Language in Asia Bill Baxter 29 October 2007

Overview Actually, not all of Asia (mostly, South, Southeast, and East) That excludes (for example) Iraq, Iran, Asian part of Russia… So many languages, so little time

Map of Southern Asia

Main topics Spoken language ≠ written language Spoken language in Asia Written language in Asia Language and history Europe discovers the languages of Asia

Spoken vs. written language Spoken language is primary; written language is secondary Everybody talks (almost); only some write. Speech is built into our biology; writing isn’t. Many spoken languages have no written form. Writing is only ~ 5,000 years old; spoken language is probably much older (maybe 40, ,000 years old?). The same language can be written with different scripts; different languages can be written with the same script. (Languages may look alike but sound very different, and vice versa)

Each dot represents a (spoken) language: Source: 25 October 2005http://

Families of (spoken) languages Descended from a common ancestral language Ex. 1: Romance languages (47, including French, Spanish, Italian), descended from Latin (attested) Ex. 2: Germanic languages (53, including German, Dutch, English, Swedish), descended from “Proto-Germanic” (not attested, but can be reconstructed from the daughter languages)

The Indo-European family (449) Includes most languages of Europe, but also Indo- Iranian.

Selected language families of Asia (1) Indo-Iranian branch of IE : Indic (= Indo- Aryan, 219) and Iranian languages (87) Dravidian (73): Brahui (in Pakistan); Tamil (in India and Sri Lanka), Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, etc.) ‘Altaic’ (66): Turkic (40), Mongolian (14), Tungusic (12; = ‘Manchu-Tungus’ = ‘Tungus- Manchu’) in Northern Asia Japanese, Korean (probably related to each other, maybe part of Altaic (continued…)

Language families of Asia (2) Sino-Tibetan (403): Chinese (14), Tibetan (53), Burmese, LOTS of minority languages Austronesian (1268) (‘Southern islands’): Malay/Indonesian, LOTS of minority languages may include Tai-Kadai (76) (Thai, Lao; and related languages, mostly in China) Hmong-Mien = Miao-Yao (35): minority languages in China and SE Asia. Austroasiatic (169) (‘Southern Asian’): Vietnamese, Khmer = Cambodian, LOTS of minority languages in SE Asia, some in India.

Indo-Iranian: Iranian branch

Languages of India (Indo-Iranian and others) Source: © Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

Languages of India (Dravidian) Source: © Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

Languages of India (Sino-Tibetan) Source: © Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

The Altaic family (controversial) Source: 25 Oct 2005http://ehl.santafe.edu/maps/Altaic.gif

The Turkic family (part of Altaic?)

Language families of Asia (2) Sino-Tibetan (403): Chinese (14), Tibetan (53), Burmese, LOTS of minority languages Austronesian (1268) (‘Southern islands’): Malay/Indonesian, LOTS of minority languages may include Tai-Kadai (76) (Thai, Lao; and related languages, mostly in China) Hmong-Mien = Miao-Yao (35): minority languages in China and SE Asia. Austroasiatic (169) (‘Southern Asian’): Vietnamese, Khmer = Cambodian, LOTS of minority languages in SE Asia, some in India.

The Sino-Tibetan family

The Austronesian family

Tai-Kadai Source: 25 Oct

Hmong- Mien (= “Miao- Yao”) Source: pic?idxStructId=379726&typeId =17, 29 Oct pic?idxStructId=379726&typeId =17

Language groups in China

The Austroasiatic family

How are language families identified? Shared items of basic vocabulary (items not likely to be borrowed), showing regular sound correspondences. Where possible, shared morphology (prefixes, suffixes, etc., with grammatical functions) Members of the same family may look very different because of the accumulation of changes over time; and languages can be structurally similar without belonging to the same family.

