1. Chapter 5
Ch a 5
Language

2. Maps: What can they reveal?
Mountain Ranges
Population
Rivers
Spread of disease
Political boundaries
Voting preferences

3. Division In Belgium Maps can hide the complexities of life.
Look at maps with a questioning eye
Look at a European map of language, and zero in on Belgium.
Neat line divides Flemish speakers (Germanic Language) in the north region (Flanders) and French (Romance language) in the south (Wallonia)

4. Belgium Language Map
Fig. 5-1: English is the official language in 42 countries, including some in which it is not the most widely spoken language. It is also used and understood in many others.

5. Divisive Issue: Language
During the 19th century, French speakers controlled the industrial economy and government of the country.
The French-speaking elite in Brussels and other Flemish cities began a process of “Frechification”
By the 20th Century, the majority of the people in Brussels spoke French, although people in the surrounding Brussels area continued to speak Flemish
By the 1960’s, a fixed partition scheme came in to being—dividing he country into Flemish-speaking Flanders in the north and French-speaking Wallonia in the south.
The government recognizes Brussels as a distinct region, a bilingual capital, but places strict limits on the use of French in the rest of northern Belgium
Fig. 5-2: The groups that brought what became English to England included Jutes, Angles, Saxons, and Vikings. The Normans later brought French vocabulary to English.

6. Language Issues Tied in with politics Socioeconomic status
Fig. 5-3: The main dialect regions of Old English before the Norman invasion persisted to some extent in the Middle English dialects through the 1400s.

7. What are languages, and what role do they play in cultures?
Le Big Mac

8. The French Government
Passed a law in 1975 banning the use of foreign words in advertisements, television, and radio broadcasts, and official documents, unless no French Equivalent could be found.
Americans may think this odd…if we can communicate, what is the need for laws?
Answer is more complex, language is an integral part of culture, reflecting and shaping it.

9. Governments who forced indigenous people to speak another language
To understand the role of language in culture—look at those who have lost their languages—
American
Canadian
Australian
Russian
New Zealand
Governments who forced indigenous people to speak another language

10. Example: Native Americans
“No one was allowed to speak the language-the Dena’ina language. They (the American Government) didn’t allow it in schools, and a lot of the women had married non-native men, and the men said, “ You’re American now so you can’t speak the language.” So, we became invisible in the community. Invisible to each other. And, then, because we couldn’t speak the language—what happens when you can’t speak your own language is you have to think with someone else’s words, and that’s a dreadful kind of isolation.
Clare Swan, an elder in the Kenaitze band of the Dena’ina Indians in Alaska.

11. Official Language Policies in The US
Spanish-speaking people are growing
Some Spanish speakers and their advocates are demanding the use of Spanish in public affairs
In response, some people are opposed to the use of Spanish in the United States, and are leading counter-movements to promote “Official English” policies
More than 25 States today have declared English the official language of the State, either by statute or by amending the State constitution

12. Canada: A country of two languages
Quebec has a focus of passing laws that promote the use of the French language
They have even periodically, called for independence from Canada!
In 1993, the Quebec government passed a law requiring the use of French in advertising.
The Quebec law allows the inclusion of both French and English translations on signs, as long as the French letters are twice the size of the other language’s letters, or the French appears first.

14. Standard Language
One that is published, widely distributed, and purposefully taught.
In some countries, the standard language is sustained through official state examinations for teachers and civil servants.
Ireland promotes the use of the Irish (Celtic) language by requiring all government employees to pass an Irish-language examination before they can be hired.

15. Dialects
Variant of a standard language along regional or ethnic lines are called dialects.
Differences in vocabulary, syntax, pronunciation, cadence (the rhythm of the speech, and even the pace of speech all mark a speaker’s dialect.
To people in the southern US, the word “Horse” spoken by a New Englander sounds like “Hahse”
To New Englanders, the word “oil” spoken by a southerner sounds like “all”
An isogloss is a geographic boundary within which a particular linguistic feature occurs, but such a boundary is rarely a simple line.

16. Dialects in the Eastern U.S.
Fig. 5-4: Hans Kurath divided the eastern U.S. into three dialect regions, whose distribution is similar to that of house types (Fig. 4-9).

