What Is MuturZikin and What Can Visitors Find on the Site?

Updated

MuturZikin (muturzikin.com) is a website that publishes linguistic maps of the world, covering Europe, Africa, America, Asia, Oceania, and the Basque Country. According to the site's own description, it provides "useful and practical information for thousands of languages displayed on specific geographic areas." If you want to see where languages are spoken on a map rather than read a text list, this is the kind of resource to check.

What the site offers

The core content is map-based: languages are shown on the geographic areas where they are spoken, across six regional groupings. The site describes this as practical reference information for a very large number of languages, so it works best as a visual overview rather than a dictionary or grammar resource.

The site also states that it publishes its linguistic criteria, internal policy, terms of use, principal references, and an FAQ. Those pages are worth reading before you cite or reuse anything from the maps, since they explain the classification choices behind them.

Language coverage of the interface

The interface is available in many languages. The visible language menu includes, among others:

  • English, Français, Español, Deutsch, Nederlands, Italiano, Português, Русский
  • Euskara, Català, 中文, 日本語, 한국어
  • العربية, فارسی, עברית, हिन्दी, தமிழ், മലയാളം, ગુજરાતી, বাংলা, ಕನ್ನಡ, ไทย, Tiếng Việt, Bahasa Indonesia, Kiswahili, Türkçe, Polski, and many more

This makes the site usable for readers who prefer to navigate in a language other than English.

How to use it

  1. Open muturzikin.com.
  2. Choose your interface language from the language menu.
  3. Select the region you are interested in (Europe, Africa, America, Asia, Oceania, or the Basque Country).
  4. Read the linguistic criteria and FAQ pages if you need to understand how languages are classified or how the material may be used.

The expected result is a regional map showing where the listed languages are spoken, with the site's own notes on method and usage.

Points to keep in mind

  • The site presents itself as a map and reference resource, not a language-learning tool.
  • The copyright notice on the page reads "© 2005–2019," so treat the maps as a snapshot rather than a continuously updated dataset.
  • Before reusing maps, check the terms of use and FAQ, which the site lists alongside its references.

If your task is to get a quick geographic picture of which languages are spoken where, MuturZikin is a reasonable starting point; for detailed or current linguistic data, cross-check with the references the site itself points to.