They speak what? Where?

Do you know where the biggest Welsh-speaking community outside Wales is?

Image: Towfiqu barbhuiya

Migrations, trade, and other historical events have contributed to the spread of languages to regions far from their origins. But sometimes, we arrive at a new location expecting to hear a particular language, only to be surprised by the use of a language we wouldn’t expect. Here are 10 places in the world where an unsuspected language is spoken daily.

Image: Catrin Ellis

Welsh is the sort of language one wouldn’t expect to hear outside Wales, so its presence in southern Argentina often comes as a shock. During the 19th century, a group of Welsh people sailed across the Atlantic looking for a place where they could preserve their culture, which was threatened by English colonial rule. They arrived in Patagonia and founded Y Wladfa, or ‘the colony.’ Despite the harsh weather conditions, the colony subsisted and expanded, maintaining the Welsh language and traditions. Today, Argentina has the highest number of Welsh speakers outside Wales.

Image: Miikka Luotio

Italian is the official language of Italy, but most regions have their own distinct languages. Venetian is spoken in the north-east region of Veneto, but also in the Mexican town of Chipilo, a place that received an influx of migrants from a Venetian town called Segusino. These people spoke Venetian rather than Italian, a language that they were able to maintain thanks to Chipilo being somewhat isolated from other towns. Nowadays, Chipileño is a distinct dialect within the Venetian language.

Image: Josh Reid

Gimli, located north of Winnipeg, the capital of the Canadian province of Manitoba, was established by Icelandic settlers. It is the largest Icelandic community outside Iceland, and it has preserved many Icelandic customs and traditions. While the Icelandic language is still used and taught in Gimli, its fluency is sadly declining.

Image: ibmoon Kim

The island of Sakhalin is part of the Russian Federation, but its control has changed hands multiple times in history, having been disputed by Russia, China, and Japan. After the Russo-Japanese War, Russia ceded the southern part of the island to Japan, which brought workers from one of its colonies, Korea, to work in the coal mines. When the Soviet Union recovered Sakhalin after WWII, the Korean population was around 50,000 people. Nowadays, only a fraction of their descendants are fluent in Sakhalin Korean, which follows the North Korean standard in writing, but the Seoul dialect in speech.

Image: Lucas Gallone

Before Italy became a unified country in the 19th century, many of its regions were part of different empires or kingdoms. During the Middle Ages, the island of Sardinia was part of the Kingdom of Aragon, which later became part of the Spanish Empire. Revolts during Aragonese rule led to the arrival of Catalan settlers, and the Catalan language became widespread. Although it was later replaced by other languages in much of Sardinia, it was preserved in the city of Alghero, where it is still spoken today.

Image: Marie Martin

At the start of the 20th century, Mennonite groups looking for a place where they wouldn’t be forced to abandon their way of life relocated to the Boquerón department in Paraguay. They established several communities and transformed the arid territory into farmland. Though these groups came from different places, most of them spoke Plautdietsch, or Low German, a language that they still use in daily life. The Mennonite population in Paraguay is estimated at around 40,000.

Image: Rafaela Biazi

Portuguese is widely spoken in many Asian countries due to colonization, but this is not the case. More than 100,000 Lebanese emigrated to Brazil in the 19th and 20th centuries, where there are now more than 7 million people of Lebanese descent. While many immigrants decided to permanently stay in South America, others returned home, carrying Portuguese with them. Today, around 10,000 people in the Beqaa Valley speak Portuguese daily.

Image: Roberta Guillen

Heritage languages in the U.S. tend to disappear after a few generations, but Texas German was once the exception. Spoken by thousands of descendants of German immigrants across Texas, and markedly distinct from Standard German, Texas German was at one point granted official recognition comparable to Spanish. Sadly, as a consequence of the First and Second World Wars, the language was suppressed, and its number of speakers has since declined.

Image: FlyD

The fact that the largest Japanese community outside Japan is in South America may come as a surprise, but it is true. Japanese immigrants settled in several South American countries, but especially in Brazil, where nearly two million people are of Japanese descent. Most of them reside in the state of São Paulo. While not all Brazilian Nikkei are fluent in Japanese, it is estimated that there are between 400,000 to 450,000 speakers.

Image: Mathieu Ramus

What are the odds of Thai being spoken by 10% of the population of an archipelago in the Arctic? Quite high, if we consider that those kinds of regions are not densely populated. But how did a Southeast Asian language manage to get there? In the 1970s, many Norwegian miners from Svalbard married Thai women, who in turn became the link for other Thais who migrated looking for work. While there are only about 200 Thai speakers, this represents a sizable portion of Svalbard’s population of roughly 2,500.

Turkey Day!

Learn about one of our favorite holidays with these Thanksgiving facts!

Image: Claudio Schwarz

The last Thursday of November marks one of America’s favorite holidays: Thanksgiving. This iconic celebration is not only a time for delicious food and time well-spent with family and loved ones, but it is also a holiday that makes us think about what it means to be an American. With that in mind, we have selected a few fun and interesting facts about Thanksgiving to help you embrace the holiday spirit. Enjoy!

Image: Patrick Fore

We’ll start at the very beginning with the first Thanksgiving. Most historians mark 1621 as the year of the first Thanksgiving dinner, hosted by the Pilgrims of Plymouth, Massachusetts, to celebrate the good harvest held that year. In order to thank them for their assistance during the scarcity of the previous winter, the Pilgrims shared the celebration with the Wampanoag tribe.

