Language
Chapter 6
Language
Language – a set of sounds, combinations of sounds,
and symbols that are used for communication.
Mutual Intelligibility
► Means
two people can understand each
other when speaking.
 Problems:
►Cannot
measure mutual intelligibility
►Many “languages” fail the test of mutual intelligibility
►Standard languages and governments impact what is
a “language” and what is a “dialect”
How Languages are Formed?
► Can
find linkages among languages by
examining sound shifts – a slight change in
a word across languages over time.
eg. Milk =lacte in Latin
latta in Italian
leche in Spanish
lait in French
How are Languages Formed?
► Language
divergence –
when a lack of spatial interaction among
speakers of a language breaks the
language into dialects and then new
languages.
► Language
convergence –
when peoples with different languages
have consistent spatial interaction and
their languages collapse into one.
Monolingual State
a country in which
only one language is
spoken
Multilingual State
a country in which
more than one
language is in use
Official Language
should a multilingual
state adopt an official
language?
Dialect
variants of a
standard
language along
regional or
ethnic lines
- vocabulary
-syntax
- pronunciation
- cadence
- pace of speech
Isogloss
A geographic boundary within which a particular linguistic feature occurs
How do Linguists Study
Historical Languages?
► Backward
reconstruction – tracking sound
shifts and the hardening of consonants
backward to reveal an “original” language.
 Can deduce the vocabulary of an extinct
language.
 Can recreate ancient languages (deep
reconstruction)
Language and Cultural
Identity
Language and Culture
“No one was allowed to speak the language – the
Dena’ina language. They [the American
government] didn’t allow it in the schools, and a lot
of the women had married non-native men, and
the men said, ‘You’re American now so you can’t
speak the language.’ So, we became invisible in
the community. Invisible to each other. And, then,
because we couldn’t speak the language – what
happens when you can’t speak your own language
is you have to think with someone else’s words,
and that’s a dreadful kind of isolation [emphasis
added].”
- Clare Swan, elder, Kenaitze band, Dena’ina Indians
Language and Cultural Identity
Language
and
National Identity
Standard
Language
a language that is
published, widely
distributed, and
purposefully taught.
Government usually
plays a big role in
standardizing a
language.
Language and Political Conflict
Belgium:
Flanders (Flemish language)
Wallonia (French language)
Percent of People 5 Years and Older
Who Speak a Language other than English at Home
How Languages Diffuse?
Causes of Languages Diffusion
► human
interaction
► print distribution
► migration
► trade
► rise of nation-states
► colonialism
Spatial Interaction helps create:
► Lingua
franca –
A language used among speakers of different languages
for the purposes of trade and commerce.
► Pidgin
language –
a language created when people combine parts of two or
more languages into a simplified structure and
vocabulary.
► Creole
language –
a pidgin language that has developed a more complex
structure and vocabulary and has become the native
language of a group of people.
Historical Linkages among Languages
► Indo-European
language family
► Proto-Indo-European
language
► Nostratic Language:
Pre-proto-Indo
European
► Mother Tongue
The Three Major Language
Subfamilies of Europe
Romance languages
Germanic languages
Slavic languages
Renfrew Hypothesis:
Proto-Indo-European began in the Fertile Crescent, and then:
•Europe’s Languages diffused from Anatolia
•North Africa and Arabia’s languages diffused from the
Western Arc of Fertile Crescent (
•Southwest Asia and South Asia’s languages diffused from
the Eastern Arc of Fertile Crescent.
Agriculture Theory
With increased food supply and increased population, speakers
from the hearth of Indo-European languages migrated into Europe.
Dispersal Hypothesis
Indo-European languages first moved from the hearth eastward into
present-day Iran and then around the Caspian and into Europe.
Nostratic Language
Pre-proto-Indo European Language: Maybe
a direct successor of the Proto-World
language
► Svytitch and Dogopolosky: Russian scholars
who studies independently of each other
and came to similar conclusions.
