CHAPTER 5 LANGUAGES Say Hello!

Thinking Like A Geographer Human geographers believe that language is an important part of culture because it is the way cultural values are communicated. Click to Watch What does this video make you think about the power of words?

Key Issue 1 Where Are Languages Distributed?

Language language literary tradition official language language family language branch language group

Let’s Have a Chinwag: Even among the Brits English is different Click to Watch

Reviewing Academic Terminology language- system of communication through speech, a collection of sounds that a group of people understands to have the same meaning. literary tradition- system of written communication. official language- designated by a country and used for official documents and public objects. Examples  road signs and money

Classifying Languages families: collection of languages related through a common ancestral language branches: collection of languages within a family related through a common ancestral language. Differences are not as significant or as old as between families. groups: collection of languages within a branch that share a common origin in the relatively recent past and display similar grammar and vocabulary.

Families Languages Roots Branches Groups

In The Beginning Ted Talk about the Origins of Language Click to Watch

Atlas Alert Use the next slide to label and color the “Languages” map in your World Atlas! Complete by November 18th “Let It Go” in 50 languages

Distribution: Language Families

Classification of Languages ⅔ of the world’s population speak a language that belongs to the Indo-European or Sino-Tibetan language family. 2 % to 6 % of the world’s population speak a language that fits into one of seven other language families. Remainder of population speaks a language belonging to one of 100 smaller families.

The World’s 3 Most Widely-Spoken Languages

Indo-European and Sino- Tibetan Indo-European Predominate language family in Europe, South Asia, North America and Latin America. Sino-Tibetan Spoken in the People’s Republic of China and several smaller countries in Southeast Asia. No single Chinese language Mandarin is the most-used language in the world and the official language of both the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan.

Other East & SE Asian Language Families Austronesian (Indonesia) Austro-Asiatic (Vietnam) Tai Kadai (Thailand) Japanese (Japan) Korean (Korean peninsula)

SW Asia, North Africa, & Central Asia Language Families Afro-Asiatic (Arabic language of SW Asia/North Africa) Altaic (Turkey, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan.) Uralic (Estonia, Finland, Hungary)

African Language Families More than 1,000 distinct languages have been documented- many lack a written tradition. Niger-Congo (95% of all people in sub-Saharan Africa) Nilo-Saharan (North-Central Africa) Khoisan (“Clicking Languages”)

Hakuna Matata! NOTE! Swahili is part of the Niger-Congo Spoken by 30 MILLION Africans to speak with outsiders from different villages YOU Can already speak some Swahili! Simba  lion Nala  gift Rafiki  friend Pumbaa  slow witted Timon  respect

Bet You Didn’t Know! Click languages, a group of languages found only in Africa in which clicks function as normal consonants. In a remote mountain in Turkey, there are villagers who still communicate across valleys by whistling- using what they call their "bird language."

Homework Alert! Click to Watch

Mnemonic Device for Classifications of Languages

Glorious Messiness Ilustrations

Glorious Messiness Illustrations

Endangered Languages Native American Languages: Creates a Literary Tradition for her people.