bulk of her writing between 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Others like Kant and Mozart had creativity blocks when time allowed, such as before and after their teaching jobs.
Then there are outliers like Honoré de Balzac and Sigmund Freud, who worked as much as they could. Balzac wrote from 1:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. with just an hour and a half nap break in between, fueled by up to 50 cups of coffee. Freud split up his creative work into three different blocks: analyzing patients in the morning, consulting in the afternoon, and reading and writing journals into the late evening.
But somewhere in their days, most of these brilliant minds made sure to get a good rest, with an average of 7.25 hours of sleep across the board.
Schedule Yourself to Create Success
Creativity may ebb and flow, but these great minds had one clear thing in common: scheduling time for creative work.
The perfect daily routine was usually what fit in with their lifestyle (and their bodies), not based on an arbitrary amount of work. For example, night owls with later chronotypes worked late, while socialites and politicians found time outside of their commitments.
They also found time to move and enjoy life. Half of the people in the dataset specified exercise in their accounts—either leisurely strolls or fast walks. Many also scheduled social time with partners, friends, or children, often paired with a meal.
Perhaps the greatest insight, however, is that the day-to-day routine doesn’t have to look extraordinary to be able to create extraordinary work.
-
Money4 weeks agoVisualizing the Assets and Liabilities of U.S. Banks
-
Wealth2 weeks agoRanked: The World’s Top 50 Endowment Funds
-
Markets3 weeks agoVisualized: Real Interest Rates by Country
-
Politics2 weeks agoCharting the Rise of America’s Debt Ceiling
-
Money3 weeks agoComparing the Speed of Interest Rate Hikes (1988-2023)
-
United States2 weeks agoRanked: The Cities with the Most Skyscrapers in 2023
-
War3 weeks agoMap Explainer: Sudan
-
Urbanization1 week agoRanked: The World’s Biggest Steel Producers, by Country