► Source area: North of the Black Sea
► Results of Research:
- No names for domestic plants
- Hunters/gathers not farmers
- Links widely separated languages
- May date back as far as 14,000 years
►
Diffusion to the Americas
The Americas are dominated by the IndoEuropean languages
► Pre-Columbian population did not exceed
40 million
► As many as 200 million languages have been
identified
► Believed that first American languages
diverged into the most intricately divided
branches of the Language Tree
►
Greenberg Hypothesis
►
►
Three major Language families:
- Amerind: Most widely distributed
- Na-Dene: NW Canada and Alaska
- Eskimo-Aleut: Arctic area
Implies a migration across the Bering Land
Bridge approximately 40,000 years ago
Criticism of Greenberg Hypothesis
►
►
►
Criticism: Did not use conventional linguistic
research methods and proper procedures
Compared similar sounding words today
Relies on genetic testing/archaeological dating
of dental data to prove hypothesis of early
migration occurring prior to 12,000 years ago
- Pennsylvania 16,000 B.P
- Chile (approx.) 33,000 B.P.
Euskera
The Basque speak
the Euskera
language, which
is in no way
related to any
other language
family in Europe.
How did Euskera
survive?
World Language Families
Linguistic Culture Regions
►
►
What is the Geographical patterning of languages?
Do the various languages provide the basis for formal and
functional culture regions?
The Ten Leading Languages in Numbers of Native
Speakers
Language
Family
Speakers Main Areas Where Spoken
Mandarin
Sino-Tibetan
885
China, Taiwan, Singapore
Hindi/Urdu
Indo-European
426
Northern India, Pakistan
Spanish
Indo-European
358
Spain, Latin America,
Southwestern U.S.A.
English
Indo-European
343
G. Br., U.S.A., N.Z., Aus., S. Africa,
Philippines
Arabic
Afro-Asiatic
235
Middle East, North Africa
Bengali
Indo-European
207
Bangladesh, Eastern India
Portuguese
Indo-European
176
Portugal, Brazil, S. Africa
Russian
Indo-European
167
Russia, Kazakhstan, part of Ukraine
Japanese
Japanese/Korean
125
Japan
German
Indo-European
100
Germany, Austria, Switzerland,
Luxembourg, eastern France, north Italy
(in Millions)
Origin and Diffusion of Four Major
Language Families in Eastern
Hemisphere
►
Language Families
Indo-European Family
largest; most widespread language
spoken on all continents
Subfamilies: Celtic, Romance, Anatolian,
Germanic, Slavic, Baltic, Indic, Iranic, Greek
► Languages: Germanic-English, Dutch, Swedish,
German
► Commonalities in Family: Mother (English)
Polish: matka, Greek: meter, Spanish: madre,
Farsi: madar, Sinhalese: mava
1.
►
►
►
Languages in India
Assamese
Bodo
Gujarati
Kannada
Konkani
Malayalam
Marathi
Oriya
Sanskrit
Sindhi
Telugu
Bengali
Dogri
Hindi
Kashmiri
Maithili
Manipuri
Nepali
Punjabi
Santhali
Tamil
Urdu
Indian Languages
► Hindi
is the official and main link language of
India. Its homeland is mainly in the north of India,
but it is spoken and widely understood in all urban
centers of India. It is written in the Devanagri
script, which is phonetic and, unlike English, is
pronounced as it is written.
► Sanskrit is one of the oldest languages that exists
in the world today.
► The oldest Indo-Aryan language is Vedic Sanskrit,
which is said to date as far back as 1500 BC.
Brief History of Languages
With over 900 million people and more than one thousand
languages
► India is one of the multilingual nations in the world today.
► It is home to the Indo-Aryan and Dravidian language
families, two of the world's largest.
► Languages of the Austro-Asiatic and Tibeto-Burman
language families are also spoken in India
► This multitude of languages reflects India's lengthy and
diverse history.
► During the last few thousand years, the Indian subcontinent has been both united under various empires as
well as fragmented into many small kingdoms.
► British empire helped to unit India under a common
language.
► Having attained independence from the British in 1947,
Indian leaders chose Hindi as the official language of India.
►
2. Afro-Asiatic Family: Two language divisions;
Semitic and Hamitic
►
►
►
►
►
►
Semitic language region: Middle East west
through North Africa
few speakers due to desert biome
Arabic largest Semitic language; many dialects
with a standard written form
Hebrew is a Semitic language that was dead
until 1948 State of Israel
Amharic language exists in East African mts.
