Chapter 5
Language
Q: What do you call a person who speaks multiple languages?
A: A polyglots
Q: What do you call a person who speaks two languages?
A: Bilingual
Q: What do you call a person who speaks only one language?
A: American
Why do so few Americans know more than one
language?
Geography of Language
Language is the most important way culture is transmitted
Language can shape the attitudes,
understandings, and the responses of the society to which it belongs.
There are literally thousands of languages that are spoken throughout world
Language is a mark of cultural diversity and
identity that helps distinguish social groups.
Intro to Languages
Ethnologue estimates there are 6,909 languages.
Language: an organized system of spoken words by which people communicate with each other with mutual
comprehension.
Many languages have many levels of comprehension. “Chinese” is actually many languages like Cantonese, mandarin, and others.
They share same writing.
More than half of the worlds people speak just 8 languages
Between 20-50% of languages are no longer being taught to kids
Some estimate that only 600 languages will exist by 2100
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
Key Issue 1
Where Are Language Distributed?
Classification of Languages
Indo-European 46%
Sino-Tibetan 21%
Afro-Asiatic 6%
Austronesian 6%
Niger-Congo Family 6%
Dravidian 4%
Altaic 2%
Austro-Asiatic 2%
Japanese 2%
5% speak other
languages
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.
Distribution of Other Language Families
Sino-Tibetan language family
Other East and Southeast Asian language families
Languages of the Middle East
African language families
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 Family Trees
Fig. 5-12: Family trees and estimated numbers of speakers for the main world language families.
Chinese
Ideograms/Logogram s
Fig. 5-13: Chinese language ideograms mostly represent concepts rather than sounds. The two basic characters at the top can be built into more complex words.
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.
Key Issue 2
Why is English Related to Other Languages?
Language Family
English is part of the INDO-EUROPEAN language family
A language family is collection of languages related through a common ancestor long before recorded history
Indo-European is the worlds most extensively
spoken language with 3 billion speaking an Indo-
European language.
Language Branch
A language branch is a group of languages within a family that have similar ancestors several
thousand years ago.
Within the Indo-European languages there are 8 main branches
Can you name them?
After we look at the branches of the Indo-European
languages we will look at the Origin and diffusion of
Indo-European languages
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 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.
Germanic Branch of Indo-European
Fig. 5-6: The Germanic branch today is divided into North and West Germanic groups. English is in the West Germanic group.
Indo-Iranian Branch
This is the largest Indo-European branch
This is divided up into two groups, Indic and Iranian
Indo-Indic which includes languages used in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.
There are many different Hindi language dialects, which led to 18 official languages in India.
Urdu is spoken in Pakistan, and Bengali in Bangladesh.
Indo-Iranian is the second group. These are the
languages spoken by people in Iran and neighboring countries. In Iran they speak Persian, sometimes
called Farsi. Pathan, and Kurdish are other languages
spoken from this branch
South Asian Languages and Language Families
Fig. 5-7: Indo-European is the largest of four main language families in South Asia.
The country of India has 18 official languages.
Balto-Slavic Branch
Slavic was once one language, but in the seventh century slaves from Asia migrated to eastern Europe and now it is divided into West and East.
East Slavic languages include Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian.
Russian increased in importance with the rise of the Soviet Union.
West and South Slavic groups include Polish, Czech, and
Slovak in the West, and Serbo-Croatian and Bulgarian in the South.
Slavic languages are fairly similar, however since the breakup of the former Yugoslavia, Bosnia and Croatia have begun to develop their own identity and because of isolation from each other could become completely different.
Romance Branch
Evolved from the Latin language spoken by Romans 2,000 years ago.
Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Italian are the four main romance languages
Romanian is the 5th important romance language but is separated by the rest by Slavic speakers.
Other Romance languages include Romansh of
Switzerland, Catalan of Andorra, and Sardinian
from the Island of Sardinia.
Romance Branch of Indo-European
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.
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
There are two theories about the diffusion of the language.
First is called the Kurgan Theory (Nomadic Warrior Thesis)
Named after the Kurgan people who lived in 4300 B.C. they came from the steppes near the boarder of Russia and Kazakhstan.
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.
Kurgan Theory of
Indo-European Origin
Fig. 5-9: In the Kurgan theory, Proto-Indo-European diffused from the Kurgan hearth north of the Caspian Sea, beginning about 7,000 years ago.
The second is called the Renfrew Theory (Sedentary Farmer Thesis) is that it 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.
