Language in the world

1. Chapter 5
(in both books)
Language
PPT by Abe Goldman
An Introduction to Human Geography
The Cultural Landscape, 8e
James M. Rubenstein

2. I Geography of Language
A. Language is the most important way culture is
transmitted
B. Language can shape the attitudes,
understandings, and the responses of the society
to which it belongs.
C. There are literally thousands of languages that
are spoken throughout world
D. Language is a mark of cultural diversity and
identity that helps distinguish social groups.

3. II Intro to Languages
A. No official numbers of how many languages there
are. Between 4-7 thousand
B. Language is an organized system of spoken words by
which people communicate with each other with
mutual comprehension.
C. Many languages have many levels of comprehension.
“Chinese” is actually many languages like Cantonese,
mandarin, and others. They share same writing.
D. More than half of the worlds people speak just 8
languages
E. Between 20-50% of languages are no longer being
taught to kids
F. Some estimate that only 600 languages will exist by
2100

5. III Classification of
Languages
A. Proto-languages are the earliest forms of language
B. large groups of languages that come from the same
protolanguage are called a language family
C. Within a language family, languages that come from
the same ancient ancestor is called a language
Branch
D. Within a language branch, languages that share a
more recent ancestor are called a language group.
E. English belongs to the West Germanic group of the
Germanic language branch in the Indo-European
family of an ancient proto language

6. Origin, Diffusion, and Dialects
of English
• Origin and diffusion of English
– English colonies
– Origin of English in England
• Dialects of English
– Dialects in England
– Differences between British and American
English
– Dialects in the United States

7. 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.

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. 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.

10. 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).

11. Key Issue 2
Why is English Related to
Other Languages?
• INTRODUCTION
• English is part of the INDO-EUROPEAN language family
• A language family is collection of languages related through a
common ancestor long before recorded history
• Indo-European is the worlds most extensively spoken language with
3 billion speaking an Indo-European language.
• Within the Indo-European languages there are 4 main branches. A
language branch is a group of languages within a family that have
similar ancestors several thousand years ago.
• After we look at the branches of the Indo-European languages we
will look at the Origin and diffusion of Indo-European languages
• There are two main theories. The Kurgan and the Anatolian

12. I Branches of Indo-European
Languages
A. Germanic Branch.
1. English is a Germanic language because of the
Germanic tribes that invaded England 1500 years ago.
2. English and German are both part of the West
Germanic group because they are structurally similar
and have many words in common
3. German spoken today is High German because it
comes from the southern German highlands.
4. English comes from Low German which was spoken in
the northern parts of Germany. Dutch, Afrikaans, and
Northern German dialects are Low German
5. Germanic also included the Scandinavian languages of
Swedish, Danish, Norwegian and Icelandic, which all
come from Old Norse.

13. 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.

14. B. Indo-Iranian Branch
1. This is the largest Indo-European branch
2. This is divided up into two groups, Indic and
Iranian
a. Indo-Indic which includes languages used in India,
Pakistan, and Bangladesh.
b. There are many different Hindi language dialects, which
led to 18 official languages in India.
c. Urdu is spoken in Pakistan, and Bengali in Bangladesh.
d. Indo-Iranian is the second group. These are the
languages spoken by people in Iran and neighboring
countries. In Iran they speak Persian, sometimes called
Farsi. Pathan, and Kurdish are other languages spoken
from this branch

15. 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.

16. C. Balto-Slavic Branch
1. Slavic was once one language, but in the seventh century
slaves from Asia migrated to eastern Europe and now it is
divided into West and East.
2. East Slavic languages include Russian, Ukrainian and
Belorusian.
3. Russian increased in importance with the rise of the Soviet
Union.
4. West and South Slavic groups include Polish, Czech, and
Slovak in the West, and Serbo-Croatian and Bulgarian in the
South.
5. Slavic languages are fairly similar, however since the breakup
of the former Yugoslavia, Bosnia and Croatia have begun to
develop their own identity and because of isolation from each
other could become completely different.

