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The Geography of Language Mr.Plater http://dmawww.epfl.ch

The Geography of Language Mr.Plater

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Page 1: The Geography of Language Mr.Plater

The Geography

of Language

Mr.Plater

http://dmawww.epfl.ch

Page 2: The Geography of Language Mr.Plater

What is Language?

• System of communication through speech, a collection of sounds that a group of people understands to have the same meaning

• Many languages have a literary tradition (written communication) – e.g.: English

• Some languages do not have a literary tradition – theirs is an oral tradition

Page 3: The Geography of Language Mr.Plater

Language Evolution

• Languages subtly gradate one to another

• Dialects and other regional differences may eventually lead to incomprehensibility - a new language

• Migration and Isolation explain how a single language can later become two or more languages

Page 4: The Geography of Language Mr.Plater

Official Language

• Countries designate at least one language as their official language, the one used by government for all official documents e.g.: Canada has two official languages (English and French)

• Most countries’ official language would be one that is commonly spoken – exception is India who has English as the official language; its national language is Hindi

Hindi: The language of songs

www.cs.colostate.edu/

Page 5: The Geography of Language Mr.Plater

Language: the essence of culture• Language is an essential

element of culture, possibly the most important medium by which culture is transmitted

• Suppression of language is the suppression of culture e.g. : Dutch children in South Africa (1800s); First Nations children in Canada (1900s)

• Languages are a hallmark of cultural diversity with distinctive regional distributions

http://collections.ic.gc.ca

Page 6: The Geography of Language Mr.Plater

Where are English Language Speakers Distributed?

Page 7: The Geography of Language Mr.Plater

English – official use

Page 8: The Geography of Language Mr.Plater

Origin of English

• Spoken fluently by 500 million worldwide, more than any other language except Mandarin (almost all clustered in China)

• However English is the most widely spoken language (global lingua franca a language of international communication)

• English official language in 42 countries

• Widespread distribution as a result of colonization & globalization (mass media)

• God, Gold and Glory………

Page 9: The Geography of Language Mr.Plater

Former British Colonies

http://users.erols.com

Page 10: The Geography of Language Mr.Plater

Origin of English (cont)

• Germanic language• Celts arrived in British Isles (2000 BC)• 55BC-410AD Roman occupation – influence of

Latin e.g.: “consequences”, “sinister”• 450AD Britain invaded by Germanic tribes

Angles, Jutes and Saxons (from Denmark & NW Germany) e.g.: “kindergarten”, “angst”

• Modern English evolved from Anglo-Saxons’ language

• Vikings (9th-11th Century) e.g.: “reindeer”, “window”

Page 11: The Geography of Language Mr.Plater

Origin of English (cont)

• William the Conqueror of Normandy invaded Britain 1066AD

• French speaking – official language for next 300 years was French (language of the court); English spoken by the common folk

• 1489 English re-established as official language• Mingling of English and French influenced the

English language e.g.: “celestial”, “mansion”

Page 12: The Geography of Language Mr.Plater

Invaders Influence on English

http://wps.ablongman.com/wps/media/objects/262/268312/art/figures/KISH106.jpg

Roman Empire 117 AD

Page 13: The Geography of Language Mr.Plater

Invaders Influence on English

Page 14: The Geography of Language Mr.Plater

English Dialects

• A dialect is a regional variation– Distinctive vocabulary, spelling, pronunciation– May be understood by other speakers– Social dialect (denotes social class & standing)– Vernacular dialect (common speech of a region)– Geographic diffusion influences dialect evolution

• British Received Pronunciation is the standard language – most acceptable for govt, business, education and mass communication

Page 15: The Geography of Language Mr.Plater

Differences between British and US English

• English came to America by British colonists who settled along the Atlantic coast

• Followed by other European settlers who became acculturated

• Isolation results in language evolution• New experiences & objects required new

names e.g.: raccoon, moose• Influence of native American e.g.: kayak,

squash

Page 16: The Geography of Language Mr.Plater

Linguistic Dialects in USA

www.evolpub.comWord usage boundary - isogloss

Page 17: The Geography of Language Mr.Plater

Eastern US Speech Boundaries (isogloss)

Language Divisions for English

Family Indo-European

Branch Germanic

Group West-Germanic

Language English

Dialect Northeastern USA

Accent SE New England (Bostonian)

Page 18: The Geography of Language Mr.Plater

Relationship of English to Other Languages

Indo-European Languages

www.zompist.com

Page 19: The Geography of Language Mr.Plater

www.bartleby.com/

Indo-European

Page 20: The Geography of Language Mr.Plater

Family TreeLanguage Tree

Page 21: The Geography of Language Mr.Plater

Language Families• Language family is a

collection of languages related through a common ancestor in existence before recorded history

• Indo-European is the world’s most extensively spoken language family (3 billion 1st language speakers worldwide)

Page 22: The Geography of Language Mr.Plater

Language Branches

• A collection of languages within a family related through a common ancestor that existed several thousand years ago

• Indo-European has 8 branches– Indo-Iranian (e.g.: Hindi)– Romance (e.g.: Spanish, French, Italian)– Germanic (e.g.: Dutch, German, English)– Balto-Slavic (e.g.: Russian, Ukrainian, Polish)– Albanian– Armenian– Greek– Celtic

Page 23: The Geography of Language Mr.Plater

Language Groups

• A collection of languages within a branch which share a fairly recent past and display similarities in grammar and vocabulary

• English belongs to the West Germanic group of the Germanic language branch

Page 24: The Geography of Language Mr.Plater

http://web.cn.edu

Page 25: The Geography of Language Mr.Plater

Germanic Languages in Europe

www.verbix.com

Page 26: The Geography of Language Mr.Plater

Indo-Iranian Languages

Sindhi

Page 27: The Geography of Language Mr.Plater

Balto-Slavic Languages

Page 28: The Geography of Language Mr.Plater

Balto-Slavic

• East Slavic– E.g.: Russian

• West Slavic– E.g.: Polish

• South Slavic– E.g.: Bulgarian

• Baltic– E.g.: Lithuanian

Page 29: The Geography of Language Mr.Plater

Romance Language Branch

• The Roman Empire, at its height in 2nd century A.D., extinguished many local languages. After the fall of Rome in the 5th century, communication declined and languages evolved again.

