Language
and Culture
New European Language
The European Union commissioners have
announced that agreement has been reached to adopt English as the preferred language for
European communications, rather than German, which was the other possibility. As part of the
negotiations, Her Majesty's Government conceded that English spelling had some room for
improvement and has accepted a five-year phased
plan for what will be known as EuroEnglish (Euro
for short).
New European Language, cont.
In the first year, "s" will be used instead of the soft "c."
Sertainly, sivil servants will resieve this news with joy.
Also, the hard "c" will be replaced with "k". Not only will this klear up konfusion, but typewriters kan have one less letter.
There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced by
"f". This will make words like fotograf" 20 persent
shorter.
New European Language, cont.
In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new
spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.
Governments will enkorage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of silent
"e"s in the languag is disgrasful, and they would go.
By the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such
as replasing "th" by "z" and "w" by " v".
New European Language, cont.
During ze fifz year, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd
from vords kontaining "ou", and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters.
After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubls or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech ozer.
Ze drem vil finali kum tru.
Language Brainstorm
• Working with the person sitting next to you,
brainstorm a list of as many languages as you
can in 3 minutes.
Why is language important?
• It helps us communicate to meet our needs
– Baby/child
• It shapes/molds what we think/dream about
– Without language, what would your thoughts and dreams be like?
• It allows us to pass on traditions and beliefs
• It forms emotional connections with people
– Being understood/misunderstood
• It allows us to talk about things that are not physically present in order to create culture
– Beliefs/ideas – Government
– Social relationships
A Man Without Words
http://www.radiolab.org/story/91728-words-that-change-the-world/ (0 :54-11:30)
• What does language do for us?
• Is language necessary?
• Can you live, think, or dream without language?
• What changes as the man in the podcast
learns language?
So What is Language?
• Language = way of communication either spoken or written
– Over 7,000 languages
– 90% of languages are spoken by 100,000 people or less
– 46 languages have only one speaker
Language, cont.
Dialect
• Dialect – a language that has it’s own unique words, grammar, and
pronunciations
– Does Utah have its own English dialect?
– Other examples?
• https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=1w6uQIXC1aI
Accent
• Accent – a way of
pronouncing certain words that is unique to a certain area
– How is British English different from American English?
• https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=
Xle3UpK5bq8
Why do languages, dialects, and accents differ from region to region?
Social Class and Language
Non-standard features: improper grammar (“We wuz” “ain’t”), slang, “soft” pronunciation (not speaking clearly/enunciating), use of
profanity vs. adjectives, etc..
Write the following questions on the back of your language notes
1. What happens as you go from language family to language group?
2. How do different languages form over time?
3. Where did English come from?
4. What Indo-European language died out?
5. What are ways people are trying to preserve
their local languages and culture?
Classification of Languages
• Proto-languages: the earliest forms of language
• Language Family: large groups of
languages that come from the same proto- language are called
• Language Branch: Within a language
family, languages that come from the same ancient ancestor
• Language Group: Within a language branch, languages that share a more recent ancestor
• Example: English belongs to the West
Germanic group of the Germanic language branch in the Indo-European family of an ancient proto-language
Proto-
Family Family
Branch Branch
Group
Branch Branch
Group
Group Group Group Group Group Group
Language Family Trees
Fig. 5-12: Family trees and estimated numbers of speakers for the main world language families.
Major Language Families
Percentage of World Population
Fig. 5-11a: The percentage of world population speaking each of the main language families. Indo-European and Sino-Tibetan together represent almost 75% of the world’s people.
Language Families of the World
Fig. 5-11: Distribution of the world’s main language families. Languages with more than 100 million speakers are named.
Language Families of Africa
Fig. 5-14: The 1,000 or more languages of Africa are divided among five main language families, including Austronesian languages in Madagascar.
Languages of Nigeria
Fig. 5-15: More than 200 languages are spoken in Nigeria, the largest country in Africa (by population). English, considered neutral, is the official language.
How have so many languages and dialects developed throughout the world?
• Through Migration and Isolation!
• Case Study, Indo-European Language and
English
Indo-European Language Family
Fig. 5-5: The main branches of the Indo-European language family include Germanic, Romance, Balto- Slavic, and Indo- Iranian.
