Transcript The Mosaic of Languages

What Religion and Where in the
World?
Eastern Orthodox
Latvia
The Mosaic of
Languages
Ch 5
Language
Why geographers study language
Provides the single most common variable by which
cultural groups are identified
Provides the main means by which learned customs
and skills pass from one generation to the next
Facilitates cultural diffusion of innovations
Because languages vary spatially, they reinforce the
sense of region and place
Area of Specialty for GEOGRAPHY
Study of language called linguistic geography and
geolinguistics by geographers
Terms used in the study of language
Do NOT confuse the two!
Language — tongues that cannot be
mutually understood
Dialects — variant forms of a language that
have not lost mutual comprehension
A speaker of English can understand the
various dialect of the language
A dialect is distinctive enough in vocabulary
and pronunciation to label its speaker
Some 6,000 languages and many more
dialects are spoken today
Terms used in the study of language
Pidgin language — results when different
linguistic groups come into contact
Serves the purposes of commerce
Has a small vocabulary derived from the
various contact groups
Speakers of different languages need to
communicate but don't share a common
language.
Examples of use in the world:
Official language of Papua, New Guinea is a
largely English-derived pidgin language,
which includes Spanish, German, and
Papuan words
Spanglish
Terms used in the study of language
Lingua franca — a language that
spreads over a wide area where it is
NOT the mother tongue
A language of communication & commerce
Swahili language has this status in much
of East Africa
English is Lingua franca of international
business world-wide
Kenya
Kenya
Kenya = 2 official
languages:
Swahili & English.
These lingua franca
facilitate communication
among Bantu, Nilotic, &
Cushitic language speakers.
Swahili developed along
the coast of East Africa
where Bantu came in
contact with Arabic spoken
by Arab sea traders.
Kenya
English became
important during the
British colonial period &
is still associated with
high status.
This shopping center
caters to Maasai herders
who speak a Nilotic
language & Kikuyu
farmers who speak a
Bantu language.
Jambo = “hello” in Swahili.
On your
copy outline
with hi-liter
countries
that speak
Swahili
On Colonial
Chloropleth
language
map of
AfricaColor the
countries
the following
colors
FrenchBlue
English Red
PortugueseYellow
ItalianGreen,
Spanish Orange -
The Mosaic of Languages
Linguistic Culture Regions
Linguistic Diffusion
Linguistic Ecology
Culturo-Linguistic Integration
Linguistic Landscapes
Language characteristics used to
define linguistic culture regions
isoglosses — borders of individual
word usages or pronunciations
No two words, phrases, or
pronunciations have exactly the same
spatial distribution
Spatially isoglosses crisscross one
another
Typically cluster together in “bundles”
Bundles serve as the most satisfactory
dividing lines among dialects and languages
English dialects in the United States
Dialects reveal a vivid geography
American English is hardly uniform from
region to region
At least 3 major dialects, corresponding to
major culture regions, developed in the
eastern United States by the time of the
American Revolution
Northern
Midland
Southern
Dialect Activity http://polyglot.lss.wisc.edu/dare/Audio.html
English dialects in the US
The 3 subcultures expanded
westward & their dialects spread &
fragmented
Retained much of their basic character
even beyond the Mississippi River
Have distinctive vocabularies &
pronunciations
Drawing dialect boundaries is often
tricky
English dialects in the US
Today, many regional words are becoming
old-fashioned, but new words display
regional variations
The following words are all used to
describe a controlled-access divided
highway
Freeway — a California word
Turnpike and parkway — mainly northeastern
and Midwestern words
Thruway, expressway, and interstate
English dialects in the US
Many African-Americans speak their own form of
English — Black English aka Ebonics
Once dismissed as inferior substandard English
Grew out of a pidgin that developed on early slave
plantations
Today, spoken by about 80 percent of African-Americans
Used by ghetto dwellers who have not made their
compromises with mainstream American culture
Many features separate it from standard speech, for example:
Lack of pronoun differentiation between genders
Use of undifferentiated pronounsNot recognized as part of the
proper grammar of a separate linguistic group
Considered evidence of verbal inability or impoverishment
In the Southern dialect, African-Americans have made
substantial contributions to speech
Southern dialect is becoming increasingly identified with
African-Americans
Caucasians in the Southern region are shifting to Midland
speech
English dialects in the US
American dialects suggest we are not
becoming a more national culture by
overwhelming regional cultures
Linguistic divergence is still under way
Dialects continue to mutate on a regional
level
Local variations in grammar &
pronunciation proliferate
The homogenizing influence of radio,
television, and other mass media is
being defied
Pop vs Soda
http://www.popvssoda.com/
QuickTime™ and a
TIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
What Patterns can you
identify? Why do they
exist?
