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Chapter 5

Chapter 5. Key Issue 3 Where are other language families distributed?. Language Families. Indo-European: 48% of world, English Sino-Tibetan: 26% of world, Mandarin Afro-Asiatic: 6%, Arabic Austronesian: 5%, Southeast Asia Dravidian: 4%, India Altaic: 3%, Asia Niger-Congo: 3%, Africa

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Chapter 5

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  1. Chapter 5 Key Issue 3 Where are other language families distributed?

  2. Language Families • Indo-European: 48% of world, English • Sino-Tibetan: 26% of world, Mandarin • Afro-Asiatic: 6%, Arabic • Austronesian: 5%, Southeast Asia • Dravidian: 4%, India • Altaic: 3%, Asia • Niger-Congo: 3%, Africa • Japanese: 2%, Japan • 100 smaller families: 3%

  3. Sino-Tibetan Family • People’s Republic of China: world’s most populous state • Smaller countries of Southeast Asia • Smaller branches of Sino-Tibetan family: Austro-Thai and Tibetan-Burman

  4. Sinitic Branch • No single Chinese language • Mandarin: most important, ¾ of Chinese people, official language of China & Taiwan • Country is imposing Mandarin to other Sinitic speakers (Wu, Min, Yue, etc) • Small number of languages = national strength & unity • Languages all written the same way, pronounced differently

  5. Chinese Languages • 420 one-syllable words • Each sound denotes more than one thing • Ex: jian has more than 20 meanings “shi” means lion, corpse, house, poetry, ten, swear, or die • Listener must infer the meaning of the word

  6. Chinese Languages • One-syllable words can be combined into two-syllable words, forming a new word • “Shanghai” – “above” and “sea” • Written language: collection of thousands of characters • Some represent sounds • Most are ideograms: represent ideas/concepts • Makes it difficult to learn because so many characters • 16% of population can’t read or write

  7. Sino-Tibetan Language Family Austro-Thai and Tibeto-Burman Branches

  8. Other East & Southeast Asian Language Families • Japanese & Korean form distinctive language families • Reason: Isolation • Japan-island country • Includes some Chinese ideograms • Two systems of phonetic symbols

  9. Korea-peninsular state • Not written with ideograms • Hankul: each letter represents a sound • Half of Korean vocab derives from Chinese words • Most vocab for new technology derives from Japan & Korea

  10. Vietnamese • Written with Roman alphabet • Written alphabet developed by Roman Catholic missionaries, 7th Century

  11. Afro-Asiatic Language Family • Fourth largest language family • Languages of Northern Africa & Southwestern Asia • Used to write the holiest of books of the major religions • Judeo-Christian Bible & Islamic Quran • Hebrew • Arabic: official language in 24 countries, 200 million speakers • Many Muslims throughout the world know some Arabic

  12. Altaic & Uralic Language Families • Altaic: between Turkey and Mongolia & China • Turkish: most widely used • Formerly written in Arabic, 1928: transition to Roman alphabet • Help modernize economy & culture, increase communication with Western world • Under Soviet policy: people forced to use Russian Cyrillic alphabet • After collapse of Soviet Union: languages clustered among new countries

  13. Uralic Language Family • Estonia, Finland and Hungary • Non-Indo-European languages of Europe • Originated in Ural mountains of Russia • Migrants carried language to Europe

  14. African Language Families • Number of languages-unknown • More than 1,000 languages, several thousand dialects • Minimal interaction b/t cultural groups thousands of years ago • Each group with own language & religion • Europeans began to record languages with Roman & Arabic alphabet

  15. Niger-Congo Family • More than 95% of Sub-Saharan Africa • Swahili-Tanzania • Developed from interaction between African groups & Arab traders • Learned as a 2nd language to communicate with other groups

  16. Nilo-Saharan Family • North-Central Africa • 6 branches • Subdivided into even more branches • Total number of speakers for each language is small

  17. Khoisan Family • Southwest Africa • 3rd most important language family in Africa • Distinctive characteristic: clicking sounds • Europeans called it “Hottentot”Khoisan Language

  18. Austronesian Family • Mostly spoken in Indonesia, 4th most populous country • 739 actively used languages dispersed among the islands • Javanese: most widely spoken (2/3 pop on Java) • Indonesian: used as a 2nd language for communication • Malay: Malaysia • Malagasy: Madagascar

  19. Nigeria: Conflict among speakers of different languages • Nigeria: Africa’s most populous country • 493 languages, only 3 have wide-spread use • Cultural diversity between language. • Different groups often battle

  20. Key Issue 3 Where are other language families distributed? • Summary: Other language families with a large number of speakers include Sino-Tibetan, Austronesian, Afro-Asiatic, Niger-Congo and Dravidian. Each has a distinctive distribution, as with Indo-European, which is a result of a combination and isolation

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