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APHG - Chapter 5

APHG - Chapter 5. Language Language is one of the oldest and most geographically diverse cultural traits in earth. Language is a system of communication through speech. French Road Signs, Québec. Origin, Diffusion, & Dialects of English. Origin and diffusion of English

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APHG - Chapter 5

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  1. APHG - Chapter5 Language Language is one of the oldest and most geographically diverse cultural traits in earth. Language is a system of communication through speech.

  2. French Road Signs, Québec

  3. Origin, Diffusion, & Dialects of English • Origin and diffusion of English • English became a distinct language in England as a result of westward Celtic migration, Germanic and Norman invasions. • Modern English emerged from a mingling of French and Germanic.

  4. Origin, Diffusion, & Dialects of English • Dialects: regionally distinct versions of a single language that are distinguished by vocabulary, spelling and pronunciation. • Dialects develop through isolation from other speakers of the same language as well as by interaction with other speakers of that language. • Dialects of English - English has many dialects - British Received Pronunciation (BRP) is recognized as the standard language which is the most accepted dialect for mass communication.

  5. Origin, Diffusion, & Dialects of English • Differences between British & American English • Words that are associated with a dialect are spoken in a specific geographic region and thus have boundaries. • The word-usage boundary is known as an isogloss. • Dialects in the United States • Ebonics is an African-American dialect in the U.S.

  6. Official Languages & Lingua Franca • Countries designate at least one language as their official language which is used for all government business. • English is also known as a lingua franca because it is a language of international communication.

  7. English Speaking Countries Fig. 5-1: English is an official language in 50 countries, including some in which it is not the most widely spoken language. It is also used and understood in many others.

  8. Dialects in the Eastern U.S. Fig. 5-4: Hans Kurath divided the eastern U.S. into three dialect regions, whose distribution is similar to that of house types (Fig. 4-9).

  9. The Indo-European Language Family • All languages belong to a language family, which is a collection of many languages that were originally related through a common ancestor. • The Indo-European family is the world’s most spoken language family. • A language branch is a collection of languages related through a common ancestor within a language family, although not as old.

  10. The Indo-European Language Family • Four branches of Indo-European which are spoken by large numbers of people • Germanic branch • Indo-Iranian branch • Balto-Slavic branch • Romance branch -The four less extensively used Indo-European language branches are Albanian, Armenian, Greek and Celtic.

  11. The Indo-European Language Family • Origin and diffusion of Indo-European Language Family • Kurgan and Anatolian theories • The theory of Kurgan origin states that the first Indo-European speakers were Kurgans who lived near present-day Russia and Kazakhstan. They migrated westward into Europe, southward to Iran and South Asia, and eastward into Siberia, largely by military conquest. • The theory of Anatolian origin states that Indo-Europeans migrated west into Europe and east into Asia with their agricultural practices.

  12. Indo-European Language Family Fig. 5-5: The main branches of the Indo-European language family include Germanic, Romance, Balto-Slavic, and Indo-Iranian. (p. 154)

  13. Russian Sign Russian is an Indo-European language written in the Cyrillic alphabet, originally brought to Russia by Greek missionaries

  14. Germanic Branch of Indo-European Fig. 5-6: The Germanic branch today is divided into North and West Germanic groups. English is in the West Germanic group. (p. 155)

  15. South Asian Languages & Language Families Fig. 5-7: Indo-European is the largest of four main language families in South Asia. The country of India has 18 official languages. (p. 156)

  16. Romance Branch of Indo-European Fig. 5-8: The Romance branch includes three of the world’s 12 most widely spoken languages (Spanish, French, and Portuguese), as well as a number of smaller languages and dialects. (p. 157)

  17. Signs in Barcelona, Spain Signs in Barcelona are written both in Catalán (top) and Spanish (bottom).

  18. Port-au-Prince, Haiti Haitian Creole and French are both official languages in Haiti, although English is also used.

  19. Kurgan Theory of Indo-European Origin Fig. 5-9: In the Kurgan theory, Proto-Indo-European diffused from the Kurgan hearth north of the Caspian Sea, beginning about 7000 years ago. (p. 160)

