Language Chapter 5 Introduction l l Estimated

Language Chapter 5

Introduction l l Estimated 7299 languages in the world Only 10 are spoken by more than 100 million people –English, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, German, Mandarin, Hindi, Bengali, Arabic, Japanese About 100 languages are spoken by more than 5 million 70 languages between 2 and 5 million

continued l l Language- a system of communication through speech, a collection of sounds that a group of people understands to have the same meaning Literary tradition- a system of written communication • Most languages have, but many do not

continued l Most countries designate an official language • The one used by the government for laws, reports, and public objects, such as road signs, money, and stamps l Language is an important part of culture because it is the means through which cultural values are transmitted

Origin and Diffusion of English l Location of English speakers serves as a case study for understanding the process by which any language is distributed around the world • A lang. originates in one place and diffuses to other locations thru the migration of its speakers

continued l l l English is spoken by ½ billion people (2 nd highest total– Mandarin the highest) Mandarin people clustered in China English speakers are spread around the world –official language in more than 50 countries and spoken by a large amount of people in other countries as well

continued l l The contemporary distribution of English speakers around the world exists because of migration from England to their colonies around the world during the past 4 centuries English is the official language of most of its former colonies

continued l l l English first diffused from England to North America in the 17 th century Ireland was taken in the 17 th century, South Asia in the mid-18 th, the South Pacific in late 18 th early 19 th, and southern Africa in the late 19 th century English became the official language even though in many cases only the rulers and an elite class of local residents could speak it

continued l The US was responsible for the spread of English to places such as the Philippines in the early 20 th century

Origin of English in England l Global distribution of English is a product of migration since the 17 th century • Doesn’t explain how English became the language of the British Isles l Around 450 AD England was invaded by three Germanic tribes • Angles from southern Denmark, Jutes from northern Denmark, and Saxons from northwestern Germany

continued l l The toponym England comes from Angles’ Land Other people later invaded England added to basic English • Ex. Vikings of Norway in the 9 th century

continued l Even though English is a Germanic language, it is quite different today • l l Mainly due to the Norman Invasion in 1066 Normans were from France, and made French the official language of England for the next 300 years Commoners still spoke mostly English • 1204 Normandy was lost to France and started a period of conflict b/w the 2

continued l l l Because of the conflict people didn’t want to speak French anymore 1362 Parliament issued the Statute of pleading to change official court language back to English During the 300 year period of Norman domination the Germanic language spoken by commoners and the French spoken by the gov. and clergy meshed into Modern English

Dialects of English l Dialect- a regional variation of a language distinguished by distinctive vocabulary, spelling, and pronunciation • • l Speakers of one dialect can usually understand speakers of another Geographers like to study dialects because they reflect distinctive features of the environments in which groups live Because of its global scope, English has a large number of dialects

continued l Standard language- a dialect that is well established and widely recognized as the most acceptable form • British Received Pronunciation (BRP)- standard from of British speech found in upper class London • Standard language of British English

Differences Between British and American English l l Isolation is the major reason why American English is so different from British English During the 18 th and 19 th century it was difficult to travel back and forth between America and England technology to transmit the human voice across the ocean was not yet available

continued l l US English is different in 3 notable was: vocabulary, spelling, and pronunciation Vocabulary can be attributed to the new objects and experiences of American settlers • Ex. Raccoons • Many names were taken from Native American languages

continued l l l New invention were given different names in different places Elevators are called lifts in England Spelling changed because of a strong national feeling for an independent identity • Webster set out to create an American English

continued l Differences in pronunciation can be attributed to isolation • People were not often able to speak directly to one another– communication was thru letters and newspapers not spoken word l A significant example is of difference is the letters a and r

pronunciation l l l Fast, path, half Lord Americans pronounce unaccented syllables more clearly l l l ah sound as in father Laud– British don’t pronounce r’s unless it becomes before a vowel Secret’ry, necess’ry

Dialects in the United States l l l Major diff. in US dialects originated because of differences in dialects among the original settlers Original 13 colonies can be grouped into three areas, New England, Middle Atlantic, and Southeastern 2/3 of New England colonists were from southeastern England

continued l l ½ the Southeastern colonist were also from SE England, but came from other classes such as prisoners, indentured servants, and political refugees Mid-Atlantic colonists were much more diverse • Northern England, Scots, Irish, German, Dutch, and Swedish

Current Dialect Differences in the East l l l Most dialect differences in the US are still on the East Coast Dialects have been documented thru the study of particular words Isogloss- a word-usage boundary

continued l 2 important isoglosses separate the eastern US into 3 major dialect regions • l l Northern, Midlands, and Southern Some words are common in one region but rarely used in the other two Lang. differences tend to be greater in rural areas because farmers are more isolated from people from other regions

continued l l Ex. “pail” up North and “bucket” in Midlands and South Ex. “sneakers” vs. “tennis shoes”

