Languages

Unit III: Culture

Languages

• Languages are set of sounds and symbols that is used for communication

• Fundamental part of the local and national culture

• Language helps form and bind cultural identity• Language is personal because it allows people

to express themselves with feelings and emotions

Top 10 Spoken Languages by # of Speakers

1. Chinese2. Arabic3. Hindi4. English5. Spanish6. Bengali7. Portuguese8. Russian9. Japanese10. German

Official Languages

• Should a country have an official language?• What issues can arrive on both sides?

Understanding and Standards

• Mutual intelligibility-ability to understand each other when speaking (Dialects??)

• Standard Language: published, distributed, and taught• Why is language like identity (fluid and changing)?• Dialects-differences in vocabulary, syntax,

pronunciation, cadence, and even pace• Isogloss is a geographic boundary within which a

particular linguistic feature occurs, but not a clear line or set boundary (can be a single word)

USA dialects

Language Families and Sub-families

• Map pg 174-175• Families share origin but not really close. Sub-

families are much more similar in history, origin, etc.

• Make sure you go back and study pg 176

World Language Families

Break down of PIE Family

Graphic View of PIE Languages across time

Where did PIE start?

Language Theories

• Study these in greater detail than what we are discussing today

• Proto-Indo-European Language-single hearth would link many modern languages

• Renfrew Hypothesis-Present day Turkey hearth of Indo-European Languages

Conquest

Dispersal Theory

Food spreading Language??

Diffusion Theories• Conquest Theory: Proto-Indo-European language spread from East to

West on horseback with the overpowering of earlier inhabitants and spreading their language

• Dispersal Hypothesis: Proposes that the Indo-European languages arose from Proto-Indo-European languages, path is spiral out of Southwest Asia to Caspian Sea to Ukraine to Balkans

• Agriculture theory: Analyses of genes from several thousands of European people showed distance decay. Pattern showed that farming people from Turkey spread westward and northward spreading language. Modern genetic studies support this theory with a protein found in many different people across the European continent. Protein had been found in the same types of food from the proposed hearth of the Proto-Indo-European languages.

Diffusion Process• Conquest, expansion, exploration, printing press, interaction,

and technology• Lingua Franca- Language used among speakers of different

languages to communicate for purposes of trade• Pidgin Language-combining 2 or more languages in a

simplified structure and vocab• Creole language-pidgin language that developed a much

more complex structure• What is the lingua franca today? Why?• Examples of Lingua Franca languages: Frankish, Arabic,

Swahili (regional based)