  20. Anatolian Hearth Theory of Indo-European Origin Fig. 5-10: In the Anatolian hearth theory, Indo-European originated in Turkey before the Kurgans and diffused through agricultural expansion. (p. 160)

  21. Distribution of Other LanguageFamilies • Classification of languages (p. 161) • A language in the Indo-European family is spoken by 48% of the world’s people. • Distribution of language families • Sino-Tibetan language family (ie: Mandarin) • Encompasses languages spoken in the People’s Republic of China, as well as several smaller countries in Southeast Asia. • Other East and Southeast Asian language families • Japanese and Korean both form distinctive language families.

  22. Distribution of Other LanguageFamilies Distribution of language families (continued) • Afro-Asiatic language family • Includes Arabic and Hebrew, as well as a number of languages spoken primarily in northern African and southwestern Asia. • Altaic and Uralic language families ALTAIC LANGAUGES • Altaic languages are spoken across Asia between Turkey on the west and Mongolia and China on the east. • Turkish is by far the most widely used Altaic language • With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s Altaic languages become official in several newly independent countries (people are no longer forced to learn Russian) • Problems persist because the boundaries of the countries do not coincide with the regions in which the speakers of the various languages are clustered

  23. Distribution of Other LanguageFamilies Distribution of language families (continued) • Altaic and Uralic language families URALIC LANGAUGES (p. 165) • Every European country is dominated by Indo-European speakers, except for three-The Estonians, Finns and Hungarians speak languages that belong to the Uralic family. • African language families

  24. Language Families of the World Fig. 5-11: Distribution of the world’s main language families. Languages with more than 50 million speakers are named.

  25. Major Language FamiliesPercentage of World Population Fig. 5-11a: The percentage of world population speaking each of the main language families. Indo-European and Sino-Tibetan together represent almost 75% of the world’s people.

  26. Language Family Trees Fig. 5-12: Family trees and estimated numbers of speakers for the main world language families.

  27. Chinese Ideograms Fig. 5-13: Chinese language ideograms mostly represent concepts rather than sounds. The two basic characters at the top can be built into more complex words.

  28. Language Families of Africa Fig. 5-14: The 1000 or more languages of Africa are divided among five main language families, including Austronesian languages in Madagascar.

  29. Languages of Nigeria Fig. 5-15: More than 200 languages are spoken in Nigeria, the largest country in Africa (by population). English, considered neutral, is the official language.

  30. Language Diversity & Uniformity • Preserving language diversity • Hebrew: reviving extinct languages • Celtic: preserving endangered languages • Multilingual states • Isolated languages • Global dominance of English • English as a lingua franca • Diffusion to other languages

  31. Ireland Road Signs Road signs in Ireland are written in both English and Gaelic (Goidelic).

  32. Language Divisions in Belgium Fig. 5-16: There has been much tension in Belgium between Flemings, who live in the north and speak Flemish, a Dutch dialect, and Walloons, who live in the south and speak French.

  33. Bookstore in Brussels, Belgium The name of the bookstore is printed in both French (top) and Flemish (bottom).

  34. Jerusalem Street sign A street in Jerusalem was re-named New York after Sept. 11, 2001. The street name is shown in Hebrew, Arabic, and English

  35. Language Areas in Switzerland Fig. 5-17: Switzerland remains peaceful with four official languages and a decentralized government structure.

  36. French-English Boundary in Canada Fig. 5-18: Although Canada is bilingual, French speakers are concentrated in the province of Quebec, where 80% of the population speaks French.

  37. Online Population, 1996 - 2005 Fig. 5-1.1: English is still the largest language on the internet, but there has been rapid growth in many others, especially Chinese.

  38. E-Commerce Languages 2000 & 2004 Fig 5-1.2: English and English-speaking countries still dominate e-commerce, but other languages are growing rapidly.

  39. French Signs in Québec City

  40. Spanish Signs in New York City

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