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Language

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Taal

Tungumál

linguagem

ভাষা

keel

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World Languages

!   How many languages do you think are spoken in the world today?

!   1 (English - the rest is gibberish)

!   100-200

!   5000-6000

Why so imprecise? Languages are constantly

diverging, combining, and dying

The Most Common Languages in the World

Rank Language # of Speakers # of Countries

1 Mandarin (Chinese) 874,000,000 16

2 Hindi 366,000,000 17

3 Spanish 358,000,000 43

4 English 341,000,000 104

5 Bengali 207,000,000 9

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Language is Symbolic Culture

!   Language is not instinctual - it must be learned

!   Humans communication is COMPLEX!

Use of Language

!   SH!T I�m 3!

!   Researchers have shown that in the U.S. 60% of children between 3-4 years old commonly use swear words

!   This is up dramatically from 10 years ago (when it was closer to 35 %)

!   Parents tend to swear more while at the same time telling their children not to...however, children lack an understanding of the underlying context

Characteristics of language

  time depth - past / present future tense

  Most non-human primates have CALL SYSTEMS that lack time depth

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Characteristics of Language

  Conventionality   The idea that words

are conventionally connected to the things for which they stand.

What color is this?

Population: 604

Race: 99.7 % Scotch-Irish

Language: Restoration English

Characteristics of language

  displacement - the capacity to speak of things and events that are not present

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Characteristics of language

  productivity - the capacity to generate new expressions…and to have them be understood

REFUDIATE EMBIGGEN, D’OH, MEH

Non-human communication

Koko the gorilla

learned over 1,000

words and could use

them to discuss:

- memories

- feelings

- new ideas productivity

Language is abstract

!   The abstract quality of symbols inhibits our ability to think about and convey the full meaning of personal experience

Chair

Computer

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What about these?

!  �������!

!  Freedom

!  Love

Honorifics (language of rank)

  In Japanese

  -san

  -dono

  -sama

  -kun

  -chan

Structure of language

  Phones – different speech sounds (across all languages

  Phonemes – significant sound contrasts in a given language   Beat

  Bet

  Bat

  Bit

  But

  Bought

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Phonemes   Contrasting sounds   May differ between

languages   In English /v/ and /b/

are different sounds   Not in Spanish

  No /th/ sound in Japanese or French

  Spin vs pin

Morphemes

  Units of sound that have meaning in a language

  -s : in English, this makes something plural

  -er : often refers who does something (teach-er)

  Isolating vs. Agglutinating languages

  English - floccinaucinihilipilification (29 letters)

  Inuit – qasuirrsarvigssarsingitluinarnarpuq (35 letters) NOT the longest word in the language

Universal grammar   Idea described by Noam

Chomsky   All human brains have a

language blueprint   This is why (he would say)...

  All societies have a language   All kids learn their language at

the same time

  Deep structure surface structure

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Pirahã counterexample

  No recursive structure (eg. Bill, who knew Ralph, who was related to Jane, who used to date Mark, who once owned a pigeon, said that Joe thought that Ralph was stupid)

  Only ten phonemes

  Number terms restricted to �a few, some, many�

  But…lots of meaning in stress, intonation, rhythm

Sapir-Whorf hypothesis

  Language affects the way we think

  He/she in English (Not so in Palaung)

  Past vs. present tense

Language and space

  We have two ways of describing the position of things in space:

  Egocentric

  Geographic

  Guugu Yimithirr

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Focal vocabulary

  Focused diversity of language that is common among some cultures or subcultures

  Inuit: 100 words for snow? No, but they have 18

  Nuer of Sudan: 45 words for cattle

Lexicon of Beer in Germany

  Germans in Munich have a vocabulary of more than 70 words to describe the strength, color, fizziness, clarity, and age of beer because beer is so central to their culture.

Jargon

  Sports vs science   In science, jargon is considered to be elitist and

exclusionary   In sports, it is expected in all discussions

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Focal vocabulary is always growing (and shrinking)   Often used words or phrases tend to become

simplified   Automobile car   Video Cassette Recorder VCR   Television TV   Handheld Cellular phone Cell phone   Personal Computing Machine PC

  Words that roughly mean “good”: swell, fab, rad, ace, beast, choice, cool beans (Urban dictionary has over 400 words)

Sociolinguistics   The relationship between language and culture

  Disglossia - high versus low versions of language   Castilian Spanish   Educated versus uneducated

  Dialects are often viewed as being superior or inferior

  Language is a powerful path to wealth and success

Planet Earth Narrators

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Labov's study   Asked people at different

department stores in NY where the men's clothing was (knowing where it was)

  Asked twice (provoking an enunciation)

  Got different average responses at different stores

62%

51%

20%

How many sounds?

  Ten   Rent   French   Section

  Lecture

  Affect

  Best

  Test

Languages and Dialects

  Grammatical constructions used by the socially dominant group are considered a language, and deviations from them are often called dialects.

  Pidgin - A language of contact and trade composed of features of the original languages of two or more societies.

  Creole - A first language that is composed of elements of two or more different languages.

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Reggae

  Reggae music makes use of PATOIS – creole or mixed language of west African languages and English

  Examples   ”A fe me cyar.” (It’s my car)

  "Bwaay! Mi ded tink de test was eazy.”

  "Is the dutty duppy man dweet.”

Genesis 1:26

  "Mek we mek mankine fi stay like how we stay; mek we mek dem fi fayva we; and mek dem rule ova all di fish dem inna di sea and all di bird whe’ up a sky an ova di cow dem and ova all di eart, and ova everyting that crawl pon di eart.”

  “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals,and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

Bringing it Back Home: English Only

  As of 2011, thirty-four states have enacted legislation to make English their official language. 

  Both the US House and Senate have voted to make English the national language or require the federal government to conduct its official business in English.

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Bringing it Back Home: English Only

You decide:

  In the United States, how closely is language linked to American identity and to ethnic identity?

  The United States has never had an official national language.  Are there good reasons why this should change?