Chapter 6: Language

Chapter 6: Language

• Field Note:
  What Should I Say?

Where Are Languages Distributed?

• Language-

• Literary tradition refers to a system of written communication.
• Many countries designate at least one ______to be used for official documents and public objects—e.g., road signs and money.

• World’s languages organized into:
• ______: collection of languages related through a common ancestral language
• ______: collection of languages within a family related through a common ancestral language. Differences are not as significant or as old as between families.
• ______: collection of languages within a branch that share a common origin in the relatively recent past and display similar grammar and vocabulary.

World Language Rankings – Global Number of Speakers

1994-95

2002-2003

2014

Compare:

• Classification of Languages
• 2/3 of the world’s population speak a language that belongs to the-

• ______of the world’s population speak a language that fits into one of seven other language families.
• Remainder of population speaks a language belonging to one of 100 smaller families.

• Distribution of Language Families
• The two largest language families are…

1. Predominate language family in Europe, South Asia, North America and Latin America.

• Encompasses languages spoken in the People’s Republic of China and several smaller countries in Southeast Asia.

• ______is the most-used language in the world and the official language of both the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan.

• Other Asian Language Families
• Several other language families spoken by large numbers of people in East and Southeast Asia.
• Isolation on islands and peninsulas contributed to overall independent development.
• Austro-Asiatic
• Tai Kadai

• Languages of Southwest Asia and North Africa and Central Asia
• Two largest language families are…

• Official language in 24 countries of S.W. Asia and North Africa

• Altaic language with most speakers is ______.
• Altaic language became official language of several countries that gained independence when Soviet Union broke up—e.g., Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan.

• African Language Families
• More than 1,000 distinct languages have been documented.
• Several thousand dialects recognized.
• Niger-Congo
• First language of 800,000 people
• Language used to speak with outsiders from different villages

• Niger-Congo language family dominates.
• Oldest Subsaharan languages are the -

• Nigeria’s ______people speak more than ______different languages.
• The three most prominent languages are distributed regionally:
• ______in the north; 35 million people
• ______in the southwest; 25 million people
• ______in the southeast; over 25 million people
  

Why Is English Related to Other Languages?

• Distribution of Indo-European Branches
• Four most widely spoken branches

1. ______

• Spoken primarily in northwestern Europe and North America
• Divides into High and Low Germanic subgroups

• English is classified in the Low Germanic group

1. ______

• Spoken primarily in South Asia
• Most speakers of the language branch
• Subdivided into eastern group (Indic) and western group (Iranian)

1. ______
2. Spoken primarily in Eastern Europe
3. Divided into…
4. East Slavic and Baltic Groups: most widely used language is Russian followed -
5. West and South Slavic Groups: most spoken west Slavic language is ______while the most widely spoken south language is ______.
6. ______

• Spoken primarily in southwestern Europe and Latin America
• Most widely used are Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Italian.
• Regions where spoken languages tend to correspond to the political boundaries of Spain, Portugal, France, and Italy

View the Video “The History of English in 10 Minutes” and Summarize

Why Is English Related to Other Languages?

• Origin and Diffusion of Language Families
• Modern English has evolved primarily from the language spoken by three Germanic tribes invading the British Isles.

• Over time, others invaded England and their languages influenced the basic English.

• English diffuses across the world.
• English language migrated with the people of England when they established colonies over four centuries.
• English is an official language in most former British colonies.

• Diffusion to North America
• First successful colony was Jamestown, VA, in 1607.
• Defeat of France by England secured English as the dominant language in North America.
• United States responsible for diffusing English to several places—e.g., Philippines.

• Indo-European
• It is theorized that Germanic, Romance, Balto-Slavic, and Indo-Iranian languages all stemmed from a common ancestral language.

Linguists and anthropologists continue to debate when and where the Proto-Indo-European language originated and how it diffused.

• Two Theories

Why Do Individual Languages Vary among Places?

• Dialects of English

• A dialect–

• Boundaries of where regional words are used can be mapped; such a word usage boundary is known as an ______.
• Large number of speakers and widespread distribution in the United States has contributed to the existence of a large number of English dialects.

• Dialects in the United States
• The 13 original colonies can be grouped into three dialect regions.

1. Inhabited by settlers from England
2. About ½ came from southeastern England, while the others represented a diversity of social-class backgrounds.
3. Most diverse group—e.g.,

• Current Dialect Differences in the East
• Some English words are specific to a dialect.
• Language differences tend to be greatest in ______because of limited interaction with people from other dialect regions.
• ______has reduced the number of regionally distinctive words.

• How Do you Say?
• Group of 2 or more?

• Sale of unwanted household items?

• Flying insect w/a rear section that glows?

• Small lobster-like crustacean found in streams?

• Big clumps of dust under furniture?

• Raining while the sun is shining?

• Gooey or dry matter in eyes b/c of sleep?

• General term for big road you can drive fast on?

• Dialects in the United Kingdom
• Languages with multiple dialects may recognize one as the ______ that is widely recognized as the most acceptable for -
• Ex.

• British and American English Dialects

• English language is noticeably different than English spoken in England in three ways.

1. Settlers in America encountered many new objects and experiences not present in England.
2. Climate and geography differ significantly between England and America.
3. ______sought to make English used in America distinct from England to reduce cultural dependence by changing spellings of words in his dictionary.
4. Chief cause was limited interaction between speakers of varying dialects.

• ______
• Two people can understand each other when speaking.
• Some languages are separate but are mutually intelligible.
• Decision of what a standard language will be has to do with influence and power.