Pronunciation Differences l l Pronunciation differences are more familiar to us than word differences Ex. New England accent known for dropping the “r” sound from words such as heart and lark • Very similar to Southern England, the place of origin of most colonists l New England Southern accents sound odd to most Americans because the standard pronunciation throughout the American West comes from the Mid-Atlantic states

Why is English Related to Other Languages? l l l Language family- a collection of languages related thru a common ancestral language that existed long before recorded history English is part of the Indo-European family Most widely spoken language family • More than 3 billion speak an Indo-European language as their first language

Indo-European Branches l l Language branch- a collection of languages related thru a common ancestral language that existed several thousand years ago Indo-European family is divided into 8 branches • 4 spoken by large #s of people –Indo-Iranian, Romance, Germanic, and Balto-Slavic

continued l l Indo-Iranian languages are clustered in South Asia, Romance in _____ and ______, Germanic in ______ and _______, and Balto-Slavic in _______ The 4 less popular Indo-European languages are Albanian, Armenian, Greek, and Celtic

Germanic Branch of Indo European l German and English are closely related • Dates back 1500 years to Germanic invasions of England l Language group- a collection of languages within a branch that share a common origin in the relatively recent past and display relatively few differences in grammar and vocabulary

continued l l English belongs to the West Germanic group of the Germanic branch of the Indo. European family Other Germanic languages include: Dutch, Flemish, Afrikaans, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, and Icelandic

Indo-Iranian Branch of Indo. European l Most speakers of all Indo-European family • • More than 100 languages spoken by more than 1 billion people Subdivided into 2 groups 1. Indic (eastern) 2. Iranian (western)

Indic Group of Indo-Iranian language Branch l l Most widely used languages of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh 1/3 of Indians (mostly in Northern India) speak Hindi • Hindi is spoken many ways, but has only one official way to write it • Use a script called Devanagari

continued l l 1. 2. 3. 4. Language is one of the main elements of cultural diversity in India 4 important lang. families are used Indo-European in the north Dravidian in the south Sino-Tibetan in the northeast Austro-Asiatic in the central and eastern highlands

continued l India’s constitution recognizes 18 official languages– 13 of which are Indo. European including Bengali and Urdu

continued l l Bengali is the most important language in Bangladesh Pakistan’s main lang. is called Urdu • Spoken much like Hindi, but written with the Arabic alphabet since most Pakistanis are Muslim

Balto-Slavic Branch of Indo. European l Slavic was once a single language • Developed diff. after migration into eastern • Europe in the 7 th century AD Can now be divided into Baltic, East, West, and South Slavic groups

East Slavic and Baltic Groups of the Balto-Slavic Language Branch l Eastern languages are the most widely spoken • Esp. Russian • Importance increased with the rise of the Soviet Union • Soviets forced absorbed nations to learn Russian to foster cultural unity l Ukrainian and Belarusan are also important

West and South Slavic Groups of the Balto-Slavic Language Branch l Most spoken West Slavic language is Polish, followed by Czech and Slovak • Czech and Slovak are similar • Speakers can understand each other • l Czechoslovakia tried to use both to satisfy the 2 ethnic groups when that country existed The most important South Slavic language is Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian • Really the same language, but each group calls it by their own name for pride purposes

Romance Branch of Indo. European l l l Evolved from Latin spoken by Romans 2000 years ago 4 most widely used are Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Italian European regions where these languages are spoken are pretty much the national boundaries of Spain, Portugal, France, and Italy • Countries separated by mountain ranges

Origin and diffusion of Romance Languages l As Roman armies conquered and occupied the provinces of its empire they brought Latin with them • • • Native languages were suppressed or extinguished in favor of Latin The empire grew over a period of several hundred years and Latin evolved during that time Each province spoke the Latin of the conquering army of the time and absorbed some words from the existing language

continued l The people in the Roman provinces learned the spoken form of Latin known as Vulgar Latin • Vulgar refers to the masses l After the fall of Rome in the 5 th century, communication among the former provinces declined • • Created greater regional differences in the Latin spoken By 8 th century it had evolved into distinct languages

Romance Language Dialects l Dialect of French called Francien (Paris region) became the standard from of French in the 16 th century • Most local dialects disappeared l l l Most important surviving dialect difference is b/w the North and South North= langue d’oil South= langue d’oc

continued l l l The names of the dialects derive from different ways the word yes was said The standard from of Spanish is known as Castilian, and has been so since the 15 th century Spanish and Portuguese have worldwide importance because of their colonial activities 90% of speakers live outside Europe Spanish is the official language of 18 Latin American Countries and Portuguese is spoken in Brazil (just as many people as other 18)

continued l l Portuguese and Spanish of the Western hemisphere is different than what is spoken in Europe The Spanish Royal Academy meets once a week to clarify rules for spelling, vocabulary, and pronunciation of the Spanish language around the world • Official dictionary was published in 1992 and includes hundreds of words w/ origins outside Spain

continued l Brazil, Portugal, and several Portuguese speaking countries in Africa met to standardize the written language in 1994 • l l The new standard more closely resembles Brazilian Portuguese, which eliminates most of the accent marks It is sometimes difficult to tell if two languages are distinct or just diff. dialects Creole or creolized language- a defined lang. that results from the mixing of the colonizer’s language with the indigenous language