17. D. Romance Branch
1. Evolved from the Latin language spoken by Romans 2,000
years ago.
2. Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Italian are the four main
romance languages
3. Romanian is the 5th important romance language but is
separated by the rest by Slavic speakers.
4. Other Romance languages include Romansh of Switzerland,
Catalan of Andorra, and Sardinian from the Island of Sardinia.
5. Read the section about the Origin and Diffusion of the
Romance Languages (pg 160-162 Rubenstein) and Romance
language Dialects in your Text and summarize it here in your
notes (homework)

18. 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.

19. 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. II Origin and Diffusion of Indo-
European Languages
A. Origin of the Indo-European Language
1. It can not be proven that there was a single ancestor to the
Indo-European language family but there is evidence that a
Proto-Indo-European language did exist.
2. Evidence is found in similar words in different languages
such as oak, bear, deer, and pheasant and other words that
could have been a part of daily life.
3. Indo-European languages share similar words for winter
and snow, but not for ocean. Linguists believe that the
Proto-Indo-European language came from a cold climate
that did not have contact with the ocean.

21. B. Diffusion of the Indo European
language
1. There are two theories about the diffusion of
the language.
2. First is called the Kurgan theory named after
the Kurgan people who lived in 4300 B.C.
they came from the steppes near the
boarder of Russia and Kazakhstan. They
were nomads who domesticated the horse
and cattle and moved west in search of
grasslands. They used the horse as a
weapon to conquer Southwest Asia and the
Balkan peninsula.

22. 3. The other theory is that it came from
eastern Anatolia, or present day Turkey.
This idea believes the language spread by
agricultural practices through Greece, Italy,
up into central and western Europe
4. We are not sure which is correct but both
theories have valid points. One spread by
military means, the other through contact of
better agricultural practices.

23. 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 7,000 years ago.

24. 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.

25. Homework
• In Fellmann read World Pattern of
Languages starting on page 138
and Language Change starting on
page 143 and OUTLINE it on the
back of the notes. Include a
summary of the “Language
exchange” box.

26. Distribution of Other Language
Families
• Classification of languages
• Distribution of language families
– Sino-Tibetan language family
– Other East and Southeast Asian language
families
– Afro-Asiatic language family
– Altaic and Uralic language families
– African language families

27. Language Families of the World
Fig. 5-11: Distribution of the world’s main language families. Languages with
more than 100 million speakers are named.

28. Major Language Families
Percentage 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.

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

30. 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.

31. Language Families of Africa
Fig. 5-14: The 1,000 or more languages of Africa are divided among five main language
families, including Austronesian languages in Madagascar.

32. 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.

33. Language Diversity and
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

34. Key Issue 4
Why do People Preserve Local
Languages
• Distribution of a language is a measure
of the fate of an ethnic group
• The number of English speakers shows
the cultural dominance compared to
icelandic which remains in Isolation.
• Language shows the battle between
globalization and local diversity

35. Preserving Language Diversity
• Extinct languages were once used but are no
longer in use.
• Once there were over 500 languages in the
Amazon region, now there are 57 or fewer.
• Gothic was spoken in Northern and Eastern
Europe in third century A.D. but it and it’s
entire language group are gone.
• Languages die through integration, when
other stronger cultures take over through
politics or cultural preference.

36. Preservation of Languages
(continued)
• Some Languages are being preserved.
European Bureau of Lesser Used Languages
try and preserve mainly languages of the
Celtic branch of Indo-European languages
• Linguists (people who study languages)
predict that hundreds of languages will die in
the 21st century.
• There may only be 300 that are safe from
extinction.