London, England
While English is spoken
in many parts of the
world, all English words
are not mutually
intelligible.
This London tube
(subway) sign says that
anyone performing there
(eg singing or playing
for money) is subject to
a fine of subsection.
Are tubes, subway, &
busking dialect words?
The Mosaic of Languages
Linguistic Culture Regions
Linguistic Diffusion
Linguistic Ecology
Culturo-Linguistic Integration
Linguistic Landscapes
Indo-European diffusion
Earliest speakers apparently lived in
southern & southeastern Turkey
(Anatolia) about 8 or 9 thousand
years ago
Diffused west and north into Europe
Represented expansion of farming
people at expense of hunters and
gatherers
As people dispersed and lost contact,
different variant forms of the language
caused fragmentation of the family
Indo-European diffusion
Later language diffusion occurred with the
spread of great political empires, especially
Latin, English, and Russian
Relocation and expansion diffusion were
not mutually exclusive
Relocation diffusion by conquering elite
implanted their language
Implanted language often gained wider
acceptance by expansion diffusion
Conqueror’s language spread hierarchically
Spread of Latin with Roman conquests
Spanish in Latin America
Austronesian diffusion
Presumed hearth in the interior of
Southeast Asia 5,000 years ago
Initially spread southward into the Malay
Peninsula
In a process lasting several thousand
years, people sailed in tiny boats across
the uncharted vast seas to New Zealand,
Easter Island, Hawaii, and Madagascar
Sailing and navigation was the key to
Austronesian spread, not agriculture
Searching for the primordial tongue
Dene-Caucasian reputedly gave rise
to Sino-Tibetan, Basque, and one
form of early Native-American called
Na-Dene
Scholars are attempting to find the
original linguistic hearth area from
which all modern languages have
derived
It is believed the original language
hearth arose in Africa perhaps
250,000 yrs ago & diffused from there
The Mosaic of Languages
Linguistic Culture Regions
Linguistic Diffusion
Linguistic Ecology
Culturo-Linguistic Integration
Linguistic Landscapes
The environment and vocabulary
How the environment affects vocabulary
Spanish language derived from Castile
Rich in words describing rough terrain (fig 4.2)
Distinguishes subtle differences in shape &
configuration of mountains
Scottish Gaelic
Describes types of rough terrain
Common attribute spoken by hill people
Romanian tongue
Also from a region of rugged terrain
Words tend to be keyed to use of terrain for
livestock herding
The environment and vocabulary
English
Developed in wet coastal plains
Very poor in words describing
mountainous terrain
Abounds with words describing flowing
streams
Rural American South—river, creek,
branch, fork, prong, run, bayou, and
slough
The environment and vocabulary
Vocabularies develop for features of
the environment that involve
livelihood
Detailed vocabularies are necessary
to communicate sophisticated
information relevant to the adaptive
strategy
The environment provides refuge
Inhospitable environments offer protection &
isolation
Provide outnumbered linguistic groups refuge from
aggressive neighbors (isolation)
Linguistic refuge areas
Rugged bill and mountain areas
Excessively cold or dry climates
Impenetrable forests and remote islands
Extensive marshes and swamps
Unpleasant environments rarely attract conquerors
Mountains tend to isolate inhabitants of one valley
from another
Examples of linguistic refuge areas
Rugged Caucasus Mountains & nearby
ranges in central Eurasia are populated by
a large variety of peoples
Alps, Himalayas, and highlands of Mexico
are linguistic shatter belts — areas where
diverse languages are spoken
American Indian tongue Quechua clings to
a refuge in the Andes Mountains of South
America
In the Rocky Mountains of northern New
Mexico, an archaic form of Spanish
survives due to isolation that ended in the
early 1900s
Switzerland
Switzerland has 4
recognized national
languages: French,
German, Italian, &
Romansch.
