Language Geography
Culture The sum total of the knowledge, attitudes, and habitual behavior patterns shared and transmitted by the members of a society Language a systematic way of communicating ideas & feelings with the use of conventional signs and gestures, especially voice The essence of culture Preliterate societies no written language; no foundation for cultural preservation Before writing there were 5,000-6,000 languages (some became written, many are extinct)
Animals communicate w/ gestures and vocalization is it language? NO Only humans have developed complex vocal communication systems that change over time and space. Standard language the variant of a language that a country s political & intellectual elite seek to promote as the norm (e.g. King s English) Dialect local or regional characteristics of a language. (More than an accent (pronunciation variation) distinctive syntax, grammar, vocabulary, and cadence
Isogloss a geographic boundary within which a particular linguistic feature occurs e.g. Pop vs. Soda Isoglosses tend to move over time Pop? Soda? Coke? You vs. y all
Language vs. Dialect Chinese viewed as one language (Chinese have maintained a state of several Sino-Tibetan tongues), divided by dialects that are mutually unintelligible Norwegian, Danish, and Swedish different (disintegration of empires); perhaps no more similar than Mandarin (874), Wu (75) and Yue (Cantonese 71)
World Languages: Æ Å Ñ Ä Ê Ó õ ã è ç ÿ ü å Ώ Ж ώ ץ ש א ت خ ص ي ك الله ع لا ظ э פ Language families have a shared, but fairly distant origin (e.g. Indo-European); Subfamilies commonality is more definite; Groups sets of individual languages Europe dominated by Indo-European Germanic: English, German, Swedish, Romance: French, Spanish, Italian, Slavic: Russian, Polish, Czech,
Major Indo- European Branches Germanic Romance Slavic Other Indo- European Branches Celtic Baltic Hellenic Thracian/Ilyrian Other Families Finno-Ugric Samoyedic Altaic Other - Basque
Language Family Major Language Numbers (in millions) Indo-European Sino-Tibetan Japanese-Korean Afro-Asiatic Malay-Polynesian Dravidian (India) Altaic Niger-Congo Major World Languages English 445 Hindi 366 Spanish Chinese 340 1,211 Burmese 32 Japanese 125 Korean 78 Arabic 211 Indonesian 154 Telugu 69 Turkish 61 Bantu (group)?
Indo-European Languages
Non-Indo-European Languages
India 4 language families only Indo-European & Dravidian have significant numbers Close relationship b/w regional languages and political divisions
Africa N. Afr. mostly Afro-Asiatic Sub-Saharan - largest familyis Niger-Congo Language mosaic is intensely fragmented More than 1,000 languages, most are unwritten
Diffusion of Languages
Diffusion Sound Shifts charting of the diversification of languages over time; e.g. octo (Latin), otto (Ita), ocho (Spa), Deep Reconstruction find vocabulary of an extinct language and go backward; Proto-Indo European William Jones (>200 yrs. ago) Sanskrit similar to Greek and Latin Jacob Grimm related languages have similar, but not identical consonants; e.g. vater (Ger) vader (Dut), father (Eng) softening over time 4 Tasks: Reconstruct the ancient language, find the hearth, routes of diffusion, and peoples ways of life
The Language Tree Mother Tongue (Indo-European branch is highlighted)
Divergence differentiation over time and space; languages branch into dialects, become isolated, then new languages Convergence linked to human mobility (relocation diffusion); complicates rules of reconstruction Replacement modification of a language by stronger cultures (acculturation); e.g. Hungarian surrounded by Ind-Eur, Basque? Clues: Linguists look for environmental vocabulary (landforms, vegetation, )
Conquest Theory: Hearth is Ukraine (>5,000 yrs. ago); people used horses, wheel, and trade, spread language westward Agriculture Theory: Hearth is Anatolia (Turkey - >10,000 yrs. ago); Ukraine relied on pastoralism, not farming Farming people of Anatolia moved N & W Distance decay from source area; some nonfarming people held out (Basque in Spain) Drawbacks: Anatolia not ideal for farming, some evidence states Proto-Indo-European language spread eastward first Renfrew Model 3 hearths: Anatolia - Eur, Fertile Crescent (West) N. Afr. & Arabia, Fert. Cres. (East) Iran through India
3 Maps Illustrating Possible Routes of Language Diffusion as Stated by the Agriculture Theory
Nostratic Pre-Proto-Indo-European, speakers were hunters-gatherers, source of many other language families
Pacific Diffusion Austronesian starts in China to Taiwan (>6,000 yrs. ago) then SE to New Zealand as people moved from island to island
American Diffusion Joseph Greenberg s Hypothesis: Amerind oldest, largest Na-Dene Eskimo-Aleut
Modern Language Mosaics influenced by: literacy, technology (printing press - Gutenberg), political organization (rise of nationstates)
Modern Language Mosaics
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrob wllllantysiliogogogoch longest place name in the world
US is changing Hispanics are now the largest minority ( Hispanicization ) > ½ are functionally illiterate in English (many early US immigrants were as well)
One Global Language? Esperanto Experiment occurred in early 1900s based on Latin & other Indo-Eur. languages failed not a global tongue; lacked practical utility English becoming a lingua franca of the world (commerce, science & technology)
Lingua Franca Ancient Mediterranean - Frankish language Today - common language ; second language Pidgin a language that has been simplified and modified through contact w/ other languages Creole Caribbean mixing during slavery & colonizing Today pidgin later adopted as mother tongue Creolization a language gets mixed and simplified becomes a pidgin then becomes a creole language (when adopted as a mother tongue)
Three African Lingua Francae
Language & Culture Monolingual states Japan, Venezuela, Iceland, Portugal, Poland, Multilingual states all others Canada Quebec (French by law), English everywhere else Belgium Dutch vs. French (Brussels officially bilingual) Nigeria over 230 local tongues; adopted English (colony)
Quebec vs. Canada
Official Language often selected by the educated and politically elite to promote national cohesion; commonly language of colonial power Angola Portuguese; Nigeria English; Côte d Ivoire - French **Allows people w/ different languages to communicate & keep their own language Toponymy systematic study of place-names (can elicit strong passions) Leningrad St. Petersburg; Bombay Mumbai; Zaire Dem. Rep. of the Congo