The Geography of Language

1. Die Geographie der Sprache The Geography of Language La Geografía del Idioma La Géographie de Langue CHAPTER 6 La Geografia di Lingua

2. Key Question: What are Languages, and what Role do Languages Play in Cultures?

3. Language Language – a set of sounds, combinations of sounds, and symbols that are used for communication.

4. Is language powerful?Why or why not? • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImQrUjlyHUg • To 2:46

5. 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

6. What if you were not allowed to use your language? • What do you think could happen to a culture who was denied that right?

7. Do you know people who use language to gain favor?How?Why?

8. Does your language ever change?Why?

9. Does language really identify you? • Hmmmm…. Let’s see… Game time! • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9oIvsk7cvw

10. What is dialect? • Unique speech patterns… • slang… • and the unique pieces to a language. • …. Does everyone know them? • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYmrg3owTRE

11. What does your dialect say about you? • Survey time!!!

12. Do you know your British slang? • Let’s be British…. • What are other types of dialect? Slang? In your world? • So Language is powerful!

13. Languages and Language Families

14. Language Divisions • Language Families • Language Branches • Language Groups • Languages • Dialects • Accents

15. Language and Cultural Identity

16. 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.

17. Language and Political Conflict Belgium: Flanders (Flemish language) Wallonia (French language)

18. Percent of People 5 Years and Older Who Speak a Language other than English at Home

20. Language as Element of Cultural Diversity • 6000+ Languages spoken today, not including dialects • 1500+ Spoken in Sub-Saharan Africa alone • 400+ in New Guinea alone • 100+ in Europe • However, this diversity is diminishing: • 2000+ Threatened or Endangered Languages

21. Dialectvariants 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

22. 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”

23. World Language Families

24. Linguist Bert Vaux’s study of dialects in American English points to the differences in words for common things such as soft drinks and sandwiches. Describe a time when you said something and a speaker of another dialect did not understand word you used. Was the word a term for a common thing? Why do you think dialects have different words for common things, things found across dialects, such as soft drinks and sandwiches.

25. Key Question: Why are Languages Distributed the way they are?

26. How are Languages 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

27. 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.

28. 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)

29. Historical Linkages among Languages • Indo-European language family • Proto-Indo-European language • Nostratic Language

30. Renfrew Hypothesis: Proto-Indo-European began in the Fertile Crescent, and then: From Anatolia diffused Europe’s languages From the Western Arc of Fertile Crescent diffused North Africa and Arabia’s languages From the Eastern Arc of Fertile Crescent diffused Southwest Asia and South Asia’s languages.

31. Agriculture Theory With increased food supply and increased population, speakers from the hearth of Indo-European languages migrated into Europe.

32. Dispersal Hypothesis Indo-European languages first moved from the hearth eastward into present-day Iran and then around the Caspian and into Europe.

33. The Languages of Europe Romance languages Germanic languages Slavic languages

34. Euskera The Basque speak the Euskera language, which is in now way related to any other language family in Europe. How did Euskera survive?

35. Languages of Subsaharan Africa- extreme language diversity- effects of colonialism

36. Nigeriamore than 400 different languages.

37. Key Question: How do Languages Diffuse?

38. How do Languages Diffuse? • human interaction • print distribution • migration • trade • rise of nation-states • colonialism

39. 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.

40. Key Terms PIDGIN - a form of speech that adopts simplified grammar and limited vocabulary from a lingua franca, used for communication between speakers of two different languages. Examples include Hawaiian Pidgin and the creoles of West Africa that resulted from the slave trade. “No eat da candy, Bruddah, it's pilau. Da thing wen fall on da ground.”

41. Give us da food we need fo today an every day.Hemmo our shame, an let us goFo all da kine bad stuff we do to you,Jalike us guys let da odda guys go awready,And we no stay huhu wit demFo all da kine bad stuff dey do to us.No let us get chance fo do bad kine stuff,But take us outa dea, so da Bad Guy no can hurt us.Cuz you our King.You get da real power,An you stay awesome foeva.Dass it!” Matthew 6:9-13 “The Lord’s Prayer” - Taken from Da Jesus Book, a twelve year effort by 6 linguists to translate the New Testament into Hawaiian Pidgin, published 2001

42. Key Terms CREOLE - a language that results from the mixing of a colonizer’s language with an indigenous language. Often they are pidgins. Can you guess which colonizing language is the base for each of the following creole examples? New Orleans’ French Quarter a. mo pe aste sa bananb. de bin alde luk dat big tric. a waka go a wosud. olmaan i kas-im cheke. li pote sa bay mof. ja fruher wir bleibeng. dis smol swain i bin go fo maket I am buying the bananathey always looked for a big treehe walked homethe old man is cashing a checkhe brought that for meYes at first we remainedthis little pig went to market

43. Key Terms CREOLE - a language that results from the mixing of a colonizer’s language with an indigenous language. Often they are pidgins Can you guess which colonizing language is the base for each of the following creole examples? New Orleans’ French Quarter a. mo pe aste sa bananb. de bin alde luk dat big tric. a waka go a wosud. olmaan i kas-im cheke. li pote sa bay mof. ja fruher wir bleibeng. dis smol swain i bin go fo maket French based Seychelles Creole English based Roper River Creole English based SaranEnglish based Cape York Creole French based GuyanaisGerman based Papua New Guinea Pidgin German English based Cameroon Pidgin

44. Key Terms ISOLATED LANGUAGE - a language that is not related to any other languages and thus not connected to any language families. Examples include Basque and Korean. Basque Spain

45. Monolingual State a country in which only one language is spokenMultilingual State a country in which more than one language is in useOfficial Languageshould a multilingual state adopt an official language?

46. Global LanguageIs a global language the principle language people use around the world in their day-to-day activities?ORIs a global language a common language for trade and commerce used around the world?

47. Choose a country in the world. Imagine you become a strong leader of a centralized government in the country. Pick a language other than a current language spoken in the country. Determine what policies you could put in place to replace the country’s language with the new language. How many years, or how many generations, would need to pass before your program achieves your desired outcome?

48. Key Question: What Role does Language Play in Making Places?

49. Place • Place – the uniqueness of a location, what people do in a location, what they create, how they impart a certain character, a certain imprint on the location by making it unique.

50. 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