1. Chapter 5 Key Issue 1 Where are the World’s Languages Distributed?

2. Big Question
How many languages are there in the world and how are they classified? How are the world’s languages organized and how many language families are there? What are the largest two? Be able to identify major language families on a map and on a language tree.

3. Institutional Languages Dying Languages Official Language
Key Terms
Languages
Trouble Languages
Institutional Languages
Dying Languages
Official Language
Languages Families
Literary Tradition
Languages Branches
Developing Languages
Languages Groups
Vigorous Languages

4. Introducing Languages
Language is a system of communication through speech, a collection of sounds that a group of people understands to have the same meaning
The distribution of language is a direct result of migration and the interaction (ex. Madagascar P. 146) or isolation of language speakers

5. Introducing Languages
Groups that speak a similar language but live isolated from each other will begin to speak languages that are so different they become a different version of the original (British English/American English) or a new language completely (English out of Old Norse)

6. Classifying Languages
The number of languages spoken worldwide now exceeds 7,100
This large number best exemplifies human’s cultural diversity
Of the 7,100 languages spoken, 94% of them are spoken by 1 million people or less, making it hard to identify how some are distributed

7. Classifying Languages
Those 7,100 languages can be divided into 5 categories: institutional, developing, vigorous, trouble, and dying
Some languages are spoken by so few people that the language is considered in troubled or dying

8. Classifying Languages
Institutional languages (8%) are used in education, work, law, mass media, and governments. Governments sometimes declare them that country’s official language
Institutional languages must have literary tradition meaning it is written as well as spoken, includes a method of writing (such as Arabic, Chinese, Cyrillic, Latin, etc.) and has rules of grammar

9. Classifying Languages
Developing languages (23%) are spoken in daily use and by people of all ages and backgrounds. These also have literary traditions but the number of speakers may be too few to have much literature
Thousands of spoken languages lack a literary tradition

10. Classifying Languages
Vigorous languages (35%) are spoken in daily use and have no literary traditions
Troubled (22%) and Dying (13%) are as the names imply and at various stages. Some are being saved but many will vanish

11. Language Families The world’s 7,100 languages can be divided into:
Language Families are a collection of languages related through a common ancestral language that existed long before recorded history (ex. Two largest being Indo-Europeans and Sino-Tibetan)
Language Branches are a collection of languages within a family related through a common ancestral language that existed several thousand years ago. Not as old as families are but can be traced back to a single family. (ex. Germanic, Romance, East Slavic)
Language Groups are collections within a branch that share a common origin in the recent past and are very similar in grammar and vocabulary

12. Language Families
All of this can be shown in the language family tree as seen on pages or in your handout
Some believe that all languages can be traced back to a single language family out of Africa
There are 142 language families but 14 of them are used by 99% of the world’s people

13. Big Question & Key Terms
How many languages are there in the world and how are they classified? How are the world’s languages organized and how many language families are there? What are the largest two? Be able to identify major language families on a map and on a language tree.
Languages
Institutional Languages
Official Language
Literary Tradition
Developing Languages
Vigorous Languages
Trouble Languages
Dying Languages
Languages Families
Languages Branches
Languages Groups

14. Chapter 5 Key Issue 2 Where Did English and Related Languages Originate and Diffuse?

15. Big Question
Discuss the origins of the English language, its diffusion throughout the world, and its importance in today’s world.

16. Nomadic Warrior Theory Vulgar Latin Sedentary Farmer Theory
Key Terms
Germanic Branch
Proto-Indo-European
Romance Branch
Nomadic Warrior Theory
Vulgar Latin
Sedentary Farmer Theory
Indo-Iranian
Pidgin Language
Balto-Slavic
Logograms

17. Distribution of Indo-European Branches
½ of world’s population speaks an Indo-European language
The Indo-European language family is divided into 8 branches, 4 common and 4 much less so

18. Distribution of Indo-European Branches
4 most common branches of Indo-European family are:
Germanic – Divided into two groups
West Germanic includes English, Frisian, German, and Dutch
North Germanic (Spoken in Scandinavia) includes Danish, Faeroese, Icelandic, Norwegian, and Swedish…all derive from Old Norse and split around 1,000 AD

19. Distribution of Indo-European Branches
Romance – Developed from the Latin language of the Romans.
As the Roman Empire expanded, the Latin language diffused to those living in the new provinces.
These people were known to speak variations of Latin known as Vulgar Latin, which eventually transformed into Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, and Romanian after the fall of the Roman Empire.
These Romance languages would then diffuse to the Americas in the 16th century when the Spanish and Portuguese conquered.