17. Why are languages distributed the way they are?
The first step in mapping the distribution of languages is to classify language.
Linguists and linguistic geographers classify languages in terms that are also used in biology and for the same reasons: like species, some languages are related, and others are not.
At the global scale, we classify languages into language families.
These are then divided more into subfamilies—divisions within a language family

18. Language Tree

19. The Indo-European Language Family
Branches of Indo-European
Germanic branch
Indo-Iranian branch
Balto-Slavic branch
Romance branch

20. Indo-European Language Family
Fig. 5-5: The main branches of the Indo-European language family include Germanic, Romance, Balto-Slavic, and Indo-Iranian.

21. Germanic Branch of Indo-European
Fig. 5-6: The Germanic branch today is divided into North and West Germanic groups. English is in the West Germanic group.

22. South Asian Languages and Language Families
Fig. 5-7: Indo-European is the largest of four main language families in South Asia. The country of India has 18 official languages.

23. Romance Branch of Indo-European
Fig. 5-8: The Romance branch includes three of the world’s 12 most widely spoken languages (Spanish, French, and Portuguese), as well as a number of smaller languages and dialects.

24. Distribution of Other Language Families
Classification of languages
Distribution of language families
Sino-Tibetan language family
Other East and Southeast Asian language families
Afro-Asiatic language family
Altaic and Uralic language families
African language families

25. Language Families of the World
Fig. 5-11: Distribution of the world’s main language families. Languages with more than 100 million speakers are named.

26. Major Language Families Percentage of World Population
Fig. 5-11a: The percentage of world population speaking each of the main language families. Indo-European and Sino-Tibetan together represent almost 75% of the world’s people.

27. Chinese Ideograms
Fig. 5-13: Chinese language ideograms mostly represent concepts rather than sounds. The two basic characters at the top can be built into more complex words.

28. Language Families of Africa
Fig. 5-14: The 1,000 or more languages of Africa are divided among five main language families, including Austronesian languages in Madagascar.

29. Languages of Nigeria
Fig. 5-15: More than 200 languages are spoken in Nigeria, the largest country in Africa (by population). English, considered neutral, is the official language.

30. Language Diversity and Uniformity
Preserving language diversity
Hebrew: reviving extinct languages
Celtic: preserving endangered languages
Multilingual states
Isolated languages
Global dominance of English
English as a lingua franca
Diffusion to other languages

31. Language Areas in Switzerland
Fig. 5-17: Switzerland remains peaceful with four official languages and a decentralized government structure.

32. Internet Hosts
Fig : A large proportion of the world’s internet users and hosts are in the developed countries of North America and western Europe.

33. Internet Hosts, by Language
Fig 5-1-1a: The large majority of internet hosts in 1999 used English, Chinese, Japanese, or European languages.

34. Monolingual States Countries in which only one language is spoken
Japan
Uruguay and Venezuela
Iceland
Denmark
Portugal
Poland
Lesotho

35. What role does language play in making places?
Toponyms are place names
They can give us a quick glimpses into the history of a place
10 basic types:
Descriptive (Rocky Mountains)
Associative (Mill Valley)
Commemorative (San Francisco)
Commendatory (Paradise Valley)
Incidents (Battle Creek)
Possession (Johnson City)
Folk Culture (Plains, Georgia)
Manufactured (Truth or Consequences, New Mexico)
Mistakes (Lasker, North Carolina) (Named for Alaska)
Shift Names, relocated: Lancaster, Pennsylvania and England

37. Just to clarify since everyone always gets confused!

38. Language Branch
A group of languages that share a common origin but have since evolved into individual languages. Differences are not as extensive or ols as with language families. Branches derived from families.

39. Language Group
A collection of languages within a branch that share a common origin in the relatively recent past and display relatively few differences in grammar and vocabulary.

40. Isogloss-Word usage boundary
Vocabulary
LINGUA FRANCA – language used among speakers of different languages for trade and commerce – a “bridge” language – English is the world’s lingua franca–
PIDGIN LANGUAGE – people speaking two or more languages combine parts of the languages into a more simplified structure and vocabulary through contact with others
CREOLE LANGUAGE – began as a Pidgin but later adopted in place of the mother language. More complex structure and vocabulary
Isogloss-Word usage boundary
Examples: Pop vs Soda, “Ass yo” at AHS

41. Indo-European Group

42. Language Family
A collection of languages related to each other through a common ancestor long before recorded history.

43. More fun than a root canal!
AAP Human Geography
More fun than a root canal!