37. Hebrew: Reviving Extinct
Languages
• Hebrew is a rare case where it went basically
extinct then it was revived.
• Bible was mostly written in Hebrew and
Aramaic. Hebrew lost popularity in the 4th
century BC and only Jews remained using it
for religious use.
• Eliezer Ben-Yehuda is one person who led
the way to revive Hebrew after Israel became
independent. He wrote the first Hebrew
dictionary, and created over 4,000 new
Hebrew words for modern things that did not
exist.

38. Celtic: Preserving Endangered
Languages
• Celtic was the major language of the
British Isles before Germanic invasions.
• 2,000 years ago celtic was spoken in
Germany, France and northern Italy as
well as the UK.
• Today it only survives in Scotland,
Wales, Ireland and Brittany France.

39. Celtic Groups
• Two branches, Goidelic (Gaelic) and
Brythonic.
• Only Gaelic languages that survive are Irish
and Scottish Gaelic. It is the second official
language of Ireland but few speak either.
• Most used Brythonic languages are Welsh
and Breton which 300,000 still speak on the
Brittany peninsula of France. Only 10,000
speak it more than French

40. Revival of Celtic Language
• Welsh has made a comeback because of the
efforts of the Welsh Language Society and
Welsh being taught in schools
• Irish Gaelic also has grown with the help of
the younger Irish. It is also taught, and it is
being used in pop culture more and more.
Even an Irish Gaelic T.V. station started
broadcasting in 1996
• A couple hundred people have even revived
Cornish (a Brythonic language) but they fight
over how to spell things.

41. Multi Lingual States
• Belgium is divided between the French speaking
Walloons in the South and the Flemish (Dutch) in the
north.
• Historically the French speakers were wealthier and
ran politics. From pressure from the Flemish they
divide the country into two regions. Each ran
independently.
• Mayor of Voeren (Fouroms) caused prime minister to
resign when he refused to speak Dutch in Flanders.
• Today many amendments have been added to the
constitution to give each region more autonomy (self
rule)

42. 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.

43. Switzerland
• Switzerland peacefully exists with
several languages including
German, French, Italian, and
Romansh

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

45. Isolated Languages
• Isolated Languages are unrelated to any
other and not attached to any language family
and occur because of lack of interaction with
other languages.
• Basque is the only language spoken in
Europe that was there before the Indo-
Europeans came. It is spoken in the
Pyrenees mountains of N. Spain and S.
France.
• Icelandic IS related to North Germanic
languages although it has changed less in the
last 1,000 years than any other Germanic
language because of isolation

46. Global Dominance of English
• A language of international
communication is known as a Lingua
Franca.
• A group that learns English or another
lingua franca often learns a simplified
form called Pidgin language. It has no
native speakers as is always a second
language.

47. More English
• English is taught to 83 percent of High
school students in EU countries, and
more than 90% in some.
• 200 million speak English fluently as a
second language and Millions more
have a working knowledge of it.
• Japan has even considered making it a
second official language.

48. Expansion Diffusion of English
and Diffusion to other languages
• Read these sections on your own.
• Know what Franglais is as well as
Spanglish

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

50. Internet Hosts
Fig. 5-1-1: A large proportion of the world’s internet users and hosts are in the
developed countries of North America and western Europe.

51. Internet Hosts, by Language
Fig 5-1-1a: The large majority of internet hosts in 1999 used English, Chinese,
Japanese, or European languages.

52. FOR THE TEST
• Know Vocabulary
• Focus on Key Issues
– Read the summary at the end of the
Chapter
• Know the Major Language Families
• Know the Indo-European Branches
• Origin and Diffusion of English

53. If four languages have similar words for numbers
and names of fish, but different names for a certain
disease, what might be concluded about the time at
which the disease first diffused
A. The disease spread among a population that later
divided and evolved into four different languages
B. The population divided and evolved into the four
different languages, and then the disease spread
C. The disease spread to two different populations that
later divided into two different languages
D. The disease and language spread to four different
regions at the same time at the same rate
E. There can be no conclusions drawn about the initial
diffusion of the disease based on language