Language

1. Language K. Davies

2. �When God saw [humans become arrogant], he thought of something to bring confusion to their heads: he gave the people a very heavy sleep. They slept for a very, very long time. They slept for so long that they forgot the language they had used to speak.� Chief Makuei Bilkuei of the Dinka in southern Sudan

3. The Set Up� There are many basic components of culture, but among the most influential regardless of location or history are language and religion. They help identify who and what we are and clearly place us within larger communities of persons with similar characteristics.

4. Of course, they also separate and divide us. Language and religion are mentifacts, components of the ideological subsystem of culture that help shape the belief system of a society and transmit it to succeeding generations Both are fundamental strands in the web of culture

5. Languages and religions in their present day structure and spatial patterns are only the latest phase in a continuing progression. Languages evolve in place, responding to human thought, experience, and expressions, as well as borrowing that is ever increasing in a globalizing world.

6. They disperse in space, carried by migrants, colonizers, and conquerors. Some defend their language as an element of cultural identity. Others abandon language in an effort to be accepted in a new society. Historical Geography is the field that traces their diffusion, adoption, and disappearances.

7. Language Classification There are probably 4,000 to 6,000 different languages in the world. It is a rough estimate, because there are isolated tribes around the globe we are still finding who speak their own distinct tongues.

8. Language: any systematic method of communicating ideas, attitudes, or intent through the use of mutually understood signs, sounds, or gestures. Language: (in geographic sense) an organized system of spoken words by which people communicate with each other for mutual comprehension.

9. Of course, there are gradations among and between languages. Languages differ greatly in the number of speakers. Over half of the world�s population are native speakers of the top 8 languages. At least half can speak, and regularly use, one of 4.

10. Language Family Subfamilies Branches Groups Languages Dialects Accents

11. Language family: a group of languages descended from a single, earlier tongue. There are somewhere between 30 and 100 such families worldwide. For example: During the reign of the Roman Empire, Latin was the spoken language across much of Europe.

12. After its fall, unity dissolved, and many of the Romance Languages developed in isolation. Italian French Portuguese Romanian

13. Family relationship between languages can be recognized through similarities in vocabulary and grammar. By tracing regularities of sound changes in different languages back through time, linguists can reconstruct earlier forms of words and determine a protolanguage.

14. Romance Language word for bread: Latin: (the original): Panis Italian: Pane French: Pain Spanish: Pan Portuguese: P�o Romanian: P�ine

15. Germanic languages come from a lesser known protolanguage. These include English, German, Dutch, and the various Scandinavian tongues. The classification of languages by origin and historical relationship is called a genetic classification.

16. Of course, Romance and Germanic languages are individual branches of a more extensive family of related languages derived from Indo-European. The Indo-European language family is the largest in the world, consisting of most languages of Europe and a large part of Asia, and the introduced language of much of the western hemisphere.

19. Patterns The distribution of major language families records the migrations and conquests of our linguistic ancestors as well as the dynamic pattern of human movements, settlements, and colonizations.

22. Language Spread: a geographical event that represents the increase or relocation through time in the area over which a language is spoken. Therefore, one explanation of the spread of language families is massive relocation, such as the colonization of the Americas or of Australia.

23. The Romans however never massively relocated: the people they conquered gradually gave up their native tongues in favor of Latin Adoption, rather than eviction, was the rule. Adoption of a language may be seen as necessary when that language is the medium of commerce, law, etc.

24. Either way, through dispersion or acquisition of speakers, is a representation of spatial diffusion. Massive population relocation is an example of relocation diffusion. When a new language is adopted by the native population, a form of expansion diffusion has occurred, usually along with partial or total acculturation of the adoption population.

25. Those people in positions of importance are the first to adopt the new language of control and prestige. Later, through schooling, daily contact, and business or social necessity, the lower social strata of society may gradually be absorbed This is known as hierarchical diffusion.

26. Example: In Uganda and other former British possessions in Africa, a stranger may be addressed in English by someone who wishes to display his or her education and social status. Swahili may be chosen if certainty of communication is more important than pride.

27. Diffusion may be impeded by barriers or promoted by their absence. Speakers of Greek resisted Turkish rule of their homeland, and language remained a focus of cultural identity. Physical barriers have also left their mark. Migrants or invaders follow the path of least topographic resistance

28. For example: the Indo-European languages migrated easily into the Indian subcontinent, but failed to move north through the Himalayas. The Pyrenees Mountains also serve as a linguistic barrier separating France and Spain. The Basques live there and speak their own distinct language.

29. Language Change Migration, segregation, and isolation give rise to separate languages because the society is no longer unitary. Word meaning, pronunciation, vocabulary, and syntax(use) change over time without notice because of everyday use Over time, it creates large changes in the overall language

30. Examples: 17th Century � the King James Bible � sounds a little odd� 14th Century � Chaucer�s Canterbury Tales � no longer easily read. 8th Century � Beowulf � basically unreadable without getting an updated copy.

31. Chaucer�s Canterbury Tales 1��Whan that Aprille, with hise shoures soote, 2�� The droghte of March hath perced to the roote 3�� And bathed every veyne in swich licour, 4�� Of which vertu engendred is the flour; 5�� Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth 6�� Inspired hath in every holt and heeth 7�� The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne 8�� Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne, 9�� And smale foweles maken melodye, 10�� That slepen al the nyght with open eye- 11�� So priketh hem Nature in hir corages- 12�� Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages 13�� And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes 14�� To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes; 15�� And specially, from every shires ende http://www.canterburytales.org

32. In England, Norman conquerors added approximately 10,000 new words to the English language. The push of creativity during the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I added 12,000. The colonization of the Americas and other areas required the adding of new words to describe the new plants, animals, and artifacts found.

33. 400 years ago, English was spoken by some 7 million people off the coast of Europe� Now there are 375 million native speakers, at least as many that use it as a second language, and another 750 million who have some competence It is the official language of ~60 countries 78% of Web pages use English, with Japanese coming in second with 2.8%

34. Those who speak English belong to a language community, but we do not all speak the same language� There are usually a number of more or less distinctive dialects.

35. Standard Language Standard language: comprising the accepted community norms of syntax, vocabulary, and pronunciation The dialect that emerges as the basis of the standard language of a country is often identified with the country�s capital or center of power Standard French is based on the Paris dialect

36. Dialects Vocabulary, pronunciation, rhythm, and the speed of speech may set groups of speakers apart from one another. In �My Fair Lady�, a professor of phonetics is able to identify the London neighborhood by her accent and vocabulary. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yM7Fye7O4Nw

37. Shaw�s play tells us dialects may coexist in space. Cockney and cultured English share the same place in London. In many societies, social dialects denote social class and educational level. Speakers of higher socioeconomic status are more likely to follow the norms of their standard language

38. People of lower S.E.S. are more likely to use the vernacular, or nonstandard language. Different dialects may be part of the speech patterns of the same person. Gender can also play a role: females are more likely to use forms of speech considered to be �better� or �more correct� than males of the same social class.

39. We tend to think of dialects in spatial terms. Each locale will develop its own slight differences from neighboring places These differences in pronunciation, vocabulary, word meanings, and other language characteristics tend to grow as one moves away from a given starting point

40. If we mapped these variations out, they would help define the linguistic geography of a generalized speech community. Every dialect has a territorial extent; the outer limit of which is a boundary line called an isogloss.

41. When mapped, each isogloss give clear evidence regions which may reflect topographic barriers, political borders, or past migration flows.