1. The Mosaic of Languages
Cultural Geography

2. Why geographers study language
Provides the single most common variable by which cultural groups are identified
Provides the main means by which learned customs and skills pass from one generation to the next
Reflects all aspects of culture – the physical area occupied by the society
Facilitates cultural diffusion of innovations
Because languages vary spatially, they reinforce the sense of region and place
Study of language is called linguistic geography and geolinguistics by geographers

3. Language and Identity Establishes a cultural identity
Builds group identity and a sense of unity
Also nationalism
Can divide people as well
Canada – both English and French are official languages

4. Language Diffusion May follow trade routes
Swahili developed as a trade language between Arabic traders and Bantu- speaking tribes on Africa’s east coast
May diffuse through migration
Colonists from Europe brought the English, Spanish, French and Dutch languages to North and South America, Africa, Australia, and parts of Asia
Blended languages can help aid communication among groups speaking several languages
Louisiana – French, African, and North American peoples blended to create Louisiana Creole

5. Language Families Over 6,000 languages
Language — tongues that cannot be mutually understood
Characterized by placing them with similar languages
Evolved from earlier languages
Dialect
A speaker of English can understand the various dialect of the language
A dialect is distinctive enough in vocabulary and pronunciation to label its speaker
Reflects changes in speech patterns related to class, region, or other cultural changes.
Southern drawl, Boston Accent, street slang

6. Language Families The Indo-European language family
Largest most wide-spread family
Spoken on all continents
Dominant in Europe, Russia, North and South America, Australia, and parts of southwestern Asia and India
Subfamilies—Romance, Slavic, Germanic, Indic, Celtic, and Iranic
Subfamilies are divided into individual languages
Seven Indo-European tongues are among the top 10 languages spoken in the world
By comparing vocabularies in various languages one can see the kinship

9. Language Families Has two major divisions—Semitic and Hamitic
The Afro-Asiatic family
Has two major divisions—Semitic and Hamitic
Semitic covers the area from Tigris-Euphrates valley westward through most of the north half of Africa to the Atlantic coast
Domain is large but consists of mostly sparsely populated deserts
Arabic is the most widespread Semitic language
Arabic has the most number of native speakers— about 186 million
Hebrew was a “dead” language used only in religious ceremonies
Today Hebrew is the official language of Israel
Smaller number of people speak Hamitic languages
Originated in Asia but today only spoken in Africa
Expansion of Arabic decreased the area and number of speakers

10. Other major language families
Japanese/Korean language family
Another major Asian family with nearly 200 million speakers
Austro-Asiatic language family
Found in Southeast Asia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, and spoken by some tribal people of Malaya and parts of India

11. English dialects in the United States
Dialects reveal a vivid geography
American English is hardly uniform from region to region
At least three major dialects, corresponding to major culture regions, developed in the eastern United States by the time of the American Revolution
Northern
Midland
Southern

13. English dialects in the United States
The three subcultures expanded westward and their dialects spread and fragmented
Retained much of their basic character even beyond the Mississippi River
Have distinctive vocabularies and pronunciations
Drawing dialect boundaries is often tricky
Today, many regional words are becoming old-fashioned, but new words display regional variations
The following words are all used to describe a controlled-access divided highway
Freeway — a California word
Turnpike and parkway — mainly northeastern and Midwestern words
Thruway, expressway, and interstate

14. English dialects in the United States
Many African-Americans speak their own form of English — Black English
Once dismissed as inferior substandard English
Developed on early slave plantations
Today, spoken by about 80 percent of African-Americans
Many features separate it from standard speech, for example:
Lack of pronoun differentiation between genders
Use of undifferentiated pronouns

15. English dialects in the United States
American dialects suggest we are not becoming a more national culture by overwhelming regional cultures
Linguistic divergence is still under way
Dialects continue to mutate on a regional level
Local variations in grammar and pronunciation proliferate
The homogenizing influence of radio, television, and other mass media is being defied

16. London, England
While English is spoken in many pats of the world, all English words are not mutually intelligible.
This London tube (subway) sign say that anyone performing there (eg singing or playing for money) is subject to a fine of subsection.
Are tubs, subway, and busking dialect words?

17. The environment and vocabulary
Vocabularies develop for features of the environment that involve livelihood
Detailed vocabularies are necessary to communicate sophisticated information relevant to the adaptive strategy

18. The environment and vocabulary
English
Developed in wet coastal plains
Very poor in words describing mountainous terrain
Abounds with words describing flowing streams
Rural American South—river, creek, branch, fork, prong, run, bayou, and slough

19. Understanding Dialects
Bill Cosby understanding Southern d
Mental Floss – Regional Slang