Key Issue #’s 2 and 3 Why is English related to Other Languages?

English is part of the Indo-European language family. A language family is a collection of languages related through a common ancestor that existed long before recorded history. Indo-European is the world’s most widely spoken language family. 3 billion total people

Indo- European

Indo-European is divided into 6 branches… Germanic, Romance, Balto-Slavic, Indo-Iranian are largest. Branches are further divided into language groups. The Germanic branch is divided into West Germanic and North Germanic language groups. Our language, English, falls within the West Germanic language group.

English Language Family: Indo European Langauge Branch: Germanic Language Group: West Germanic Language: English

ORIGIN AND DIFFUSION OF INDO-EUROPEAN All Indo-European languages must be descended from a single ancestor. The ancestral language cannot be proved, however. Evidence lies in the fact that words in various languages are almost the same. Pg 150. Probably lived in cold climate b/c have common words from snow and winter, but not ocean. People agree it existed, but disagree on when and where it existed.

Indo-European origin theories Kurgan people were among the first to domesticate horses and cattle. As they spread out, they took their language with them of course. Was this them? Anatolian hearth theory occurred 2000 years earlier than Kurgan theory. Originated in “Turkey” and diffused from there?

Regardless of where it came from, communication was poor and slow among people. After generations of isolation, individual groups evolved increasingly distinct languages.

CLASSIFICATION OF LANGUAGES About 50% of all people speak an Indo-European language. About 20% speak a member of the Sino-Tibetan family. About 5% each speak one of the following… Afro-Asiatic (Middle East) Austronesian (in SE Asia) Niger-Congo (in Africa Dravidian (in India) The remaining 10% speak a language from a smaller language family.

DISTRIBUTION OF LANGUGE FAMILIES Sino-Tibetan – Encompasses languages spoken in the People’s Republic of China. *Remember, there is not one Chinese language.* Mandarin is the most important (spoken by 3/4ths of Chinese people)

Afro-Asiatic – Includes Arabic and Hebrew. 4th largest language family Afro-Asiatic – Includes Arabic and Hebrew. 4th largest language family. Arabic is the official language of over 2 dozen countries. It is also spoken by Muslims all over the world.

Niger-Congo – Spoken by 95% of sub-Saharan Africans Niger-Congo – Spoken by 95% of sub-Saharan Africans. Includes Swahili, spoken by much of Eastern Africa. One of few African languages with an extensive literature.

Austronesian – Once known as Malay-Polynesian Austronesian – Once known as Malay-Polynesian. Most common language is Malay-Indonesian (Indonesia is 4th most populous country).

Austronesian = purple

Dravidian – spoken by about 1/4th of Indians Dravidian – spoken by about 1/4th of Indians. The rest speak a type of Indo-European language.

Why do People Preserve Local Languages? Key Issue #4 Why do People Preserve Local Languages?

The distribution of a language is a measure of that ethnic group’s fate. English diffused from a small island to the world. Some languages have never diffused. Others are in danger of extinction.

Preserving Language Diversity Thousands of languages are extinct languages… once in use, but no longer spoken or read. When the Spanish reached the Amazon, they encountered 500+ languages. Today = 57. Gothic was once spoken widely in E and N Europe as late as 3rd century. Today, entire branch is gone (East Germanic). *People usually lose their language when they lose their military and political strength.

Linguists expect hundreds of languages to become extinct in the coming years. Only about 300 are safe b/c they have sufficient speakers and government support. Some organizations are dedicated to the preservation of languages.

Hebrew - Revived from Extinction Hebrew diminished in the 4th century BC and was used only in religious services. Aramaic was spoken at the time of Jesus, which was eventually replaced with Arabic. When Israel became a country in 1948, Hebrew and Arabic were the 2 official languages. The people of Israel were from many countries and spoke many languages, so they all knew at least some Hebrew (symbolic uniting of the nation). Had to create a “living language” for words that did not exist back them… automobile, telephone, etc.

