4- Introducing language families

HSR 130

  • Course Title: Introduction to Language & Communication

  • Week Focus: Introducing Language Families

Models of Language Relatedness

  • Key Historical Figure: Sir William Jones (19th century)

  • Concept of Protolanguage:

    • Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit derived from an older language

    • All descended from Proto-Indo-European (PIE)

  • Genealogical Tree:

    • Concept of family trees and ancestors in linguistics

    • A genealogical tree for the Indo-European family was created

What is a Language Family?

  • Recognition by Linguists:

    • Multiple distinct language families

  • Examples of Language Families:

    • Indo-European

    • Sino-Tibetan

    • Afro-Asiatic

    • Niger-Congo

    • Austronesian

    • Trans-New Guinea

  • Modern English:

    • Part of the West Germanic branch of Indo-European

    • Related to German and Dutch

  • Romance Languages:

    • Modern French belongs to the Romance branch, alongside Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and Romanian

Similarities Across Languages

  • Types of Similarities:

    • Anatomically Similar: E.g., 'oh', 'ah'

    • Coincidental: E.g., Greek [mati] and Malay [mata]

    • Onomatopoetic Words: E.g., 'tick tock'

    • Borrowed Words: E.g., alcalde ('mayor'), naranja ('orange')

  • Genetic Relation:

    • Systematic phonological patterns indicate genetic relationships

    • Examples:

      • English 'Name' - Hindi 'Naam' - Persian 'Naam' - etc.

Evidence of Language Relatedness

  • Definition of a Language Family:

    • Group of related languages from a common ancestor language

    • Languages share common features in phonology, morphology, and syntax

    • Subdivisions are known as "branches"

  • Historical Spread:

    • Proto-European language map shows spread across Europe over thousands of years

The Indo-European Language Family Tree

  • Branches of the Family:

    • Baltic: Lithuanian, Latvian

    • Slavic: Polish, Czech, Bulgarian, etc.

    • Germanic: Icelandic, English, Frisian, etc.

    • Others: Celtic, Tocharian, Indo-Iranian, etc.

Systematic Phonological Patterns

  • Examples Across Languages:

    • English vs. German:

      • apple / apfel

      • help / helfen

      • day / tag

      • good / gut

      • thing / ding

    • Patterns indicate common origins

Mother-Daughter Language Concept

  • Explanation of Relationships:

    • English and German described as "sister languages" from Proto-Germanic

    • Latin as the "mother" of Romance languages (French, Spanish, etc.)

Class Activities

  • Google Search Tasks:

    • Language families by speaker population

    • Language families by language count

  • Findings for Language Families:

    • Indo-European: 3.24 billion speakers, 445 languages

    • Sino-Tibetan: 1.39 billion speakers, 453 languages

    • Afro-Asiatic: 499 million speakers, 305 languages

    • Niger-Congo: 520 million speakers, 1526 languages

    • Austronesian: 326 million speakers, 1223 languages

    • Trans-New Guinea: 4 million speakers, 478 languages

The Comparative Method

  • Purpose:

    • Used by linguists to trace modern languages back to a common ancestor

  • Proto-Indo-European (PIE):

    • Ancestor language of many European and Northern Indian languages

Basque: A Language Isolate

  • Overview:

    • Only 714,135 speakers

    • Survived isolation due to geographical factors

    • Revived in the 1960s after being banned in 1939

The Afro-Asiatic Language Family

  • Overview:

    • Consists of over 300 related languages

    • Predominantly found in North Africa, Arabian Peninsula, and Middle East

  • Branches of Afro-Asiatic:

    • Berber, Chadic, Cushitic, Egyptian/Coptic, Omotic, and Semitic

    • Examples of Semitic Languages:

      • Arabic: spoken across the Gulf region and parts of Africa

Class Activity on Language Isolates

  • Task:

    • Research another language isolate (besides Basque)

    • Gather information about speakers and location

    • Post findings to class discussions