Indo-European is the worlds most extensively
spoken language with 3 billion speaking an Indo-European
language.
Origin and Diffusion of Indo-European Languages
• Origin of the Indo-European Language
– It can not be proven that there was a single ancestor to the Indo- European language family but there is evidence that a Proto-Indo- European language did exist.
– Evidence is found in similar words in different languages such as oak, bear, deer, and pheasant and other words that could have been a part of daily life.
– Indo-European languages share similar words for winter and snow, but not for ocean. Linguists believe that the Proto-Indo-European language came from a cold climate that did not have contact with the ocean.
Diffusion of the Indo-European language ( Two Theories
• First is called the Kurgan Theory (Nomadic Warrior Thesis)
– They were nomads who domesticated the horse and cattle and moved west in search of
grasslands.
– They used the horse as a weapon to conquer
Southwest Asia and the
Balkan peninsula.
2
ndRenfrew Theory (Sedentary Farmer Thesis)
• Diffused from Anatolia westward to Greece.
– This idea believes the language spread by agricultural practices through Greece, Italy, and
Turkey up into central and western Europe
• We are not sure which is correct but both theories have valid points.
One spread by military means, the
other through contact of better
agricultural practices.
Romance and Germanic Branches of Indo-European language family
Fig. 5-8: The Romance branch includes three of the world’s 12 most widely spoken languages (Spanish, French, and Portuguese), as well as a number of smaller languages and dialects.
Evolved from the Latin language spoken by Romans 2,000 years ago.
Fig. 5-6: The Germanic branch today is divided into North and West Germanic groups. English is in the West Germanic group.
Indo-European Languages
– Germanic Branch
• English is a Germanic language because of the Germanic tribes that invaded England 1500 years ago.
• English and German are both part of the West Germanic group because they are structurally similar and have many words in common
• German spoken today is High German because it comes from the southern German highlands.
• English comes from Low German which was spoken in the northern parts of Germany. Dutch, Afrikaans, and Northern German dialects are Low German
• Germanic also included the Scandinavian languages of Swedish, Danish, Norwegian and Icelandic, which all come from Old
Norse.
Origin of English
• Celts inhabited British Isles until mainland tribes invaded.
• German Invasion
– Angles, Saxons, and Jutes (Germanic Tribes)
• Norman Invasion
• English is very different from German because of the Normans (French- speaking)
• Simpler words are from Germanic roots
– Sky, horse, man, women
• Fancy words are from French
– Celestial, equestrian, masculine, feminine
Invasions of England 5th–11th centuries
Differences Between British & American English
• Why is English in the U.S. so different from that in England?
– Isolation
• Three significant differences
– Vocabulary
– Spelling (Cultural nationalism)
– Pronunciation
Dialects in the U.S.
• Regional differences date back to 17
thcentury settlement
• Major dialect differences
– East Coast: Two important Isoglosses separate the east into 3 regions
• Northern, Midlands, Southern
• West is more like Midlands because of Western migration
• Regionally distinctive words are now national due to globalization
• Regional dialectical differences still exist
– Example: soft drinks
Soft-Drink Dialects
Fig. 5-8: Soft-drink dialects. Soft drinks are called “soda” in the Northeast and Southwest, “pop” in the Midwest and Northwest, and
“Coke” in the South.
Preserving Language Diversity
• Distribution of a language is a measure of the fate of an ethnic group
• The number of English speakers shows the cultural dominance compared to Icelandic which remains in Isolation.
• Language shows the battle between globalization and
local diversity
Preservation Cont…
• Extinct languages were once used but are no longer in use.
• Once there were over 500 languages in the Amazon region, now there are 57 or fewer.
• Gothic was spoken in Northern and Eastern Europe in third century A.D. but it and it’s entire language group are gone.
• Languages die through integration, when other
stronger cultures take over through politics or cultural
preference.
Preservation Cont…
• Some Languages are being preserved. European Bureau of Lesser Used Languages try and preserve mainly
languages of the Celtic branch of Indo-European languages
• Linguists (people who study languages) predict that hundreds of languages will die in the 21st century.
