Where are Other Language families Distributed?

1.Indo-European (46% speak one) 2.Sino-Tibetan (21% speak one) 3.Afro-Asiatic 4.Austronesian 5.Niger-Congo 6.Dravidian- southern India 7.Austro-Asiatic 8.Altaic

2 nd most spoken Family; China and other small countries in SE Asia Mandarin (“common speech”)- most used language in world About 1400 different dialects are mutually incomprehensible but standardized writing= national unity and mutual comprehension Low writing rate because of ideograms usage If spoken Cantonese is written, it cannot be understood by other dialects

ube.com/watch? v=e73btaVo868

These languages are clustered on islands and peninsulas Austronesian- Indonesia, Madagascar? Austro-Asiatic- SE Asian countries: Vietnamese (most spoken) Dravidian- mostly in southern India Tai Kadai- SE Asia, China Japanese (Kanji- ideograms diffused from China) Korean- roots in Altaic, new words combine Japanese and Chinese

Afro-Asiatic- Arabic (Islamic Quran), Hebrew (Judeo-Christian Bible) Altaic- Turkish; Central Asia; countries forced to use Russian under SU, official Altaic languages after independence Uralic- origins in Ural Mtns, dispersed throughout the Indo-European language countries (Estonia, Finland, Hungary)= Cultural identity!

Perfect example of how isolation creates new languages: 1000s of tribes never communicated= different languages Niger-Congo- 95% speak it; Swahili is second language of 30 million people Arabic roots, used to communicate with outsiders Nilo-Saharan- small groups of speakers between Niger-Congo and Arabic groups of Africa Khoisan- Hottentot: use of “clicking” sounds

141 million people speak 500 different languages British colonialization created the country of Nigeria agglomerating (combining) many diverse people Adopted English as official language after independence Helps avoid linguistic conflicts among Nigeria’s 3 biggest languages Children must learn in school- learning English takes time away from learning other subjects English becomes irrelevant for most when they graduate as they now cannot function in local Nigerian society