1. Where are other language families distributed?
Classification of languages
Distribution of language families

2. Classification of Languages

4. Sino-Tibetan Spoken by 26% of world- China and SE Asia
3 branches- Sinitic, Tibeto-Burman, Austro-Thai
Sinitic includes Mandarin, spoken by ¾ Chinese
Others Sinitic languages spoken in S. China
Small # of languages promotes unity

5. Sino-Tibetan Based on 420 one syllable words.
Listener gets meaning based on context and tone of voice
Ex: shi can mean lion, corpse, house, poetry, ten, swear, or die
Kan jian literally means “look see”, which tells you what jian means in this case

6. Sino-Tibetan
1 Writing system for all Sinitic languages- contains thousands of characters
Some are sounds, but most are ideograms- ideas or concepts, not specific sounds
Difficult to learn to write- 16% pop can’t write

9. Tibeto-Burman
Main language Burmese, used in Myanmar (Burma)

10. Austro-Thai
Main language Thai, used in Thailand, Laos, parts of Vietnam

11. Austro-Asiatic Main language Vietnamese, used in Vietnam, Cambodia
Vietnamese alphabet developed by Catholic missionaries using Roman alphabet 17th century

12. Japanese/Korean
Considered 2 families, though Korean may be related either to Japanese or Altaic
Japanese uses Chinese characters
Korean uses Hangul, where characters represent sounds like the alphabet

13. Afro-Asiatic Family 4th largest family in world- N. Africa/SW Asia
Includes Arabic, Hebrew- important because holy books of 3 western religions written in this family
Arabic spoken 200 million, many more have some knowledge ‘cause of the Koran

14. Altaic Once thought to be linked as one family
Altaic stretches from Turkey across Asia to W. China
Traditionally written in Arabic script
USSR forced the “stans” to use the Cyrillic alphabet, in 1928 Kemal Ataturk adopted Roman letters to modernize Turkey and align it w/ Europe

15. Altaic/Mongolian

16. Uralic
Originated in Ural Mts.
Spoken in Finland, Estonia, Hungary

18. African Language Families
Over 1000 spoken in Sub-Saharan Africa
Arabic dominates in the North
Other Afro-Asiatic includes Hausa, Amharic, Oromo, Somali
Over 95% in sub-Saharan Africa speak from Niger-Congo family, which includes 6 branches
5% speak Khoisan or Nilo-Saharan

19. Niger-Congo Family Youraba, Igbo, Shona are major languages
Swahili is native to only 800,000, but spoken by 30 million- lingua franca w/ strong Arabic influence
Swahili has an extensive literary tradition

20. Nilo-Saharan
Relatively few speakers but very diverse- many branches, groups
Major language is Songhai

21. Khoisan That’s the one with the clicking sounds
Main language Hottentot
See “The Gods Must Be Crazy”
Spoken SW Africa

22. Austronesian/Indo-European
Malagasy is most closely related to Ma’anyan, spoken 1,900 miles away on Borneo
Afrikaans is closely related to Dutch, a Germanic language

24. Nigeria Has 493 distinct languages
15% Hausa, Youraba, Igbo, 55% the other 490
Great source of regional/internal conflict
Moved capital to reduce tension
English a neutral language

26. Why do people preserve local languages?
Preserving language diversity
Global dominance of English

27. Globalization
Globalization has made English the first global lingua franca
On the other hand, dominance of English has created a desire to protect local languages
Languages are becoming extinct at the most rapid rate in history
516 languages are nearly extinct- some people still alive, but not passing language on to next generation

28. Nearly extinct
46 Africa, 170 Americas, 78 Asia, 12 Europe, 210 in Pacific
Gothic died in 1500, as did the entire E Germanic language branch. Why?
Cultural integration- switched to Latin when they became Christian
Same in Peru- people are switching to Spanish- economic opportunity, pop culture, etc

29. Hebrew
By the 4th century BC Hebrew was used only for religious services- dead language
Revived from religious texts after creation of Israel
Eliezer Ben-Yehuda revived Hebrew

30. Celtic languages
Only spoken today in N. Scotland, Wales, W. Ireland, and Brittany- once dominated all of W. Europe
2 groups- Brythonic and Gaelic
Irish Gaelic spoken by 350,000 people
1300s- Irish forbidden to speak their own language in front of their English masters- tally stick
Cornish died in 1777 with Dolly Pentreath- last words- “I will not speak English… you ugly, black toad!”

31. Celtic languages Parents encouraged English to compete for jobs
In Wales, Ireland Celtic is being revived- mandatory in schools
Cornish revived in 1920s 100 people fluent, controversy surrounding spelling
American tourism in part pushing Irish revival

32. Multilingual States
Belgium and Switzerland- Belguim divided between French speaking Walloons and dutch speaking Flemish
Economic and political differences, along w/ culture create internal conflict
Switzerland has 4 official languages, German, French, Italian, and Romansh
Coexist peacefully because of decentralized gov’t

35. Isolated languages Isolated languages are unrelated to any other
Basque is spoken in SW France and NE Spain by 600,000 people. Isolation in mts. Has preserved it.
Icelandic- has changed little in 1000 yrs. Because of isolation, but related to Scandinavian languages- N. Germanic group

36. Pidgin language/Lingua Franca
Simplified form of lingua franca- has no native speakers- second language for everyone
If it becomes a native language then it is a creole language
Modern lingua francas include Russian, Spanish, English, Indonesian, Hindustani, Swahili
English as 2nd language for 90% European students, 500 million people worldwide

37. Language Convergence Franglais- eng/Fr, Spanglish- eng/Sp
Denglish- eng/De