• There may only be 300 that are safe from extinction.
Hebrew: Reviving Extinct Languages
• Hebrew is a rare case where it went basically extinct then it was revived.
• Bible was mostly written in Hebrew and Aramaic.
Hebrew lost popularity in the 4th century BC and only Jews remained using it for religious use.
• Eliezer Ben-Yehuda is one person who led the way to
revive Hebrew after Israel became independent. He
wrote the first Hebrew dictionary, and created over
4,000 new Hebrew words for modern things that did
not exist.
Revival of Celtic Language
• Welsh has made a comeback because of the efforts of the Welsh Language Society and Welsh being taught in schools
• Irish Gaelic also has grown with the help of the
younger Irish. It is also taught, and it is being used in pop culture more and more. Even an Irish Gaelic T.V.
station started broadcasting in 1996
• A couple hundred people have even revived Cornish
(a Brythonic language) but they fight over how to
spell things.
Preserving Endangered Language in New York City
• https://
www.nytimes.com/video/nyregion/1247467719
180/city-of-endangered-languages.html
Isolated Languages
• Isolated Languages are unrelated to any other and not
attached to any language family and occur because of lack of interaction with other languages.
• Basque is the only language spoken in Europe that was there before the Indo-Europeans came. It is spoken in the Pyrenees mountains of N. Spain and S. France.
• Icelandic IS related to North Germanic languages although
it has changed less in the last 1,000 years than any other
Germanic language because of isolation
Global Dominance of English
• Lingua Franca: A language of international communication.
– English – Swahili – Hindi
– Indonesian – Russian
• Pidgin language: Simplified form of a lingua franca It has
no native speakers as is always a second language.
Which Language is Spoken in the Most Countries?
English is spoken in the most countries with
127 countries where the language is either an indigenous language or spoken by a substa ntial immigrant group
. English is an official language in 58 sovereign states and 21 non-sovereign entities.
MAP OF NATIONS USING ENGLISH AS A DE FACTO OR OFFICIAL MAJORITY LANGUAGE (DARK BLUE) OR AN OFFICIAL MINORITY LANGUAGE (LIGHT BLUE).
SOURCE: WIKIPEDIA – LIST OF COUNTRIES WHERE ENGLISH IS AN OFFICIAL LANGUAGE.
More English
• English is taught to 83 % of High school students in EU countries, and more than 90% in some.
• 200 million speak English fluently as a second language and Millions more have a working knowledge of it.
• Japan has even considered making it a second official
language.
Expansion Diffusion of English
• English originally spread through migration and
conquest… today it spreads through expansion diffusion
• Franglais: combination of French and English languages
• Spanglish: combination of Spanish and English languages
• Denglish: combination of German and English languages
• All mark the diffusion of English vocabulary into another
language
Facts about Languages
• Which Country Has the Most Languages?
• According to Ethnologue, the country that has the most languages is Papua New Guinea with 837 living languages. Indonesia follows with 706 living languages.
Nigeria has the third most languages in the world with 527 living languages.
Contrary to this list, a recent survey by the Bhasha Research & Publication Centre reported that although there are only 122 officially recognized languages, 780 were catalogued and another 100 were suspected to exist.
• Which Country has the Highest Density of Languages?
• Vanuatu, an Oceanian island nation located in the South Pacific Ocean, has the highest density with 112 living languages spread over a geographic area of 12,189 square kilometers. The country has one language for every 109 square kilometers (42 square miles) with an average of only 2,000 speakers per language. Vanuatu has three official languages: English, French, and Bislama, a creole language evolved from English.
Which Country has the Most Official Languages?
According to the Guinness World Records, South Africa is the country with the most official languages. There are currently eleven official languages: English, Afrikaans, isiZulu, isiXhosa, Sesotho, Setswana, Sepedi, Xitsonga, siSwati, isiNdebele and
Tshivenda.
Which Language has the Most First-Language (Native) Speakers?
Variants of Chinese head up the list of languages with the most first-language (i.e. the language learned from birth or speaks the best) speakers with 1.197 billion speakers.
Spanish follows in second place with 414 million speakers, and English is in third place with 335 million speakers.
Source: Ethnologue, Summary by Language Size.
