RUBENSTEIN CHAPTER 5 KEY ISSUE 1 Where Are Languages Distributed?

Language is a system of communication through speech, or a collection of sounds that a group of people understands to have the same meaning. Ethnologue, which is quoted throughout this chapter, is an authoritative sources of languages. It estimates of the world has 6,909 languages. Only 11 of these languages, including English, are spoken by at least 100 million people

According to statistical site Ethnologue, there are 7,106 living languages in the world.

85 are spoken by at least 10 million Of those 7,106- Only 11 are spoken by over 100 million people 85 are spoken by at least 10 million 300 are spoken by between 1-10 million. The remaining 6,700 languages are spoken by less than 1 million people each.

to a system of written communication. Literary Tradition to a system of written communication.

Many countries designate at least one official language to be used for official documents and public objects— like road signs and money.

Road signs near Jerusalem, Israel

With 447 spoken languages, India has struggled to designate an official language

Classification of Languages World’s languages organized into: Language Families: collection of languages related through a common ancestral language Language Branches: collections of languages within a family Language Groups: collections of languages within a branch, displaying similar grammar and vocabulary.

FIGURE 5-3 LANGUAGE FAMILY TREE Language families with at least 10 million speakers according to Ethnologue are shown as trunks of trees. Some language families are divided into branches and groups. Individual languages that have more than 5 million speakers are shown as leaves. Below ground level, the language tree’s “roots” are shown, but these are speculative because they predated recorded history. FIGURE 5-4 SHARE OF EACH LANGUAGE FAMILY The chart shows the percentage of people who speak a language from each major family.

Linguists believe all modern languages emerged from only a few ancient SUPERFAMILIES. This hypothesis is hard to prove, however, since these ‘root’ languages existed LONG BEFORE RECORDED HISTORY.

2/3 of the world’s population speak a language that belongs to the Indo-European or Sino-Tibetan language families. Indo-European – 46% Sino-Tibetan – 21%

The two largest language families 1.) Indo-European Predominant language family in Europe, South Asia, North America and Latin America. Mandarin is one of six official languages in the U.N.

The two largest language families 2.) Sino-Tibetan Encompasses languages spoken in the People’s Republic of China and several smaller countries in Southeast Asia.

MANDARIN is the most widely-used language in the world, spoken by ¾ of China – more than 900 million people.

Chinese is written using LOGOGRAMS. These use symbols to convey words. Logograms are NOT phonetic- a Chinese writer must memorize thousands of different logograms. Many systems using logograms use common ROOTS- a part of the symbol that helps to categorize its meaning.

The relatively few languages spoken in populous China is a point of national pride and unity. The only other 1-billion person nation- India- is deeply divided between hundreds of competing languages.

FIGURE 5-5 DISTRIBUTION OF LANGUAGE FAMILIES Most language can be classified into one of a handful of language families.

Other Asian Language Families Several other language families are spoken by large numbers of people in East & Southeast Asia. Isolation on islands and peninsulas contributed to independent development in this region.

JAVANESE is the largest language (approx. 90 million speakers)

VIETNAMESE is the largest language in this family with approx VIETNAMESE is the largest language in this family with approx. 80 million speakers

THAI is largest language in this family with over 50 million speakers

More than 128 million people speak Japanese

JAPANESE writing uses a PHONETIC symbol system with two tiers- the HIRAGANA and the KATAGANA. Hiragana is used to convey words in the Japanese vernacular, while the Katagana is used to incorporate new words into the language (eg. Computer, Facebook)

About 80 million people speak Korean in North and South Korea

ARABIC is the largest language in this family, with nearly half a billion speakers

Languages of Southwest Asia, North Africa, & Central Asia Afro-Asiatic Arabic is major language, spoken by nearly 500m Official language in 24 countries of Middle East and North Africa

TURKISH is the largest language in this family, with 75 million speakers

Altaic Altaic language with most speakers is Turkish. Altaic languages became official languages of several countries that gained independence when Soviet Union broke up—e.g., Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan.

TURKISH PARK SIGN

African Language Families More than 1,000 distinct languages have been documented. Many are spoken by small numbers. Most lack a written tradition.

SWAHILI is the largest language in this family, with over 30 million speakers

Swahili First language of only 800,000 people Official language of Tanzania Spoken by 30 million Africans Language used to speak with outsiders from different villages

With 4.4 million speakers, LUO of Kenya is the most widely spoken language of this family.

NAMA is the largest language in this family, spoken by 233,000 people in Southwestern Africa.

FIGURE 5-8 AFRICA’S LANGUAGE FAMILIES More than 1,000 languages have been identified in Africa, and experts do not agree on how to classify them into families, especially languages in central Africa. Languages with more than 5 million speakers are named on the map. The great number of languages results from at least 5,000 years of minimal interaction among the thousands of cultural groups inhabiting the African continent. Each group developed its own language, religion, and other cultural traditions in isolation from other groups.