Celtic – Preserving Endangered Languages Is of particular interest to English speakers b/c it was the language of the British Isles before the Germanic invasion. Britain’s 1988 Education Act made it mandatory that Welsh be taught in Wales. TV, radio, road signs are all Welsh or Welsh/English. Revival of Celtic language is a long term challenge.

MULTILINGUAL STATES Difficulties can arise at the boundary between two languages. Sometimes, the boundary is inside of a country.

Belgium South is called Wallonia (Wallooms) and speak French. North is called Flanders (Flemings) and speak Dutch. Political divided, no bilingual signs, each selects own government, controls public health, road construction, etc.

Belgium

Switzerland Exists peacefully with multiple languages. Key is a decentralized government, which gives local authorities most of the power. 4 official languages: German (68%), French (18%), Italian (12%), and Romansch (1%)

Linguist Map of Switzerland

ISOLATED LANGUAGES An isolated language is a language unrelated to any other and therefore not related to any language family. Similarities among languages are not a measure of the degree of interaction between groups of people. Isolated languages come from the fact that no interaction with other languages took place.

Basque Spoken by 1 million people in the Pyrenees Mtns (between France and Spain). Only pre-Indo-European survivor in Europe. Probably spoken over a wider area before, but was abandoned when interaction occurred. Mountain homeland helps preserve it.

Icelandic Is Indo-European, but has changed less than any other language of the Germanic Branch over the last 1k years. Colonized by Norwegians in 874 AD. The language of migrants usually changes with interaction of others… in this case, they had very little contact with other ethnicities.

GLOBAL DOMINATION OF ENGLISH One of the most fundamental needs in a global society is the need for communication. Today, that need is being met by English. People of different languages speak English to each other quite often to communicate. 75% of Internet is in English.

English: an example of a lingua franca A language of international communication, such as English, is known as a lingua franca. Other examples of modern lingua francas are Swahili, Hindustani, and Russian. To facilitate trade, speakers of two languages would create a lingua franca by mixing parts of the two languages into a simple, common language.

The Lingua Franca Joke… The European Language Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the EU rather than German, which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, Her Majesty’s government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5 year phase in plan that would be known as “EuroEnglish”: In the first year, “s” will replace the soft “c” ..sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard “c” will be dropped in favor of the “k”. This should klear up konfusion and keyboards kan have 1 less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome “ph” will be replaced with the “f”. This will make words like “fotograf” 20% shorter. In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of the silent “e”’s in the language is disgracful, and they should go away. By the 4th yar, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing “th” with “z” and “w” with “v”. During ze fifz year, ze unesesary “o” kan be dropd from vords kontaiining “ou” and similar

changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters. After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubls or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech ozer. ZE DREM VIL FINALI KUM TRU!!

A group that learns English or another lingua franca may learn a simplified form, called a pidgin language. To communicate, speakers make a pidgin language by learning a few of the grammar rules and words of the lingua franca, while mixing in their own words. Has no native speakers. Is learned in addition to their own language.

Diffusion to Other Languages English words have become increasingly integrated into other languages. Franglais – widespread use of English in the French language. Combination of “Francais” and “Anglais.” French used to be the global lingua franca. Many French feel English is destroying their language. Since 1635, the French Academy has been the arbiter of the French language.

Spanglish – English is diffusing into Spanish (spoken by 25 million in US alone). Is more of an integration of English into Spanish than just borrowing words like in Franglais. Has become really wide spread in popular culture, such as in lyrics, TV, and magazines.

Expansion diffusion of English Current expansion of English is not due to military conquest or migration. It is due to expansion diffusion, the spread of a trait through the snowball effect of an idea. For a language to remain useful, it must add new words and usage to deal with new situations. Unlike most languages, English changes from the bottom up… ethnic languages (Ebonics, Appalachian dialects). It stays up to date and even fuses with other languages.