[Foundation-l] Where do our readers come from?

[Andre Engels]

On Thu, Jan 14, 2010 at 5:27 AM, Erik Zachte <erikzachte at infodisiac.com> wrote:
> Today I released 4 new reports, which all focus on:
>
> Where do our readers come from?
>
>
>
>  <http://tinyurl.com/yhdej3j> http://tinyurl.com/yhdej3j

Going through the countries, another remarkable result in my opinion
is the Ukraine - Ukrainian is not a small language by any means, yet
Wikipedia visitors tend to be drawn to the Russian Wikipedia instead.

Also, the Q3-Q4 comparison for most countries shows a shift from
English to the 'vernacular'. Do you have data on this from a longer
period of time? That is, is this part of an ongoing shift, or is it a
seasonal effect (perhaps having to do with Q3 containing the school
holidays in most countries?

To quantify this, I have taken the 50 largest countries, excluding
languages where English is the main language (United States, United
Kingdom, Canada, Australia, India, Philippines, Singapore, Ireland,
New Zealand, South Africa). For all countries I have compared the
percentage going to the main language Wikipedia and those going to the
English Wikipedia (in the Ukrainian case: the Russian Wikipedia), and
also the 'swing' (in the way the term is used in UK politics, see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swing_%28United_Kingdom%29) from English
to the local language (or in the reverse direction, if it is
negative). For countries such as Spain and Belgium which have more
than one local language, the similar data with all local languages are
also given.

Japan: Japanese 92.2% over English (swing -0.4%)
Germany: German 72.2% over English (swing 1.5%)
France: French 67.5% over English (swing 4.1%)
Poland: Polish 71.5% over English (swing 4.0%)
Italy: Italian 71.5% over English (swing 4.7%)
Mexico: Spanish 71.5% over English (swing 3.4%)
Brazil: Portuguese 67.7% over English (swing 1.1%)
Spain: Spanish 60.3% over English (swing 7.0%) - vernaculars 64.4%
over English (swing 8.6%)
Netherlands: Dutch 10.4% over English (swing 6.6%)
Russia: Russian 70.2% over English (swing 4.9%)
Sweden: Swedish 13.8% over English (swing 8.1%)
Switzerland: German 36.6% over English (swing 2.1%) - vernaculars
55.0% over English (swing 2.7%)
Austria: German 65.1% over English (swing -1.1%)
Finland: Finnish 24.7% over English (swing 2.2%) - vernaculars 26.8%
over English (swing 2.8%)
China: Chinese 4.8% over English (swing -7.3%)
Turkey: Turkish 48.7% over English (swing 11.7%)
Belgium: Dutch 9.5% over English (swing 9.2%) - vernaculars 40.1% over
English (swing 9.6%)
Argentina: Spanish 66.2% over English (swing 1.2%)
Norway: Norwegian (Bokmal) 0.9% UNDER English (swing 14.4%) -
vernaculars 0.1% over English (swing 14.5%)
Colombia: Spanish 56.3% over English (swing -3.8%)
Czech Republic: Czech 44.3% over English (swing 10.2%)
Hong Kong: Chinese equal to English (swing 1.0%) - vernaculars 1.4%
over English (swing 1.2%)
Taiwan: Chinese 45.5% over English (swing 3.7%) - vernaculars 45.7%
over English (swing 3.7%)
Chile: Spanish 60.6% over English (swing -2.0%)
Israel: Hebrew 10.9% over English (swing 3.9%) - vernaculars 12.8%
over English (swing 3.9%)
Indonesia: Indonesian 10.2% over English (swing 8.5%) - vernaculars
11.3% over English (swing 8.4%)
Portugal: Portuguese 11.9% over English (swing 2.2%)
South Korea: Korean 2.7% over English (swing 12.8%)
Malaysia: Malay 74.5% UNDER English (swing -1.0%)
Peru: Spanish 74.5% over English (swing 2.1%)
Venezuela: Spanish 77.5% over English (swing 11.1%)
Ukraine: Ukrainian 56.6% UNDER RUSSIAN (swing 4.4%)
Romania: Romanian 21.7% UNDER English (swing 12.6%) - vernaculars
18.5% UNDER English (swing 13.4%)
Thailand: Thai 18.9% over English (swing -3.5%)
Denmark: Danish 12.3% UNDER English (swing 10.7%)
Hungary: Hungarian 23.8% over English (swing 6.1%)
Uruguay: Spanish 72.4% over English (swing 1.1%)
Vietnam: Vietnamese 31.0% over English (swing 8.8%)
Greece: Greek 42.1% UNDER English (swing 9.0%)
Bulgaria: Bulgarian 1.4% over English (swing 8.9%)
United Arab Emirates: Arabic 66.8% UNDER English (swing 5.4%)
Egypt: Arabic 18.5% UNDER English (swing 11.3%)
Lithuania: Lithuanian 9.3% UNDER English (swing -6.4%) - vernaculars
9.3% under English (swing -6.6%)
Iran: Persian 0.6% UNDER English (swing 0.5%)

-- 
André Engels, andreengels at gmail.com