The Cultural Landscape: An Introduction to Human Geography Chapter 5: Language The Cultural Landscape: An Introduction to Human Geography

Where Are English Language Speakers Distributed? Origin and diffusion of English English is spoken by 328 million as a first language

English-Speaking Countries Figure 5-2

Where Are English Language Speakers Distributed? Origin and diffusion of English English colonies Origins of English German invasions Norman invasions Figure 5-3

Where Are English Language Speakers Distributed? Dialects of English Dialect = a regional variation of a language Isogloss = a word-usage boundary Standard language = a well-established dialect

Where Are English Language Speakers Distributed? Dialects of English Dialects In England Differences between British & American English Figure 5-5

Where Are English Language Speakers Distributed? Figure 5-7 Dialects of English Dialects in the US Settlement in eastern US Current differences in the eastern US Pronunciation differences

Where Are English Language Speakers Distributed?

Soft Drink Differences Figure 5-8 http://popvssoda.com:2998/

Why Is English Related to Other Languages? Indo-European branches Language branch Collection of related languages 8 branches 4 have many speakers: Germanic Indo-Iranian Balto-Slavic Romance

Branches of the Indo-European Family Figure 5-9

Why Is English Related to Other Languages? Indo-European branches Germanic German invasion of England 1500 years ago West Most similar to English High Low North Scandinavia Figure 5-10

Why Is English Related to Other Languages? Indo-European branches Indo-Iranian Most speakers Over 100 languages 2 Groups: Indic (Eastern) Hindi Iranian (Western) Figure 5-11

Why Is English Related to Other Languages? Indo-European branches Balto-Slavic East Slavic & Baltic Most widely used Russian West Slavic & South Slavic Czechoslovakia Polish, Czech, Slavic Hostility between Bosnians, Croats, Serbs 3 distinct languages

Why Is English Related to Other Languages? Indo-European branches Romance Latin origin Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian Mountains Romance Language Dialects Francien Castilian

Romance Branch Figure 5-12

Why Is English Related to Other Languages? Indo-European branches 2 distinct languages or 2 dialects of the same language? Creole Mix of colonizer’s language & indigenous language

Why Is English Related to Other Languages? Origin and diffusion of Indo-European A “Proto-Indo-European” language? Internal evidence

Nomadic Warrior Theory Kurgans 4300BC Nomadic herders of horses & cattle Searched for grasslands Figure 5-14

Sedentary Farmer Theory Lived more than 2000 years before Kurgans Language spread through agricultural practices Figure 5-15

Where Are Other Language Families Distributed? Classification of languages Indo-European = largest language family 46% of the world’s population speak an Indo-European language

Language Family Tree Figure 5-17

Language Families Figure 5-16

Where Are Other Language Families Distributed? Classification of languages Sino-Tibetan = 2nd largest language family 21% of the world’s population speaks a Sino-Tibetan language Mandarin: most used language in the world Ideograms

Where Are Other Language Families Distributed? Languages of East and Southeast Asia Austronesian Indonesia Javanese = most widely spoken Austo-Asiatic Vietnamese = most widely spoken Japanese Uses phonetic symbols like Western languages Korean

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

Where Are Other Language Families Distributed? African language families Extensive linguistic diversity 1,000 distinct languages & thousands of dialects Figure 5-19

Where Are Other Language Families Distributed? African language families Niger-Congo 95% of sub-Saharan Africans speak a Niger-Congo language Nilo-Saharan Khoisan “Click” languages San Bushmen Figure 5-20

Why Do People Preserve Languages? Preserving language diversity Extinct languages 473 “endangered” languages today Examples Reviving extinct languages: Hebrew Preserving endangered languages: Celtic

Why Do People Preserve Languages? Preserving language diversity Multilingual states Walloons & Flemings in Belgium Isolated languages Basque Icelandic Figure 5-23

Why Do People Preserve Languages? Global dominance of English English: example of a lingua franca Lingua franca = an international language Pidgin language = a simplified version of a language Expansion diffusion Ebonics Job opening

Why Do People Preserve Languages? Global dominance of English Diffusion to other languages Franglais French Academy (1635) = arbiter of French language Spanglish Denglish

The End.