Anatolian Hearth Theory of Indo-
European Origin
Fig. 5-10: In the Anatolian hearth theory, Indo-European originated in Turkey before the Kurgans and diffused through agricultural expansion.
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
Fancy words are from French
Diffusion of English
English colonies
North America
Ireland
South Asia (India)
South Pacific
South Africa
Philippines (U.S. colony)
Invasions of England 5th–11th centuries
Fig. 5-2: The groups that brought what became English to England included Jutes, Angles, Saxons, and Vikings. The Normans later brought French vocabulary to English.
Key Issue 3
Why Do Individual Languages Vary among Places?
Dialects of English
Dialect: regional variation of a language distinguished by distinctive vocabulary, spelling, and pronunciation.
Differences reflect distinctive features of the environment
Isogloss: a boundary that separates
regions in which different language usages predominate.
Dialects caused by migration
English Speaking Countries
Fig. 5-1: English is the official language in 42 countries, including some in which it is not the most widely spoken language. It is also used and understood in many others.
Dialects in England
English originated with three invading groups (Germanic) who spoke dialects of Old English
Normans were French-speaking
5 Major Regional dialects emerged
Northern, East Midland, West Midland,
Southwestern, and Southeastern (Kentish)
Dialects can be sub-divided
Old and Middle English Dialects
Fig. 5-3: The main dialect regions of Old English before the Norman invasion
persisted to some extent in the Middle English dialects through the 1400s.
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
Regionally distinctive words are now national due to globalization
Regional dialectical differences still exist
Example: soft drinks
Dialects in the Eastern U.S.
Fig. 5-4: Hans Kurath divided the eastern U.S. into three dialect regions, whose distribution is similar to that of house types (Fig. 4-9).
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.
Pronunciation Differences
These are more common than word differences
Southern and New England Dialects
Both sound unusual to the majority because standard pronunciation comes from the
Middle Atlantic states
Western settlers came from mostly came from Middle-Atlantic states
Mobility of Americans is a major reason
for relatively uniform language
Key Issue 4
Why Do People Preserve Local Languages?
Introduction
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
Preserving Language Diversity
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.
Celtic: Preserving
Endangered Languages
Celtic was the major language of the British Isles before Germanic invasions.
2,000 years ago Celtic was spoken in Germany, France and northern Italy as well as the UK.
Today it only survives in Scotland, Wales,
Ireland and Brittany France.
Celtic Groups
Two branches, Goidelic (Gaelic) and Brythonic.
Only Gaelic languages that survive are Irish and Scottish. It is the second
official language of Ireland but few speak either.
Most used Brythonic languages are Welsh and Breton which 300,000 still speak on the Brittany peninsula of
France. Only 10,000 speak it more than
French
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.
Multi Lingual States
Belgium is divided between the French speaking
Walloons in the South and the Flemish (Dutch) in the north.
Historically the French speakers were wealthier and ran politics. From pressure from the Flemish they divide the country into two regions. Each ran
independently.
Mayor of Voeren (Fouroms) caused prime minister to resign when he refused to speak Dutch in Flanders.
Today many amendments have been added to the
constitution to give each region more autonomy (self
rule)
Language Divisions in Belgium
Fig. 5-16: There has been much tension in Belgium between Flemings, who live in the north and speak Flemish, a Dutch dialect, and Walloons, who live in the south and speak French.
Switzerland
Switzerland peacefully exists with
several languages including German,
French, Italian, and Romansh
Language Areas in Switzerland
Fig. 5-17: Switzerland remains peaceful with four official languages and a decentralized government structure.
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.
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
French-English
Boundary in Canada
Fig. 5-18: Although Canada is bilingual, French speakers are concentrated in the province of Québec, where 80% of the population speaks French.
African American Dialects
Ebonics: C lassified as a distinct dialect with a recognized vocabulary, grammar and word meaning.
Use of double-negatives
“I ain’t going there no more”
“She be at home”
Its use is controversial. Some regard it as substandard and a measure of poor
education. Others see it as a means fro
preserving African American culture.
English on the Internet
English was the dominant language of the Internet in the 1990s.
1998: 71% of people online were using English
From 1998-2008: English users dropped to 29%.
Chinese increased from 2 to 20%.
Internet Hosts
Fig. 5-1-1: A large proportion of the world’s internet users and hosts are in the developed countries of North America and western Europe.
Internet Hosts, by Language
Fig 5-1-1a: The large majority of internet hosts in 1999 used English, Chinese, Japanese, or European languages.