Romansch, (Latin origin),
is spoken by only 1.1%
of the population.
Nevertheless, it has
survived in the alpine
linguistic refuge of the
upper Rhine & Inn Rivers
& was given official
recognition in 1938.
Language characteristics used to
define linguistic culture regions
Overlap of languages complicates
drawing of linguistic borders
In any given area more than one
tongue may be spoken — Ecuador
Language barriers are rarely sharp
Language families
The Indo-European language family
Largest most wide-spread family
Spoken on all continents
Dominant in Europe, Russia, North & South
America, Australia, & parts of southwestern
Asia & India
Subfamilies—Romance, Slavic, Germanic,
Indic, Celtic, and Iranic
Subfamilies are divided into individual
languages
Seven Indo-European tongues are among the
top 10 languages spoken in the world
By comparing vocabularies in various
languages one can see the kinship
Language families
The Afro-Asiatic language family
Has two major divisions —Semitic & Hamitic
Semitic covers the area from Tigris-Euphrates
valley westward through most of the north half
of Africa to the Atlantic coast
Domain is large but consists of mostly sparsely
populated deserts
Arabic is the most widespread Semitic language
Arabic has the most number of native
speakers—about 186 million
Hebrew was a “dead” language used only in
religious ceremonies
– Today Hebrew is the official language of Israel
Amharic a third major Semitic tongues has 20
million speakers in the mountains of East Africa
Language families
The Afro-Asiatic family
Has two major divisions—Semitic & Hamitic
Smaller number of people speak Hamitic
languages
Share North and East Africa with Semitic speakers
Spoken by the Berbers of Morocco and Algeria
Spoken by the Tuaregs of the Sahara and Cushites of
East Africa
Originated in Asia but today only spoken in Africa
Expansion of Arabic decreased the area and number of
speakers
Other major language families
Niger-Congo family
Africa south of the Sahara Desert is
dominated by the Niger-Congo family
Spoken by about 200 million people
Greater part of the Niger-Congo culture
region belongs to the Bantu subgroup
Includes Swahili—the lingua franca of
East Africa
Other major language families
Altaic language family
Includes Turkic, Mongolic, and several
other subgroups
Homeland lies largely in deserts,
tundras, & coniferous forests of
northern & central Asia
Uralic family
Finnish and Hungarian are the two most
important tongues
Both have official status in their countries
Other major language families
Austronesian language family
Most remarkable language family in terms of
distribution
Speakers live mainly on tropical islands
Ranges from Madagascar, through Indonesia
and the Pacific Islands, to Hawaii and Easter
Island
Longitudinal span is more than half way around
the world
Latitudinally, ranges from Hawaii and Taiwan in
the north to New Zealand in the south
Largest single language in this family is
Indonesian —5O million speakers
Most widespread language is Polynesian
Other major language families
Sino-Tibetan language family
(#2 spoken)
One of the major language families of
the world
Extends throughout most of China and
Southeast Asia
Han Chinese is spoken in a variety of
dialects as a mother tongue by 836
million people
Han serves as the official form of speech
in China
Other major language families
Japanese/Korean language family
Another major Asian family with nearly
200 million speakers
Seems to have some kinship to both the
Altaic and Austronesian
Other major language families
Austro-Asiatic language family
Found in Southeast Asia, Vietnam,
Cambodia, Thailand, and spoken by
some tribal people of Malaya and parts
of India
Occupies a remnant peripheral domain
Has been encroached upon by SinoTibetan, Indo-European, & Austronesian
Other major language families
Occupy refuge areas after retreat before
rival groups
Khoisan — found in the Kalahari Desert of
southwestern Africa, characterized by clicking
sounds
Dravidian — spoken by numerous darkerskinned people of southern India and northern
Sri Lanka
Others include — Papuan, Caucasic, NiloSaharan, Paleosiberian, Inukitut, and a variety
of Amerindian
Basque — spoken on the borderland between
Spain and France is unrelated to any other
language in the world
London, England
This display of
newspapers illustrates
the fact that London is
an international city as
well as a major
migration destination.
In South Kensington,
sizable foreign
contribute complexity
London, England
to the linguistic
landscape.
Both IndoEuropean (e.g.
French, Spanish
and Swedish) and
Afro-Asiatic (Arab)
language families
are represented
here.