Language Project Human Geography

History English developed as a distinct language of England as a result of migration and isolation from Germans. Distribution of the English language occurred by people migrating out of England and to the colonies British took control of Ireland, South Asia, the South Pacific, and Southern Africa and made English the official language in all of those places Germanic tribes invaded England- the Angles, Jutes, and Saxons. Modern English has primarily evolved from the language they spoke. Other invaders added to the language, like the Vikings the Normans conquered England in 1066 and spoke French, but the people continued to speak English because of lack of education. England lost Normandy and had a lot of conflict with France, so people stopped speaking French all together and English became the unchallenged dominant language.

Diffusion of English British Colonization/ Force/ Trade/ Lingua Franca The British, for good or for bad established English as an official language of the world. Included in the colinization of many countries came the conquerors language, English. They forced the colonies they acquired to learn English. English was the lingua franca for all British colonies. Not only did the British affect their respective colonies, but their trading partners as well. Because of their power, traders needed to speak English to communicate with their partners. This made English the dominant language of the world for years to come.

English is a branch of the Indo-European language family http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/general/IE.html

Where english is spoken

Language Group Family Group Branch Romantic Group: West Germanic Group This is a branch and a group. ( 1) Spanish, (2)Portuguese, (3) French, and (4)Italian. French sing language was created by Charles-Michel de l'Épée , and the American Sign language system was created by Laurent Clerc West Germanic Group 1. English Key: - Low German - English West Germanic Has English as one language in it. (in Germanic Branch) It is further divided up into the low west Germanic subgroup (English) Other languages from this Group include… German, Dutch, Afrikaans, and Yiddish . Romantic It includes the main romantic languages: “Romantic” comes from the Romans- all Romantic languages developed from Latin. Defined as a collection of languages within a branch that share a common origin in the relatively recent past and displays relatively few differences in grammar and vocabulary. Map where West Germanic languages began.

United Kingdom Dialects (English) http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/dialectsofenglish.html Dialect consists of three different factors: 1.Vocabulary 2.Pronunciation 3. Spelling

United States Dialects Dialect Consists of 3 Main components: Pronunciation Spelling Vocabulary Pronunciation: In Pittsburgh, people pronounce steal and meal like stil and mil. Spelling: In NY, districts spell theater as theatre we spell it as theater. Vocabulary: While Bostonians refer to soda as pop, we Floridians refer to soda as soda. This map depicts regions that pronounce things differently.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THOluQWh9xA