Where are the other language families? Indo-European—48% of world Sino-Tibetan—26% (Mandarin) Afro-Asiatic—6% (Arabic) Austronesian—5% (SE Asia) Dravidian—4% (India) Altaic—3% (Asia) Niger-Congo—3% (Africa) Japanese—(2%) 3% speak a language belonging to 1 of 100 smaller families

Sino-Tibetan Family Sinitic Branch—There is no single Chinese language. Mandarin is most widely spoken. Several other languages , spoken differently but written the same. UNITY Chinese—420 one syllable words Shi—lion, corpse, poetry, house, ten, swear or die—inference and tone—two word combinations. Kan jian look see Writing uses ideograms, representing ideas or concepts rather than specific sounds—16% can’t read or write more than a few characters Austro-Thai (Thai in Laos, Thailand and parts of Vietnam) Tibeto-Burman Burmese

Families of Korean and Japanese and Austro-Asiatic Korea and Japan are isolated Japanese uses Chinese ideograms I part and also phonetic symbols used in place of the ideograms or along side them. Korean is usually a separate language but sometimes considered Altaic. Written in system where a letter represents a sound Austro-Asiatic—Vietnamese is the most spoken of these languages based in Southeast Asia. They use the Roman alphabet devised by missionaries in the 7th century

Afro-Asiatic Family World’s fourth largest Include Arabic and Hebrew as well as other languages mostly from northern Africa and southwestern Asia. Significance has to do with holy books A number of Arabic dialects exist but has been standardized because of Quran and other news programs

Altaic Family Spoken across a band of Asia between Turkey and Mongolia and China Turkish most common—was once written with Arabic letters but Ataturk (1928) ordered Roman letters used Soviets forced countries to use Russian and use Cyrillic alphabet With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the early 1990’s, Altaic languages became official in countries such as Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan

Uralic Family Every European country is dominated by Indo-European languages except Estonia, Finland, and Hungary. Hearth is believed to be Ural mountains of present day Russia north of the Kurgan homeland.

African Language Families Niger-Congo Language Family—95% of people in Sub-Saharan Africa speak a language in this family. Includes 6 branches, largest branch—Benue-Congo 3 languages spoken by at least 10 million people (Yoruba, Igbo, and Shona) also, Swahili, the official language of Tanzania and a language used as to communicate as a whole

Nilo-Saharan language family—spoken by a few million people in north-central Africa Khoisan language family—concentrated in the southwest clicking sounds (Hottentot) Austronesian—6% of the world speak a language from this family mostly in Indonesia, first used is Javanese and the second is Indonesian, Malay from Malaysia, Malagasy in Madagascar indicating migration

Nigeria Problems from so many speakers 493 distinct languages Only 3 of which have widespread use: Afro-Asiatic language, Hausa (15% Hausa and Fulani in the North), a Niger-Congo language Yoruba(15% in the southwest), and Igbo (15% in south) Southern Ibos attempted to secede in the 60s. Northerners claim the Yorubas discriminate against them Government moved capital to ease tensions from the Yoruba dominated southwest to Abuja in the center