Origin and Diffusion of Indo. European l All the languages of the Indo-European family must have had a common ancestral language– called Proto-Indo. European • Can’t be proven because it would have existed thousands of years before the invention of writing

continued l The evidence for a common beginning can be seen in the fact that all Indo-European languages have common roots for certain words that describe things of the physical environment • l Words like beech, oak, bear, deer, pheasant, and bee Since all Indo-European languages have these words linguists believe the words must represent things experienced in early speakers daily lives

continued l Other words such as elephant, camel, rice, and bamboo have different roots in various Indo-European languages • Therefore can’t be traced back to Proto-Indo. European l Individual languages have common roots for winter and snow, but not for ocean • Believed original speakers must have in a cold climate, but without contact with oceans

continued l Linguists and Anthropologists agree that Proto-Indo-European existed, but they disagree on the when and where it originated and the process and routes by which it diffused • One theory suggests it spread by war and conquest and another from peaceful sharing of food

continued l Gimbutas hypothesis states that the first Proto-Indo-European speakers were the Kurgan people from the present day border area of Russia and Kazakhstan

continued l l l Archaeological evidence places the Kurgans about 4300 BC Kurgans were nomadic herders who migrated in search of grasslands for their horses and cattle Used horses in warfare which enabled them to conquer much of Europe and South Asia b/w 3500 and 2500 BC

continued l Archaeologist Colin Renfrew argues that the first Proto-Indo. European speakers lived in eastern Anatolia, part of present day Turkey about 2000 years before the Kurgans

continued l Renfrew believes they diffused from Anatolia westward into Greece (origin of the Greek Language branch), from Greece to Italy, Sicily, Corsica, the Med. Coast of France, Spain, and Portugal (origin of Romance branch) later into British Isles (Celtic branch), etc.

continued l l Renfrew argues that Indo-European diffused along with agricultural practices rather than military conquest Speakers became more numerous as agricultural surpluses became possible

Classification of Languages l l Indo-European languages (English) are spoken by 48% of pop. Sino-Tibetan languages (Mandarin) are spoken by 26% Afro-Asiatic, (Arabic) by 6% Austronesian, by 5% mostly SE Asia l l l Dravidian, by 4% Altaic, by 3 % mostly in Asia Niger-Congo, by 3% mostly in Africa Japanese, a separate language family, by 2% Remaining 3% of pop. Speaks a language belonging to one of 100 smaller families

Distribution of Language Families l l Almost half the world speaks Indo. European languages The next largest language family is Sino -Tibetan

Sino-Tibetan Family l l Encompasses languages spoken in China and several smaller countries in SE Asia The languages of China belong to the Sinitic branch of the Sino-Tibetan family

Sinitic Branch l l No single Chinese lang. Most important is Mandarin (pu tong hua– means common speech) • • l Spoken by ¾ of the Chinese Mandarin is the most used language in the world Many Chinese in the southern and eastern part of the country speak a different language such as Wu, Min, Yue (Cantonese), Jinyu, Xiang, Hakka, and Gan

continued l l l The gov. is trying to impose Mandarin countrywide to foster unity Although all the languages are pronounced differently there is only one written form The structure of Chinese is much different than structure of Indo-European Chinese is based on 420 one-syllable words Chinese languages use each sound to denote more than one thing

continued l l l Ex. “shi” can mean lion, corpse, house, poetry, ten, swear, or die depending on the context and tone of the speaker Two-syllable words can be created by combing two one-syllable words Language is written with a collection of thousands of characters l Some represent sounds like English letters, but most are ideograms • l Characters that represent ideas or concepts Very difficult to write even for Chinese • 16% of Chinese over age 16 are unable to read or write more than a few characters

Other East and Southeast Asian Language Families l l Japanese and Korean both form distinctive language families Developed because of relative isolation from other countries • l Japan is an Island Korea is a Peninsula Japanese is written in part with Chinese ideograms, but it also uses two systems of phonetic symbols used in place of ideograms or along side them

continued l Korean is not written with ideograms but in a system known as “hankul” • Each letter represents a sound • Even still half of the vocabulary derives from Chinese Words