Hamitic languages exist in North and East Africa,
originated in Asia (Berbers, Algeria, Tuaregs,
Cushites)
3. Niger-Congo Family
► Sub-Saharan
Africa
► 325 million speakers
► greatly fragmented
► Bantu, Swahili, Hausa
► 4000 years ago; moved from Nigeria-west
then south to Zimbabwe
► People moved in search of a climate change
and new agricultural techniques
Languages of
Subsaharan Africa
- extreme language
diversity
- effects of colonialism
Nigeria
more than
400 different
languages.
4. Austronesian Family
► Dispersed
over island from Madagascar to
Indonesia to the Pacific Islands to Hawaii
and Easter Islands
► Largest single language group Malaypolynesian; most widespread Polynesian
language
5. Uralic Family
►Homeland
lies in the grasslands and
tundra regions of northern Europe
►Finnish and Hungarian
4. Altaic Family
► Homeland
lies in inhospitable deserts,
tundra and coniferous forests of northern
and central Asia
► Turkic and Mongolic are languages of the
Altaic Family
6. Sino-Tibetan Family
► Region:
China, Southeast Asia
► Mandarin: mother tongue of China
► Burmese, Tibetan
8. Japanese and Korean Family
► Unproven
ties to the Altaic family
► 200 million speakers
9. Austro-Asiatic Family
• peripheral domain; Austronesian, IndoEuropean and Sino-Tibetan
• spoken by Vietnamese, Cambodians,
Thais, Malaysians and Indians
Social Morale Model by Charles Withers
I. Procedure
A. Imperial conquest or technological
advances cause the replacement of
indigenous languages
B. Conquered group remains in a low social
class until a loss of pride in the language
forces its abandonment
C. Formal education system is based on the
socially dominant class
D. No official recognition of the conquered
language=social inferiority (old language
is primitive; socially degrading)
Changes in Language
Retreat of the Welsh language in the
twentieth century
Example Language Convergence in
Whales
► Urbanization/Industrialization
contributed
to the emigration from rural areas
► British education system promoted English
► Welsh people relocated in industrial towns
where English was spoken
► “liquidation of the Welsh culture”
► Monoglots began to disappear
Welsh language convergence: British
Response
► British
government extended education and
media rights to Welsh people
► Whales attained political autonomy within
the U.K.
► The Welsh language began to revive.
Native Americans in Canada and the
United States
► Native
Americans were greatly marginalized
by a dominant culture
► Young Native Americans were relocated to
bordering schools outside their communities
- children were not allowed to speak their
native languages
- reduced languages from 148,000 in 1990
to 3 first graders in 2005
Examples of Language Convergence
1793 France (New Republican government)
► Government is used to mandate the
elimination of all regional languages and
dialects
► Present day analogy: Prohibit oppressed
language groups access to broadcast
facilities
Impact of Language on the Cultural
Landscape
Probabilities of Selected Polynesian
Drift and Navigation Voyages
Result of Language Convergence
World’ nearly extinct languages
Languages used to Google
The Creation of a Constructed Global
Language (Non-natural)
Esperanto
► L.L. Zamenhof: Polish oculist in 1880’s
► Set out to construct a second language
everyone in the world would speak
► Slang is not used in this language
► Arabic, Greek, Latin-based; stable, not
subject to changes natural languages
undergo
► 2 million speakers
The Creation of a Constructed Global
Language (Non-natural)
Elvish
► J. R. R. Tolkien (The Hobbit, Lord of the
Rings)
► Spoken by the Elvish inhabitants of MiddleEarth
► Difficult to pronounce, speak and learn;
never intended to replace a natural language
► Dictionaries and lessons available
Toponym
►
Toponym – a place name
 A toponym:
►Imparts
a certain character on a place
►Reflects the social processes in a place
►Can give us a glimpse of the history of a place
Martin Luther King, Jr. Streets
Geographer Derek
Alderman asks:
* Where are MLK
streets?
* Why are they where
they are?
* What controversies
surround memorializing
MLK with a street name?
Where are MLK Streets in the US?
Changing Toponyms
►
When people change the toponym of a place, they have
the power to “wipe out the past and call forth the new.”
- Yi-Fu Tuan
Changing Toponyms
► Major




reasons people change toponyms:
After decolonization
After a political revolution
To memorialize people or events
To commodify or brand a place
Naming place is closely related to
claiming place