Page 30: The Geography of Language Mr.Plater

Romance Language Branch

• Like English, these languages have been spread by colonialism– Spanish (Latin America; Africa; Philippines)– Portuguese (Brazil)– French (Indo-China, West Africa)– Italian (East Africa)

Page 31: The Geography of Language Mr.Plater

Other Language Families

• 50% speak Indo-European languages• 20% speak Sino-Tibetan languages (China)• 5% speak Afro-Asiatic languages (Middle East)• 5% speak Austronesian languages (SE Asia)• 5% speak Niger-Congo languages (Africa)• 5% speak Dravidian languages (in India)• 10% speak other language families

Page 32: The Geography of Language Mr.Plater

Sino-Tibetan Languages

• 420 one syllable words with meaning inferred from context and tone

• Chinese characters – ideograms• Examples:

– Mandarin– Cantonese– Thai– Burmese

Page 33: The Geography of Language Mr.Plater

Japanese and Korean

• Japan - isolated island state – language evolved separately (ideograms & phonetic symbols)

• Korea - peninsula state– language evolved separately (hankul)

Page 34: The Geography of Language Mr.Plater

Afro-Asiatic Languages

• Examples: Arabic and Hebrew

• North Africa and South West Asia (Middle East)

Page 35: The Geography of Language Mr.Plater

Altaic Languages

• E.g.: Turkish

Uralic Languages

• E.g.: Estonian, Hungarian and Finnish

Page 36: The Geography of Language Mr.Plater

African Languages

• Niger-Congo Languages– 95% in sub-Saharan Africa speak Niger-

Congo languages– Other 5% speak Khoisan or Nilo-Saharan

• Major Niger-Congo language is Swahili spoken throughout East Africa

• (Austronesian languages include Malay-Indonesian, Polynesian languages and Malagasy)

Page 37: The Geography of Language Mr.Plater

Languages of Africa

• Afro-Asiatic– E.g.: Arabic

• Austronesian– E.g.: Malagasy

• Khoisan– E.g.: Hottentot (Nama)

• Niger-Congo– E.g.: Swahili

• Nilo-Saharan– E.g.: Fur

• Indo-European– E.g.: Afrikaans

Page 38: The Geography of Language Mr.Plater

Preservation of Language

• Local languages are threatened by the global dominance and diffusion of English

• Thousands of languages are extinct – many face extinction as elders die off – e.g.: some First Nations languages

• Hebrew – revived extinct language – 1948 when state of Israel was established, Hebrew was chosen as one of the official languages – still used in Jewish prayers it was culturally symbolic

Page 39: The Geography of Language Mr.Plater

Preservation of Language

• Celtic – preserving endangered languages– Irish and Scottish Gaelic– 25% of people in Wales speak Welsh –

revival through the Welsh Language Society – Welsh is compulsory in schools

– Cornish is extinct – recent attempts to revive it in grade schools

– Breton – 300,000 speakers

Page 40: The Geography of Language Mr.Plater

Multi-lingual States• Belgium (2 official)

• Canada (2 official)

• Switzerland (4 official)

• Nigeria (> 200 languages)

Page 41: The Geography of Language Mr.Plater

French Language in Canada

Page 42: The Geography of Language Mr.Plater

Swahili – Lingua franca

• Kiswahili spoken widely in east and central Africa by an estimated 50 million

• Only 2 million native speakers

• Swahili functions as a lingua franca for– Trade– Government functions– Courts– Mass media

communication

Page 43: The Geography of Language Mr.Plater

Isolated LanguagesBasque Icelandic

www.map-of-spain.co.uk

www.cia.gov/

Iceland

Page 44: The Geography of Language Mr.Plater

Endangered Languages• As recently as 3,000 years ago, there were 10,000 to

15,000 languages in the world• Now there are about 6000 left• Of those, 1/2 will be gone by the year 2100 and all but

500 of the rest will be endangered.• More than 90 percent of the languages in existence

today will be extinct or threatened in little more than a century if current trends continue.

• Why are they disappearing?– Globalization

• Migration (Urbanization)• Economic Development (Lingua Francas)• Media• Internet (Requires Arabic Character Set)

– See graph of Internet Hosts by Language

Page 45: The Geography of Language Mr.Plater

Number of Native Speakers

• Chinese (937,132,000) • Spanish (332,000,000) • English (322,000,000) • Bengali (189,000,000) • Hindi/Urdu (182,000,000) • Arabic (174,950,000) • Portuguese (170,000,000) • Russian (170,000,000) • Japanese (125,000,000) • German (98,000,000) • French (79,572,000)

Page 46: The Geography of Language Mr.Plater

Language and the Environment

• Toponym - a place name

– Toponyms are language on the land, reflecting past inhabitants, their culture and their relationship to the land

Cook Islands

Quebec

Page 47: The Geography of Language Mr.Plater

Toponyms – Chinese restaurant in Richmond BC

http://www.kojikojima.com/image/Vancouver/china1.JPG