Tagalog and Malay (~ Indonesian): some basic vocabulary TAGALOGINDONESIANTAGALOGINDONESIAN 1BLOODdugodarah17MOONbuwanbulan 2BONEbutotulang18NAMEngalannama 3DIEparammati19NEWbagobaru 4DOGasoanjing20ONEisaesa 5EARtengatelinga21SALTasin 6EGGitlogtelur22STONEbatobatu 7EYEmata 23SUNarawmatahari 8FIREapoyapi24TAILbuntotekor 9FISHisdaikan25THISito, iriini 10FULLpunopenuh26TONGUEdilalidah 11GIVEbigaykasi27TOOTHngipingigi 12HANDkamaytangan28TWOdalawadua 13HORNsungaytanduk29WATERtubigair 14I, MEalpaku30WIND (n.)hanginangin 15KNOWalamkenal, tahu31YEARtaontahun 16LOUSEkutokutu32YOU (sg.)ikawawak

Tagalog and Malay (similar words) TAGALOGMALAYTAGALOGMALAY 1BLOODdugóqdarah17MOONbuwanbulan 2BONEbutotulang18NAMEngalannama 3DIEpatáymati19NEWbagobaru 4DOGásoanjing20ONEisaesa 5EARtaqingatelinga21SALTasin 6EGGitlogtelur22STONEbatobatu 7EYEmata 23SUNarawmatahari 8FIREapóyapi24TAILbuntotekor 9FISHisdáqikan25THISito, iriini 10FULLpunopenuh26TONGUEdilalidah 11GIVEbigaykasi27TOOTHngipingigi 12HANDkamáytangan28TWOdalawadua 13HORNsungaytanduk29WATERtubigair 14I, MEakoaku30WIND (n.)hanginangin 15KNOWalam [< Arabic]kenal, tahu31YEARtaqóntahun 16LOUSEkutokutu21YOU (sg.)ikawawak

Regular sound correspondences Tagalog /t/ = Malay /t/: TagalogMalay 1EGGitlogtelur 2DIEmata 3EYEbigatberat 4HEAVYbigatberat 5YEARtaqónléhér 6TO SLEEPtulugtahun

Regular sound correspondences Tagalog /g/ = Malay /r/: TagalogMalay 1EGGitlogtelur 2SANDpasigpasir 3HEAVYbigatberat 4NEWbagobaru 5NECKliqigléhér 6TO SLEEPtulugtidur

Tone languages (Chinese & others) The same consonants and vowels, pronounced with different pitch contours or tunes, indicate different words (not just different emotional attitudes) Tone languages include the various ‘dialects’ of Chinese some (not all) other Sino-Tibetan languages Vietnamese Kra-Dai languages (including Thai) Hmong-Mien languages

Tones in Mandarin Chinese 妈 ( 媽 ) mā ‘mother’ 麻 ( 麻 ) má ‘hemp’ 马 ( 馬 ) mǎ ‘horse’ 骂 ( 駡 ) mà ‘scold, attack verbally’ 吗 ( 嗎 ) ma (sentence-final particle indicating a yes-no question) ( 妈 is the simplified character, 媽 is the traditional character.)

An example sentence 妈骂马 ; 马骂妈吗 ? 媽駡馬 ; 馬罵媽嗎 ? Mā mà mǎ; mǎ mà mā ma? ‘Mother scolds the horse; does the horse scold Mother?’

Origins of writing in eastern Asia Chinese writing (begins ~13th century BCE): spreads to Korea, Japan, Vietnam Alphabetic systems (ultimately traceable to the Aramaic version of the Semitic alphabet): Early (Brahmi and other central Asian scripts) Later (Arabic alphabet adapted for Persian, Urdu, etc.) New scripts influenced by older ones Chinese-like scripts invented from scratch Korean Hangeul alphabet (invented from scratch)

Stages in the development of Chinese writing: Pottery markings (~ 3000 B.C.E.?) ‘Oracle bones’ (13th-11th c. B.C.E.) Inscriptions on bronze vessels (13th-3d c. B.C.E.) Brush and ink on bamboo or silk (rag paper invented ~ 105 C.E.); printing Script reform (Japan after 1945; China from 1950s): ‘simplified’ characters (fewer variant characters, fewer strokes in each character) Computer fonts and encodings

Oracle bones (turtle plastron)

Máo gōng dǐng 毛公鼎, ca. 900 BCE (Taipei, Former Palace Museum)

Shāng 商 dynasty bronze inscription, ~1100 BCE 作父丁寶尊彝 ‘ made [for] Father Dīng [this] precious treasured vessel’

A Chinese typewriter (1970’s)

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