20. Distribution of Indo-European Branches
Indo-Iranian – Branch of Indo-European family with the most speakers and also divided into two groups Iranian (Western) and Indic (Eastern)
Major Iranian group languages are Persian/Farsi, Pashto, Kurdish and are written in the Arabic alphabet
Major Indic group language is Hindi/Urdu…same language written in two different alphabets

21. Distribution of Indo-European Branches
Balto-Slavic – Predominate in Eastern Europe after the Slavic people migrated from Asia to Eastern Europe in the 7th Century A.D.
Can be divided into East, West, and South Slavic groups as well as a Baltic group
Most common Slavic language is Russian (East Slavic group) which was forced onto other Slavs when the Soviet Union dominated during the 20th century
West Slavic group languages include Polish, Czech, and Slovak
South Slavic group languages includes one language that is spoken by Bosnians, Croatians, and Serbians but is called three different languages although it is written using different alphabets (Cyrillic and Latin)

22. Origin and Diffusion of Indo-European
Germanic, Romance, Balto-Slavic, and Indo-Iranian are all part of the same family because they can all be traced to a single ancestor
This ancestor cannot be proven but is known as Proto-Indo-European

23. Origin and Diffusion of Indo-European
Some clues do persist about this language that pre-dates recorded history and connect them all
The clues lie in similar words about nature such as animals and trees…words that are not shared would have been added later after the proto language split

24. Origin and Diffusion of Indo-European
The origin and diffusion of Proto-Indo-European and led to two major theories
Nomadic Warrior Theory says the Kurgen (4,300 B.C.) people were the first to speak the language. Migrating out of Asia in search of grasslands for their animals, the Kurgens spread in all directions, conquering and bringing their language with them

25. Origin and Diffusion of Indo-European
Sedentary Farmer Theory suggests the original speakers lived in the eastern part of modern-day Turkey around 6,700 B.C. and spread out not by military conquest but by agricultural expansion
After this initial expansion, the language spread all over Europe and South Asia but due to isolation of these people, transformed into the different families, branches, groups, and languages we have today

26. Origin and Diffusion of English
The English language came out of the invading Angles, Saxons, and Jutes from Denmark and Germany during the 5th, 6th, and 7th centuries A.D.
These three groups spoke a similar language that had its roots in early German
The language morphed into what is now known as Old English

27. Origin and Diffusion of English
In 1066, England was conquered by French-speaking Normans
For the next 200 years, French was the official language of England
In 1362 English became the official language again but many French words were adopted into what is now called Middle English

28. Origin and Diffusion of English
Modern English would develop around 1600 after the influence of William Shakespeare and the King James Bible
Modern English then diffused around the world as the British Empire expanded and later as the United States extended their realm of influence

29. Global Importance of English
In the modern “global” world, English has become the most important language of international communication
The dominance of English has helped diffuse popular culture and science and helped grow international trade but it also may be destroying native languages
English has become known as a lingua franca or a language adopted as a common language between speakers whose native languages are different

30. Global Importance of English
Children around the world learn English to help them participate in the global economy and culture
Some learn a simplified form of a language known as a pidgin language in order to communicate with speakers of another language

31. Global Importance of English
Other lingua franca are Swahili in East Africa, Hindi in South Asia, Indonesian in Southeast Asia, and Russian in the former Soviet Union
The internet has also helped to strengthen the dominance of English with over half of all websites being in English…but it is declining

32. Global Importance of English
Chinese is quickly becoming an important lingua franca as its logograms (symbols that represent words or parts of words) take up much less space in social media and programing

33. Official Languages
An official language is used by governments to conduct business and enact legislation
Some governments may use more than one in order to help its citizens participate in government

34. Official Languages
Europe has a large number of official languages with 24 recognized in the European Union
English is the official language of 58 countries (the most) – 2 billion people
English is also the dominant language in many places where it is not an official language (ex. Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States)

35. Big Question & Key Terms
Discuss the origins of the English language, its diffusion throughout the world, and its importance in today’s world.
Germanic Branch
Romance Branch
Vulgar Latin
Indo-Iranian
Balto-Slavic
Proto-Indo-European
Nomadic Warrior Theory
Sedentary Farmer Theory
Pidgin Language
Logograms