Data Underload  / 

It’s All Greek (or Chinese or Spanish or…) to Me

By Nathan Yau

In English, there’s an idiom that notes confusion: “It’s all Greek to me.” Other languages have similar sayings, but they don’t use Greek as their point of confusion, and of course — there’s a Wikipedia page for that. Mark Liberman graphed the relationships several years ago, but the table on Wikipedia references more languages now. So I messed around with it a bit.

“Chinese” is the leading point of confusion, then Spanish and Greek, and then you just move out from there. Languages with lighter border and towards the edges don’t have any other languages that point to them.

Obviously the Wikipedia page isn’t comprehensive, but hey, it was fun to poke at.

Become a member. Support an independent site. Make great charts.

See What You Get

Favorites

Where People Run in Major Cities

There are many exercise apps that allow you to keep …

Real Chart Rules to Follow

There are rules—usually for specific chart types meant to be read in a specific way—that you shouldn’t break. When they are, everyone loses. This is that small handful.

All the Household Types in the U.S.

No need to restrict ourselves to the most common types. There are thousands. Let’s look at all of them.

Visualizing the Uncertainty in Data

Data is an abstraction, and it’s impossible to encapsulate everything it represents in real life. So there is uncertainty. Here are ways to visualize the uncertainty.