CHAPTER 5

LANGUAGE
 Key Issue #1
Where are English-Language Speakers Distributed?
Where Are English Language Speakers
Distributed?
 Global distribution of language results from 2
geographic processes-interaction and isolation
 Origin and diffusion of English
 English is spoken by appx. ½ billion people as a first
language & 2 billion people live in a country where
English is an official language
 English colonies- ?Diffusion?
 Origins of English
 German invasions-Angles, Saxons, & Jutes
 Norman invasions
 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
Figure 5-2 language. It is also used and
understood in many others.
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.
Where Are English Language Speakers
Distributed?
 Dialects of English
 Dialect = a regional variation of a language set apart
by vocabulary, spelling, & pronunciation.
 Isogloss = a word-usage boundary
 Standard language = a well-established dialect
 Dialects
 In England
 Differences between British and American English
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.
Where Are English Language Speakers
Distributed?
 Dialects of English
 Dialects in the United States

Settlement in the eastern United States

New England, Middle Atlantic, &
Southeastern
 Regional pronunciation differences
are more familiar than word
differences
 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
Soft Drink Differences

Figure 5-8
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/1
2/20/sunday-review/dialect-quiz-map.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWtXd_
yRllA
My Fair Lady
 Key Issue #2
Why Is English Related to Other Languages?
Why Is English Related to Other Languages?
 Indo-European languages
 English is a part of the Indo-European language
family-collection of languages related through a
common ancestor
 Language branch = collection of related languages
 Indo-European = eight branches
 Four branches have a large number of speakers:
 Germanic
 Indo-Iranian
 Balto-Slavic
 Romance
Why Is English Related to Other Languages?
 Indo-European languages
 A language group -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.
 For example, West Germanic is the group within the
Germanic branch of the Indo-European family to
which English belongs.
Indo-European Language Family

Fig. 5-5: The main branches of the Indo-European language family include
Germanic, Romance, Balto-Slavic, and Indo-Iranian.
Linguistic Differences in Europe and India

Figure 5-10 Figure 5-11

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.
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.
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.
Why Is English Related to Other Languages?
 Origin and diffusion of Indo-European
 A “Proto-Indo-European” language?
 Internal evidence
 Derived from physical attributes of words in various Indo-
European languages
 Linguists and anthropologists agree that Proto-Indo-
European existed, but disagree about when and where it
originated and diffused
Why Is English Related to Other Languages?

 Kurgan hearth theory

 Marija Gimbutas
 Hearth-present day Russia and Kazakhstan, c.4300 BC
 “Nomadic warrior” theory-domesticated horses and cattle,
moved to find grasslands, conquered land using their horses
c.3500-2500 BC
 Anatolian hearth theory
 Colin Renfrew
 Hearth-eastern Anatolia (Turkey), 2000 years before Kurgans
 “Sedentary farmer” theory-language diffused through
agricultural practices rather than military conquest, was
successful b/c its speakers were more numerous due to their
settled farming
Kurgan Theory of Indo-European Origin
“Nomadic Warrior” Theory

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.
Anatolian Hearth Theory of Indo-European Origin
“Sedentary Farmer” Theory

Fig. 5-10: In the Anatolian hearth theory, Indo-European originated in

Turkey before the Kurgans and diffused through agricultural
expansion.
 Key Issue #3
Where are Other Language Families Distributed?
Where Are Other Language Families
Distributed?
 Classification of languages
 Indo-European = the largest language family
 About 50 percent of the world’s population speaks an
Indo-European language
 Sino-Tibetan = the second-largest language family
 About 25 percent of the world’s population speaks a
Sino-Tibetan language
 Mandarin = the most used language in the world
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.
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.
Where Are Other Language Families
Distributed?
 Languages of the Middle East and Central Asia
 Afro-Asiatic
 Arabic = most widely spoken
 Altaic
 Turkish = most widely spoken
 Uralic
 Estonian, Hungarian, and Finnish
 **remember the 3 countries in Europe that don’t speak
Indo-European languages?
Language Family Trees

Fig. 5-12: Family trees and estimated numbers of speakers for the main world
language families.
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.
Where Are Other Language Families
Distributed?
 African language families
 Extensive linguistic diversity
 1,000 distinct languages + thousands of dialects
 Niger-Congo
 95 percent of sub-Saharan Africans speak a Niger-Congo
language
 Benue-Congo branch; Swahili is the most important language

 Nilo-Saharan
 Khoisan
 Xhosa or “Click” languages
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.
 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.
 Key Issue #4
Why Do People Preserve Local Languages?
Why Do People Preserve Languages?
 Preserving language diversity
 Extinct languages
 473 “endangered” languages today
 Examples
 Reviving extinct languages: Hebrew
 Preserving endangered languages: Celtic
 Multilingual states
 Walloons and Flemings in Belgium
 Switzerland
 Isolated languages
 Basque
 Icelandic
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.
Language Areas in Switzerland

Fig. 5-17: Switzerland remains peaceful with four official languages and a
decentralized government structure.
Why Do People Preserve Languages?
 Global dominance of English
 English: An example of a lingua franca
 Lingua franca = an international language
 Pidgin language = a simplified version of a language
 Expansion diffusion of English
 Ebonics
Why Do People Preserve Languages?
 Global dominance of English
 Diffusion to other languages
 Franglais
 The French Academy (1635) = the supreme arbiter of the
French language
 Spanglish
 Denglish
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.