SECCS: ST15RM's Easy Country Coloring Scheme
- Thread starter ST15RM
- Start date
>This won't based off of any other map scheme
i'm torn between this being good because it won't start up even more colour-infighting or bad because of constistency issues
anyway, good luck and remember to procrastinate
i'm torn between this being good because it won't start up even more colour-infighting or bad because of constistency issues
anyway, good luck and remember to procrastinate
Alex Richards
Donor
OK, first question:
Why?
What is the purpose of this scheme meant to be, what makes it different from the other 2 dozen schemes that have cropped up and then died in the last few years and what gap is it trying to fill that any other current scheme doesn't?
Why?
What is the purpose of this scheme meant to be, what makes it different from the other 2 dozen schemes that have cropped up and then died in the last few years and what gap is it trying to fill that any other current scheme doesn't?
You know, that's the same question that I ask myself every time the idea of creating my own color scheme crosses my mind.
There.
I said it.
ST15RM
Banned
So, by the way, if your'e wondering, this is how you can use the shades of the colors.
Darkest: Territory of a territory/dominion.
Dark: Territory/organized colony
Main Shade: Main part of State or unorganized colonies.
Light: Puppet states or areas under military rule(i.e. territories already gained during a war and under military occupation)
Lightest: Maritime claims or a state's military gains for the day or year, etc...
Darkest: Territory of a territory/dominion.
Dark: Territory/organized colony
Main Shade: Main part of State or unorganized colonies.
Light: Puppet states or areas under military rule(i.e. territories already gained during a war and under military occupation)
Lightest: Maritime claims or a state's military gains for the day or year, etc...
I'm gonna include languages in this one, so this'll be extra long!!
You know, the problem with drawing a languages map isn't picking a set of colours to represent the languages. It is in fact the same problem that religion maps have. How do you decide which colour gets to be "dominant" in any given locale? For these sorts of maps, it's more about determining a colour gradient (if you want to show levels of influence for the secondary item) and deciding on criteria for what is dominant (language native to teh region? Official language? Language currently dominant? Something else?)
For an actual list of languages, you could do worse than https://www.ethnologue.com/browse/names
ST15RM
Banned
I think not the official language, but the dominant language in the area. I'll think of a way to do that.
Should individual languages be a shade of the language family? Same color group? Or an individual color?
The point I was trying to make is that depending on the purpose of the map, any of those might be the information that needs to be presented. And "dominant" can be problematic. It would, for example, completely erase Occitan, even though it apparently has half a million speakers. And how do you measure the situation in Ukraine, where "dominant language" is something people are literally killing each other over. Malta also has an interesting situation, in that most of the population is functionally bilingual (and a significant fraction functionally fluent in three or more languages), and code-switching happens sometimes even mid-sentence. Then there's cases like Turkey, where official statistics say Turkish is dominant everywhere.
Having a similar set of colours for closely related languages makes it visually harder to distinguish them if they are neighbours (which happens more often than not), but helps distinguish broader language families from each other. The exact choice will necessarily depend on whether the aim of a given map is to highlight individual languages (and which ones) or broader language families.
Basically, the situation is sufficiently complicated that I threw my hands up in horror at the thought of doing something specific for languages. Most people who draw language maps go with "German gets the colour for Germany; French gets the colour for France; and so on".
Having a similar set of colours for closely related languages makes it visually harder to distinguish them if they are neighbours (which happens more often than not), but helps distinguish broader language families from each other. The exact choice will necessarily depend on whether the aim of a given map is to highlight individual languages (and which ones) or broader language families.
Basically, the situation is sufficiently complicated that I threw my hands up in horror at the thought of doing something specific for languages. Most people who draw language maps go with "German gets the colour for Germany; French gets the colour for France; and so on".
Let us all see what SECCS has to offer. It could become a new standard, or it could fail to catch on, but let us see what SECCS is all about!
@ST15RM , I will support you!
@ST15RM , I will support you!
Alex Richards
Donor
If it's based on languages? Nope.
I mean theoretically you could distinguish Austria from Germany by standard forms of German, but then you'd need to include Hochdeutsch, Bayernish, Swiss German, Walser, Transylvanian Saxon and probably about 3 dozen other dialects of various degrees of official standing I'm forgetting about.
ST15RM
Banned
Listen, why would I do dialects? Also i'm just adding a language section.
Also, why are you criticizing my stuff a lot? I'm just making another color scheme sand I wanna be different
ST15RM
Banned
So the reason why nobody does languages is you can't distinguish them from dialects? The thing is, dialect clusters can have a language color, and for language maps, you don't have to have political boundaries, in Alex Richards' example, he says you couldn't distinguish Austria from Germany without putting all the other dialects. I don't think that's the point of a language map, it's just showing where people speak a language.
Alex Richards
Donor
Well if you're doing a language map then 'German' is fine (though we've had a number of people do this before) it's just if you're then trying to use this as a way of doing a political map in which case, um yeah it doesn't really work.
As for why I'm criticising it, because we've got about 2 dozen of the bloody things which have been started in the last couple of years and then just die because nobody uses them and I'm trying to work out why anyone even bothers anymore.