Chapter 5

1. An Introduction to Human Geography The Cultural Landscape, 8e James M. Rubenstein Chapter5 Language Pretest

2. Language Where are English-language speakers distributed?

3. Language • Language is a system of communication through speech, a collection of sounds that a group of people understands to have the same meaning. • Literary tradition is a system of written communications. • Official language is the one used by the government for laws, reports, and public objects, such as road signs, money and stamps

4. English Speaking Countries Fig. 5-1: English is the official language in 42 countries, including some in which it is not the most widely spoken language. It is also used and understood in many others.

5. Origin, Diffusion, and Dialects of English • Origin and diffusion of English • English colonies • 1607 Jamestown, Virginia • 1620 Plymouth, Massachusetts • Became principal North American language

6. Anglo-Saxons

7. Norman Invasion 1066 A.D. Spoke French which Became official language of England Those with little education continued to speak English England loses control of Normandy (1204 A.D.), English becomes dominant again Statute of Pleading in 1362 Parliament continued w/ French until 1489

8. Invasions of England 5th–11th centuries Fig. 5-2: The groups that brought what became English to England included Jutes, Angles, Saxons, and Vikings. The Normans later brought French vocabulary to English.

9. Origin, Diffusion, and Dialects of English • Dialects of English • Dialect is a regional variation of language distinguished by distinctive vocabulary, spelling, and pronunciation. • Standard language- a dialect recognized as the most acceptable for government, business, education and mass communication i.e. BRP or British Received Pronunciation

10. Old and Middle English Dialects Fig. 5-3: The main dialect regions of Old English before the Norman invasion persisted to some extent in the Middle English dialects through the 1400s.

11. Origin, Diffusion, and Dialects of English • Dialects in the United States • Northern • Midlands • Southern • The mobility of Americans has been a major reason for the relatively uniform language that exists throughout much of the West

12. 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).

13. Isogloss-boundary that separates region in which different language usages predominate

14. Language Why is English related to other languages?

15. Language • Language family- a collection of languages related through a common ancestor that existed long before recorded history. • Language branch- a collection of languages related through a common ancestor that existed several thousand years ago. • Language group- a collection of languages within a branch that share a common origin in the relatively recent past and display relatively few differences in grammar and vocabulary.

16. The Indo-European Language Family • Branches of Indo-European • World’s most extensively spoken language family. • Nearly 3 billion speak an Indo-European language as their first language

17. Germanic Branch Indo-Iranian Branch Indo-European Language Family Balto-Slavic Branch Romance Branch

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

20. 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.

22. India’s Four Language Families • Sino-Tibetan- in the northeast • Austro-Asiatic – central and eastern highlands • Dravidian- in south • Indo-European – in north

23. South Asian Languages and 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.