Language

Chapter 5

Introduction

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

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

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

Language is an important part of culture because it is the means through which cultural values are transmitted

Origin and Diffusion of English

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

English is spoken by ½ billion people (2nd 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

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

English first diffused from England to North America in the 17th century

Ireland was taken in the 17th century, South Asia in the mid-18th, the South Pacific in late 18th early 19th, and southern Africa in the late 19th 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

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

Origin of English in England

Global distribution of English is a product of migration since the 17th century• Doesn’t explain how English became the

language of the British Isles Around 450AD England was invaded by

three Germanic tribes• Angles from southern Denmark, Jutes from

northern Denmark, and Saxons from northwestern Germany

continued

The toponym England comes from Angles’ Land

Other people later invaded England and added to basic English• Ex. Vikings of Norway

in the 9th century

continued

Even though English is a Germanic language, it is quite different today• 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

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

Dialect- a regional variation of a language distinguished by distinctive vocabulary, spelling, and pronunciation• 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

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

Isolation is the major reason why American English is so different from British English

During the 18th and 19th century it was difficult to travel back and forth between America and England and technology to transmit the human voice across the ocean was not yet available

continued

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

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

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

A significant example is of difference is the letters a and r

pronunciation

Fast, path, half Lord

Americans pronounce unaccented syllables more clearly

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

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

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

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 2 important isoglosses

separate the eastern US into 3 major dialect regions

• 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

Ex. “pail” up North and “bucket” in Midlands and South

Ex. “sneakers” vs. “tennis shoes”

Pronunciation Differences 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

New England and 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?

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

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

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

German and English are closely related• Dates back 1500 years to Germanic invasions

of England

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

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

Most speakers of all Indo-European family• More than 100 languages spoken by more

than 1 billion people

• Subdivided into 2 groups1. Indic (eastern)

2. Iranian (western)

Indic Group of Indo-Iranian language Branch

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

Language is one of the main elements of cultural diversity in India

4 important lang. families are used1. Indo-European in the north2. Dravidian in the south3. Sino-Tibetan in the northeast4. Austro-Asiatic in the central and

eastern highlands

continued

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

continued

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

Slavic was once a single language• Developed diff. after migration into eastern

Europe in the 7th 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

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

Ukrainian and Belarusan are also important

West and South Slavic Groups of the Balto-Slavic Language Branch

Most spoken West Slavic language is Polish, followed by Czech and Slovak• Czech and Slovak are similar

• Speakers can understand each other

• 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

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

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

The people in the Roman provinces learned the spoken form of Latin known as Vulgar Latin

• Vulgar refers to the masses

After the fall of Rome in the 5th century, communication among the former provinces declined• Created greater regional differences in the Latin

spoken

• By 8th century it had evolved into distinct languages

Romance Language Dialects

Dialect of French called Francien (Paris region) became the standard from of French in the 16th century• Most local dialects disappeared

Most important surviving dialect difference is b/w the North and South

North= langue d’oil South= langue d’oc

continued 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 15th 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

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 Brazil, Portugal, and several Portuguese

speaking countries in Africa met to standardize the written language in 1994• 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

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

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• 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

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 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

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

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

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

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

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., etc.

continued

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 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

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

Almost half the world speaks Indo-European languages

The next largest language family is Sino-Tibetan

Sino-Tibetan Family

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

No single Chinese lang. Most important is Mandarin (pu tong hua–

means common speech)• 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

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 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

Some represent sounds like English letters, but most are ideograms• 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

Japanese and Korean both form distinctive language families

Developed because of relative isolation from other countries• Japan is an Island and 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

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

Includes Hebrew and Arabic and other languages spoken primarily in northern Africa and southwestern Asia

4th largest language family Has great World significance because

the Holy books of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity were written in these languages

continued

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

African Language Families

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

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

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

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?

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

There are thousand of extinct languages on Earth

• A language once used by people in daily activity but is now no longer used

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

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 4th century BC and was only used in Jewish religious services

continued

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 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

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

English has increasingly become the language of international communication

Lingua franca- a language of international communication• 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

Other modern lingua francas include Swahili in East Africa, and Russian in the former Soviet Union

Many countries that gained independence in the 20th century adopted English as one of its official languages even though the majority of people could not speak it

continued

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

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

1. English is changing thru diffusion of new vocab, spelling and pronunciation

2. English words are fusing with other languages

Diffusion to Other Languages

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

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

It is a richer integration of English with Spanish than just the mere borrowing of words

continued

Denglish- the diffusion of English words into German