Having said that, some historians argue that the earliest precursor to Thanksgiving happened in 1619 when 38 English settlers arrived in what is now the Commonwealth of Virginia. Their arrival was immediately followed by a religious celebration, designated as an annual observance, to serve as "a day of thanksgiving to Almighty God."

Image: Gabriel Garcia Marengo

But what’s Thanksgiving without its undisputed star? For decades, American families have served turkey as the centerpiece of their Thanksgiving dinners. After all, the holiday is so closely associated with this bird that many call this holiday by the unofficial nickname "Turkey Day." Such is America’s fascination with turkeys that an estimated 46 million are prepared each year.

Interestingly, while nowadays turkey definitively takes center stage in almost every American table, the truth is that this beloved farm bird wasn’t featured in the first Thanksgiving dinner. Instead, the inaugural feast featured fruits, vegetables, fish such as cod and bass, and meats like venison.

Image: Rain Wu

While Thanksgiving is undeniably a time to spend with family, there are still a few things all Americans can enjoy about it. Case in point: Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade through the streets of New York City. Nearly 100 years have passed since the first time this legendary parade took place in 1924, making it the second-oldest Thanksgiving parade, after Philadelphia's.

Macy’s Parade traditionally runs from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day, moving throughout Manhattan streets and ending outside Macy's Herald Square. Its most memorable moments usually come from its delightful and iconic floats, with Peanut’s Snoopy standing out as one of the most beloved characters to hover over the excited crowds.

Image: Tyler Donaghy

We have been dealing with some age-old traditions up to this point, so let’s now focus on a relatively recent one. While the annual ceremony known as the National Thanksgiving Turkey Presentation, on which the U.S. president is presented a live turkey by the National Turkey Federation, dates back to the 1940s, we are instead talking about the tradition known as the turkey pardon.

While President Reagan is often credited as the first to formally pardon a presidential turkey, previous presidents also spared the lives of their gifted poultry: For instance, both President Kennedy and Carter returned their turkeys to live on farms or in petting zoos. Having said that, the tradition became a widely recognized tradition during the presidency of George H.W. Bush, with every president after him issuing pardons on their turkeys.

Image: Anna Gru

Thanksgiving tends to be a busy time for everyone: with so much food to cook and decorations to prepare, everyone has to pitch in and do their part. But your dinner table is definitively not the only busy place around—Thanksgiving tends to be the busiest time of the year for air travel since millions of Americans go back home to spend time with their loved ones.

To be fair, the busiest travel days are typically the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and the Sunday after, as these are the days when most people hit the road or take to the skies. It’s estimated that approximately 31% of Americans travel for Thanksgiving.

Image: Ana Maltez

Turkey might be synonymous with this holiday, but we all know that a truly memorable Thanksgiving table is brimming with delicious dishes. So, let’s take some time to pay homage to the myriad of incredible side dishes that accompany us every Thanksgiving.

The usual favorites include yams, green bean casserole, and cranberry sauce, but the truth is that each family introduces their own unique twists and preferences to the table. We’ll leave you the next few lines to reminisce about those amazing dishes that would make your Thanksgiving extra special.

Image: Riley McCullough

As long as traditions go, this one seems timeless: Who doesn’t remember tossing around the old pigskin while waiting for Thanksgiving dinner to be ready? Football and Thanksgiving have been synonymous throughout modern American history, whether through a friendly game of flag football or by watching professional games broadcast on TV.

Since its creation in 1920, the NFL has played games on Thanksgiving Day. Traditionally, two of these games have been hosted by the Detroit Lions since 1934, and by the Dallas Cowboys since 1966. This tradition comes from the days before the formation of the NFL when college football games were a hallmark of the November season.

Image: Janne Simoes

As we mentioned earlier, Thanksgiving dates back to many years before the founding of our country. However, it wasn’t until the 19th century that this holiday was declared a National Holiday, proclaimed by the Great Emancipator himself, President Lincoln.

During the turmoil of the American Civil War, President Lincoln issued a proclamation establishing a National Thanksgiving Holiday would henceforth be celebrated on the 26th of November 1863, the last Thursday of November that year. In this document, the president stated that the gifts of God to the United States should be "gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American people."

Image: J. Amill Santiago

Hear us out: By no means are we trying to besmirch the good name of our 3rd President with this entry. However, it should be said that, during Thomas Jefferson’s presidency, no federal Thanksgiving holiday was declared. Was Thomas Jefferson some sort of Thanksgiving Grinch, that tried to keep this holiday all for himself? Far from it. Like much of what this country owes to this Founding Father, this had to do with Jefferson’s strong ideals.

Before President Lincoln declared a federal Thanksgiving Day, U.S. Presidents had to declare the holiday annually. Because Thanksgiving included prayers to thank God for His blessings, Jefferson considered that declaring a National Thanksgiving would be against his belief of separating church and state.

Image: Simon Maage

We’ll close this article by highlighting what we believe to be the most important part of this holiday. As we mentioned earlier, Thanksgiving is a time for being thankful for the many things going on in our lives.

The ways in which people express their gratitude vary. Some choose this time to give back to their fellow Americans and sign up to help provide a Thanksgiving meal for those in need. In any case, we believe that the most important thing is to let your loved ones and your community know in what ways they have made a difference this year.