• Distinguishing between Languages and Dialects
• Dialect or language
• Increasingly difficult to determine whether two languages are distinct or whether they are dialects of the same language.
• Several languages in Italy that have been traditionally classified as dialects of Italian are now viewed by ______as distinct enough to merit consideration as a new language.
• Examples include Emiliano-Romagnolo, Liguri, Lombard, and ______.

Why Do People Preserve Local Languages?

• Language Diversity
• Difficulties can arise at the boundary between two languages.
• Varying degrees of difficulties
• Belgium
• Southern Belgians (______) speak ______.
• Northern Belgians (______) speak ______.
• Pressure from Flemish speakers led to the division of Belgium into two independent regions with each controlling their own cultural affairs, public health, road construction, and urban development.

• Switzerland
• Switzerland attributes success to ______government, in which local authorities hold most of the power, and decisions are frequently made on a local level by voter referenda.
• Four official languages—

• Isolated Languages

• An ______ is one unrelated to any other and therefore not attached to any language family.
• Arise from lack of interaction with speakers of other languages.
• Ex.
• Only language currently spoken that survives since the period before the arrival of Indo-European speakers.

• Mountain chain serving as a natural barrier to diffusion helped them preserve their language.

• Ex. Icelandic

View the Video on the Basque and take notes:

• Extinct and Revived Languages

• An ______is one that is no longer spoken or read in daily activities by anyone in the world.
• 46 in Africa
• 182 in Americas
• 84 in Asia
• 9 in Europe
• Ex. Native Americans

• Preserving Endangered Languages:
• Linguists expect hundreds of languages will become extinct during the twenty-first century.
• Celtic Language
• Significant to English speakers because of its primacy in the British Isles.
• Survives only in remote parts of ______, and on the Brittany peninsula of France.
• Celtic speakers must work hard to preserve their language in face of diffusion by others who have greater political and economic strength.

How do Languages Diffuse?

• By 2,000 years ago, languages such as Chinese and Latin had successfully diffused over large regions.
• In the late Middle Ages, the invention of the ______and the rise of nation-states worked to spread literacy and stabilize certain languages through widely distributed written forms.
• The rise of relatively large independent states was equally important, for these political entities had a strong interest in promoting a common culture, often through a common language.

• Lingua Franca

• Can be a single language or a mixture of two or more languages.
• ______When people speaking two or more languages are in contact and they combine parts of their languages in a simplified structure and vocabulary.
• ______is a pidgin language with a more complex structure and vocabulary that has become the native language of a group of people.

• Global Dominance of English
• A lingua francais a language of international communication.
• Ex.
• Spoken fluently by another ½ to 1 billion people.
• People in smaller countries learn English to participate more fully in the global economy and culture.

• Other Examples
• Hindi in South Asia
• Indonesian in Southeast Asia

• Multilingualism

• ______ are countries where almost everyone speaks the same language.
• Ex.: ______, Uruguay, Iceland, Denmark, Portugal, ______, Lesotho
• Countries in which more than one language is in use are called ______.

• Official Languages

• Countries with linguistic fragmentation often adopt an ______(or languages) to tie the people together.
• A State adopts an official language in the hope of promoting communication and interaction among peoples who speak different local and regional languages.

• Global Languages
• The principal language people use around the world in their day-to-day activities
• A common language of trade and commerce used around the world

• Field Note

• English on the Internet

• Majority of content on Internet is in English.

• ______will likely replace English as the most-frequently used online language before 2020.

• Expansion Diffusion of English
• Recent growth in the use of English is an example of expansion diffusion—the spread of a trait through the snowballing effect of an idea.
• Expansion has occurred in two ways with English.

1. English is changing through diffusion of new vocabulary, spelling, and pronunciation.
2. Ex. Words, such as cowboy, hamburger, jeans, and
   T-shirt were allowed to diffuse into French.
3. Ex. English words have spurred the creation of English-like words to replace traditional Spanish words, such as parquin (Spanglish) for estacionamiento (Spanish)

• Spanish and French in the United States and Canada
• Increasingly important language in recent years in United States because of large-scale immigration from Latin America.
• Some communities now issue public notices, government documents, and advertisements in Spanish.
• Radio stations and TV now broadcast in Spanish in places where most of the 35 million Spanish speakers live.

• Some courts have judged these laws to be unconstitutional restrictions on free speech.

• French

• Québec faces challenges integrating a large number of immigrants from Europe, Asia, and Latin America who don’t speak French.
• Immigrants prefer to use English as the lingua franca because of its greater global usage.

What Role does Language Play in Making Places?

• Cultural geographer Yi-Fu Tuan has studied the role and function of language in the shaping of places.
• Each place has a unique location and constitutes a reflection of human activities, ideas, and tangible, durable creations.
• Tuan argued that by simply naming a place, people in effect call that place into being, and thereby impart a certain character to it = ______

• The Ten Toponyms

• English Professor George Stewart

• Toponyms and Globalization

• The toponyms we see on a map depend in large part on who produced the map.
• Ex.: Argentineans refer to a small cluster (archipelago) of islands off the southeast coast of South America as the Malvinas, but the British call the same cluster of islands the Falkland Islands.

• Changing Toponyms

• Tuan said when people change the toponym of a place, they have the power to “wipe out the past and call forth the new.”

• ______: New governments renamed several countries and newly independent countries also changed the names of cities and towns to reflect their independence.
• ______: Changes in power through coups and revolutions prompt name changes.
• ______: People change a toponym to memorialize an important person or event.

• Guest Field Note
  Greenville, North Carolina

• This place was first named by Gabrielino Indians. In 1769, Spanish Franciscan priests renamed the place. In 1850, English speakers renamed the place. Do not use the Internet to help you. Use only maps in this book or in atlases to help you deduce what this place is. Maps of European exploration and colonialism will help you the most. Look at the end of the chapter summary for the answer.

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