Afro-Asiatic Language Family l l l Includes Hebrew and Arabic and other languages spoken primarily in northern Africa and southwestern Asia 4 th largest language family Has great World significance because the Holy books of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity were written in these languages

continued l Arabic is the major language of this family and is the official lang. of more than 2 dozen countries

African Language Families l l More than 1000 distinct languages and several thousand dialects have been documented Most lack a written tradition and only 8 are spoken by more than 10 million people

Niger-Congo Language Family l Includes Swahili, the official language of Tanzania • • Only the first language of abut 800, 000 people Important because it is the second language to about 30 million Created by mixture of African groups and Arab traders One of few African languages that has extensive literature

Austronesian Language Family l Spoken by 6% of World’s people mostly in Indonesia, but also the language of Madagascar which is 1900 miles from Indonesia • Evidence of migration from Indonesia to Madagascar by boat about 2000 years ago

Nigeria: Conflict Among Speakers of Different Languages l l Nigeria is most populous country in Africa 493 distinct languages are spoken in Nigeria, but only 3 are in widespread use • There has been a lot of conflict among people of different language groups

Why do People Preserve Local Languages? l l l The distribution of a language is a measure of the fate of an ethnic group English has diffused around the world from the small island nation of England because of it’s colonial dominance and the cultural dominance of the US On the other hand, Icelandic spoken on another small European island has not diffused

Preserving Language Diversity l There are thousand of extinct languages on Earth • A language once used by people in daily activity but is now no longer used l Ethnologue considers 516 languages as nearly extinct, because only a few older people still speak them and they are not teaching them to the young

Hebrew: Reviving Extinct Languages l l Hebrew was once extinct, but it has been revived Most of the Old Testament was written in Hebrew, but it diminished in importance in the 4 th century BC and was only used in Jewish religious services

continued l l Israel became an independent country in 1948 and Hebrew became one of the 2 official languages w/ Arabic Hebrew was chosen to symbolically unify the Jews who had dispersed all over the world and spoke many different languages

continued l l Thousands of words had to created to name inventions not known during biblical times Most of the work was done by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda who is created with inventing more than 4000 Hebrew words

Celtic: Preserving Endangered Languages l l Celtic was the major language of the British Isles before the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes invaded At one time Celtic languages were spoken in much of Germany, France, and northern Italy as well Today they only survive in remote parts of Scotland, Wales, Ireland, and Brittany You can read more in your text pages 169 -170

Multilingual States l l Problems can occur at the boundary b/w 2 languages The boundary between Romance and Germanic branches of Indo-European run through Belgium and Switzerland

Belgium l l l Walloons (Southern Belgians) speak French, whereas Flemings (Northern Belgians) speak Flemish a dialect of Dutch Language boundary divides the nation into 2 regions Political end economic differences causes many problems

continued l l l Historically, Walloons dominated the economy and politics and French was the official language The country was divided into two independent regions to try to placate Flemings Each elects an assembly to handle local concerns

continued l l As you drive from one region to the other the language of road signs changes to correspond with the territory The capital city, Brussels, is in Flanders but is officially bilingual and signs are in both languages

Switzerland l l l Switzerland has had a much easier time with multiple languages Key is a decentralized gov. , in which local authorities hold most of the power, and decisions are often made by voters 4 major languages German (65%), French (18%), Italian (10%) and Romansh (1%)

Isolated Languages l Isolated language- a language unrelated to any other and therefore not attached to any language family • • • arise thru lack of interaction w/ other languages Ex. Basque Spoken by 600, 000 in the Pyrenees Mountains of Spain and France • Only language in Europe that survives from before Indo. European speakers arrival

Global Dominance of English l l English has increasingly become the language of international communication Lingua franca- a language of international communication • l Usually used to facilitate trade Pidgin language- a form of speech that adopts a simplified grammar and limited vocabulary of a lingua franca, used for communications among speakers of 2 different languages

continued l l Other modern lingua francas include Swahili in East Africa, and Russian in the former Soviet Union Many countries that gained independence in the 20 th century adopted English as one of its official languages even though the majority of people could not speak it

continued l l l 90% of European students learn English as a second language More than 500 million people speak English as a second language Japan has even considered adding English as a second official language

Expansion Diffusion of English l l 1. 2. The current growth of the use of English is an example of expansion diffusion, the spread of a trait thru a snowballing effect of an idea Has happened in 2 ways English is changing thru diffusion of new vocab, spelling and pronunciation English words are fusing with other languages

Diffusion to Other Languages l l English words have been increasingly integrated into other languages Franglais- the widespread use of English in the French language • They don’t like it but “le weekend” is easier than “fin du semaine”

continued l Spanglish- the diffusion of English into the Spanish language • Spanish speakers don’t mind as much • Like franglais, spanglish involves modifying English words to conform to Spanish preferences and pronunciations l It is a richer integration of English with Spanish than just the mere borrowing of words

continued l Denglish- the diffusion of English words into German