1. OBJECTIVE
Students will analyze the key points of language in order to determine how language is a fundamental element of cultural identity.

2. Language
Set of sounds, combinations of sounds, and symbols that are used for communications
Reflecting on the Native Americans of Alaska, why was language such an important aspect of culture?

3. Dialects Local or regional characteristics of a language
NOT AN ACCENT (pronunciation difference of a standard language)
In addition to its pronunciation variation, there is a distinctive grammar and vocabulary

4. Dialects and Mutual Intelligibility
Variants of the standardized language yet the ability of people from each area to understand each others

5. Language and Culture
The ability to name objects places a value on that object
Value is not just positive, it can be negative
Power Relationships

6. Standardized Language
one that is published, widely distributed, and purposefully taught
a standardized language is not necessarily an official language

7. Language Families/Subfamilies
Proto-Indo European Language
Sound Shift (words for milk… lacte, latta, leche, and lait)
Backward Reconstruction… track sound shifts and hardening of consonants
Deep Reconstruction… finding the preceding language of an extinct language

8. Convergence v. Divergence
Convergence… collapsing two languages into one, which occurs when interaction increases between the people of the two languages
Divergence… a lack of spatial interaction among speakers of a language breaks the language into dialects and discrete language when isolation is maintained.

9. Locating the Hearth of Proto-Indo-European
Linguists theorize that the hearth of the Proto- Indo-European language was somewhere in the vicinity of the Black Sea or east-central Europe.
Colin Renfrew, a British scholar, developed his own theory regarding the diffusion of Proto- Indo-European and agriculture.

10. Renfrew
Agricultural, Conquest, and Dispersal

11. Locating the Hearth of Proto-Indo-European
The Renfrew hypothesis claims that from Anatolia (present day Turkey) diffused Europe’s Indo- European languages.
Others contrast Renfrew’s location of the hearth of Proto-Indo-European language and even the role of agriculture in its diffusion.
Stephen Oppenheimer used genetic evidence and argued that people came out of Central Africa, following now-flooded coastlines of East Africa, the southern Arabian Peninsula, and into India about 80,000 years ago.

12. Oppenheimer’s Theory
Oppenheimer’s research supports theories by some linguists indicating that the hearth of the Proto-Indo-European language could lie in India.
He then claims that people from India migrated into Europe and Renfrew’s hearths less than 50,000 years ago.

13. Tracing the Routes of Diffusion of Pronto-Indo-European
The study of the diffusion of Proto-Indo- European is typically on Europe for two reasons : one, it is clear the language diffused into Europe over time; and two, there is a significant body of historical research and archaeology focused on the early peopling of Europe
Presence of Europe’s oldest language (Celtic) in the far west supports the idea that the newer languages came from the east.

14. Tracing the Routes of Diffusion of Pronto-Indo-European
One explanation is the conquest theory.
This theory states that early speakers of Proto- Indo-European spread from east to west on horseback, overpowering earlier inhabitants.
An alternative agricultural theory proposes that Proto-Indo-European diffused westward through Europe with the diffusion of agriculture.

15. Tracing the Routes of Diffusion of Pronto-Indo-European
Some linguistic geographers continue to favor the dispersal hypothesis.
This holds that the Indo-European languages that arose from Proto-Indo-European were first carried eastward into Southwest Asia, next around the Caspian Sea and then across the Russian-Ukrainian plains and on into the Balkans.

16. Tracing the Routes of Diffusion of Pronto-Indo-European
We still don’t know where the Proto-Indo- European language was born, or the location of its hearth.
Some scholars have even suggested that Nostratic is a direct successor of a proto-world language that goes back to the dawn of human history, but this notion is highly speculative.

17. The Languages of Europe
The Indo-European language family is widely spread across the globe.
It dominates Europe, significant parts of Asia, North and South America, Australia, and portions of Southern Africa.
About half of the world’s people speak Indo- European languages.

18. The Languages of Europe
French, Spanish, Italian, Romanian, and Portuguese are examples of Romance languages.
Romance languages lie in the areas that were not subsequently overwhelmed.

19. The Languages of Europe
English, German, Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish are examples of Germanic languages.
Germanic languages reflect the expansion of peoples out of northern Europe to the west and south.
Some Germanic peoples spread into areas dominated by Rome.

20. The Languages of Europe
Russian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Ukrainian, Slovenian, Serbo-Croatian, and Bulgarian are examples of Slavic languages.
Slavic tongues came to dominate much of eastern Europe over the succeeding centuries.

21. The Languages of Europe
The French linguistic region extends into Belgium, Switzerland, and Italy, but in France, French coexists with Basque in the southwest, a variant of Dutch in the north, and a Celtic tongue in the northeast.
Celtic languages survive in the western region of France called Brittany, in the northern and western parts of Wales, in western Ireland, and in the Western Highlands and islands of Scotland.

22. The Languages of Europe
Greek and Albanian are also Indo-European languages.
The Basque language, Euskera stands out in Europe.
One reason is it covers a very small land area and second, it is in no way related to any other language family in Europe.
The Basques have a strong identity tied to their language and independent history.

23. Diffusion and Economics
Lingua Franca… language used among speakers of different languages for purposes of trade and commerce

24. Diffusion and Economics
Lingua Franca
Pidgin Language… when the lingua franca combines parts of two or more languages

25. Diffusion and Economics
Lingua Franca
Pidgin Language
Creole Language… a pidgin language that develops into a more complex structure and vocabulary and has become the native language

26. Diffusion and Economics
Global Language… a common language of trade and commerce used around the world