Linguistic Maps

Languages that use “ciao” or a similar version descended from Italian as a greeting or an informal goobye

Present in: Portuguese (tchau), Spanish from Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, Costa Rica, Catalan, Sicilian, Maltese, Venetian, Lombard, Romansh, German (tschau), Swiss German, every Slavic language except Polish and Belarussian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Estonian (tsau), Greek, Albanian (qao), Romanian (ceau), Hungarian (csaó), Somali, Amharic, Tigrinya, Malaysian. The Vietnamese “chào” is not related to Italian, so it’s unmarked there. 

Edit: the map only includes those languages that use ‘ciao’ as the most common informal way of greeting/goodbye, not as part of slang, argots or people who use it just to sound cool. For example, in Portuguese, Maltese or Latvian it has surpassed the older forms of saying goodbye in informal situations for all social classes. 

Retroflex sibilants and apico-alveolar sibilants (both either fricatives and affricates)

These similar sounds occur in: Retroflex sibilants occur in Slavic languages (Polish, Serbo-Croatian, Russian, Mandarin, Indo-Arian and Dravidian languages, Pashto, South Vietnamese, Javanese and Mapundungun. Apicals occur in north Iberian dialects, Greece, Finland, Icelandic, Shona. Malagasy and Fijian have retroflex affricates, but they’re non-sibilants. 

Predicative possession

This map shows alternative ways of conveying the “to have” meaning found in English and most European langugages. Many languages express this through an existential clause, for example, for the sentence “I have a house” the literal translations in the four subtypes would be:

Locative/Dative possessive - At-me house is. OR To-me house there is. 

Genitive possessive - Mine house is. OR My house-mine there is. 

Topic possessive - As far as I am concerned, house there is. OR As for me, a house exists. 

Comitative/Conjunctional possessive - a house with-me exists. OR I house and/too/while (is)

Note: please ignore the word worder as it is extremely variable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consonant_mutation

Consonant mutations

Only lnguages with mutations derived from morphology or syntax are marked. Do not confuse with sandhi. 

Present in the Celtic languages, Russian, Ukrainian, the Finic languages (Finnish, Estonian, Karelian, Sami languages, Nenets, Nganasan), Nivkh, Latvian, Hebrew, Burmese, Japanese, Indonesian/Malaysian, Central Vanuatu languages, Dholuo (in Kenya and Tanzania), Pular/Fulfulbe/Peul (Western Africa), and Ute/Northern Ute languages (Colorado, Utah). 

Palatalized consonants 

phonemically or morphophonemically present in the Uralic languages (Sami languages, Estonian, Mari, Nenets, Komi, Erzya, Udmurt), the baltic and slavic languages (Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Belarussian, Russian, Ukranian, Bulgarian), Romanian, Abaza, Abkhaz, Adyghe, Circassian, Chechen, Mongolian, the central Chadic Languages, the Celtic languages (Irish, Manx, Scottish Gaelic), Bambara, and Portuguese from Madeira and Portuguese from St. Tomé and Príncipe. Some scattered amerindian languages in Equador, Peru and Bolivia too. 

Palatalized consonants involve co-articulation with the tongue raised against the hard palate. It’s denoted in the IPA with the superscript symbol [ʲ] after the consonant.