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I think the graph shows the geographic extent of the languages not which language is primarily spoken in which region.

With single color regions, that's impossible. E.g. you can't show the geographical extent of both English and Irish if there are places people speak both.

I was serious when I asked if this map was from 1750. It looks about right for that, at least for the western European countries whose history I know well. (I can only guess about all the ethnic pockets in Russia).

I don't think Occitan had shrinked that much before the French Revolution?

My guess is the author is assuming that everyone knows where the dominant, 'imperial' languages (English, French, German, Spanish, Russian ...) are spoken, and aims to represent the deltas from those. Either that, or it has an exaggerated anti-imperialist bias.

Agreed. If you assume that the dominant languages have been 'colored in' first and the lesser dominant languages have been laid on top then it works.

That's what I thought of too.

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