 Language is important to culture because it is the main means of communication  One generation passes customs and skills to the next generation through language  Language reveals:  Where a culture has been  What is valued  How people experience events

 What language is spoken by the most people in the world?

1. Mandarin Chinese million 2. Spanish million 3. English million 4. Arabic million 5. Hindi million 6. Portuguese million 7. Bengali million 8. Russian million 9. Japanese million 10. German - 96 million

 How many languages do you think are spoken in the world today?  Write your estimate on your notes

 Between 6,000 and 7,000 living languages in the world today  Many of these are endangered…

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 Language families –Group of languages with a shared but fairly distant origin  see page (8 th ed)

 Proto-Indo-European hearth traced to modern-day Turkey

 Subfamilies – divisions within a language family  See pg. 150  Boundary = isogloss

 Language families – pg. 166  Case study: Nigeria – pg. 167  Has more than 500 different languages  Students are taught in English (which they must learn first)

 Language divergence – spatial interaction among speakers of a language breaks down and the language fragments first into dialects and then into discreet tongues  Language convergence – the collapsing of two languages into one resulting from the consistent spatial interaction of peoples with different languages

 Mutual intelligibility – two people can understand each other when speaking  Can lead to problems in distinguishing between a language and a dialect (is it a different language or different dialect?)  = Why the actual number of languages in the world is up to debate

 Eastern New England  Pahk the cah  New York City  fugedaboudit

 Chicago Urban  They call any sweet roll doughnuts.  North Midland  They call doughnuts belly sinkers, doorknobs, dunkers, and fatcakes.

 Use your phone to access the “American Dialect Quiz” (nytimes)  Answer the questions; take a screen shot and share the map at the end!

 Empire building  Example: Latin w/ Roman Empire  Colonization  Examples: Spanish Empire, British Empire  Globalization  Example: English

 Case Study: Quebec  French is spoken in Quebec. In fact, the people work to maintain cultural independence. ▪ Signs, official documents must be in French

 The mainly French-speaking people of the province of Quebec have pressed in the recent past for increased autonomy or even secession—  The separatists lost two independence referendums, one decisively in 1980, the other narrowly in 1995.

 Lingua franca = language of trade and communication  What do you think is the lingua franca of the world?

 English is the most widespread language in the world.  English spread rapidly when Britain began to colonize large areas of the world.  Today, English is the main language of the internet.  English is the universal language of airline pilots and air-traffic control.

 Case Study – Swahili  Through centuries of trade and interaction, Swahili developed from an African Bantu language mixed with Arabic and Persian  100 million speakers

 Monolingual states – countries where almost everyone speaks the same language  Ex: Japan, Iceland, Denmark, Portugal, Uruguay  Multilingual states – countries with more than one language in use  Ex: Almost every other country!

 Will there be a principle language people use around the world in their day-to-day activities?  Will there be a common language of trade and commerce?

 Toponyms – place-names  Gives a glimpse into the history of a place  Often have roots in migration and interaction

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 Look at the big San Antonio map   Look at street names and discuss 3 toponyms!

 Write down 3 things you learned from yesterday’s activity “Vanishing Voices”

 Read over the list of British English words and Australian slang words.  Complete ONE of the following: 1. Write a short story using at least 10 of the Australian slang words. Underline the words. 2. Write a short story using at least 10 of the British English words. Underline the words.

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