Chapter 5-Language

5.1 Where are languages distributed?

Language is a system of communication through speech, movement, sounds, or symbols that a group of people understands to have the same meaning.

most people communicate through speech although language is found in other forms(like sign language)

Only 20% of American students learn a foreign language, compared to 92% in Europe.

Centripetal force-a force that unifies people

Centrifugal force- a force that tends to pull people apart

Sharing a common language is an example of a centripetal force while conflict between 2 groups of people living in the same place but using different languages would be an example of a centrifugal force.

\ Language and Migration

The distribution of migration is due to migration patterns of the past.

For example the people of Madagascar use a language belonging to the same family as the languages of most of Indonesia and the Philippines. This shows strong evidence of migration between the 2 places.
If 2 groups have few connections with each other after migrating, the language will begin to diverge. After long periods of time the languages could be considered as completely different languages,
Languages have diffused through relocation diffusion. Although modernly, some diffusion is contagious.

\ Organizing Languages

The world has about 7,000 languages, 90 of them being used by at least 10 million people, 300 used by between 1-10 million people, and 6,702 used by fewer than 1 million people.

An institutional language has a literacy tradition, which means it is written and spoken as well.

Languages lack a literacy tradition, which makes it difficult to document the total number of languages or their distribution.

Language Family- a collection of languages related through a common ancestral language that existed before recorded history. The most popularly spoken language family is indo-european.

Language Branch- a collection of languages within a family related through a common ancestral language that existed thousands of years ago;differences are not as large as languages within a language family.

Language Group- a collection of languages within a branch that share a common origin in recent past and display many similarities in grammar and vocabulary

\ Distribution of Languages

Origin of languages are only speculated, as well as how they diffused.

Languages families with at least 7 million speakers are-

Afro Asiatic- SW Asia and N Africa

Austro-Asiatic- SE Asia & Vietnam

Austronesian- Indonesia

Dravidian- S India and N Sri Lanka

Hmong-mien- Laos and S China

Indo-European- Widely used

Japanese- Japan

Korean- N and S Korea

Mongolic- Mongolia

Niger-Congo- Widely used in Africa

Nilo- Saharan- N Central Africa

Northern Caucasian- Causcaus

Quechuan- Western S America

Sino- Tibetan- China

Tai-Kadai- Thailand and nearby countries

Turkic- Turkey and widely across Asia

Uralic- Finland and Hungary

\ Language Families

More than 90% of the worlds people use a language that belongs to a family. 2/3 of that language Indo- European or Sino-Tibetan.

The remaining 9% of people use language belonging to 134 small families.

\ Distribution of Indo-European Languages

The most widely used language family is dominant in Europe, South Asia, and North and Latin America. It has 8 branches, 4 of them widely used.

-Indo-Iranian, Germanic, Romance, and Balto-Slavic

Indo-Iranian Branch

This branch has the most users
Further divided into Iranian and Indo-Aryan.

-Iranian Languages include Persian, Pashto, and Kurdish

-Indo-Aryan Languages include Hindi(most widely used), Bengali, Urdu, Lahnda.

Germanic Branch

Includes west Germanic group, that includes English, German, and Dutch.
Also includes North Germanic Group, Swedish, danish, Norwegian, and Icelandic. These 4 all emerged from Old Norse, which was a language before 1000 C.E.

Balto-Slavic Branch

Slavic was one language until it evolved into many, now it is divided by east, west, and south Slavic groups. As well as a Baltic groups.
Eastern languages(widely used), includes Russian. The soviet Union forced the language upon natives.
West Slavic languages include polish(most used), Czech, and Slovak.
South Slavic includes Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian.

Romance Branch

Includes Spanish, Portuguese, french, and Italian. As well as Romanian which is the principal language of Romania and Moldova.
Their regions all coordinate with state boundaries

Distribution of other language families

East Asian Language familes

Sino-Tibetan- The second most widely used language family. The most common of it is mandarin, spoken by 3/4 of chinese people.
Japanese- Written with some chinese characters. Along with Chinese culture diffusing to Japanese society, there are some similarities between chinese and japanese but the structures differ.
Korean- Written in a system known as hankul, each letter represents a sound. Derives from Chinese words. Chinese and Japanese words are principal sources for creating new korean words.

Southeast Asia Language Families

Austronesian- languages are used by 5% of the world, common in Indonesia. Indonesian language has many dialects.
Austro-Asiatic- Used by 2% of the worlds population. Includes vietamese.
Tai-Kadai- The Tai-Kadai was once a branch of Sino-Tibetan, but there are more similarities with the Austronesian family.

Other Asian Language Families

Dravidian- the second most widely used language family in South Asia, following Indo-European. The 2 most widely used languages of this family are Telugu and Tamil.
Turkic- When the Soviet Union governed most of the Turkic Speaking Region of Central Asia, use of the languages were suppressed. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, it became the official language of many countries.

African Language Families-There is no known number of languages in Africa, but estimated to be 2,146.

Afro-Asiatic- Arabic is the major language of this family. It is the language the Quran is written in. This family also includes Hebrew, the original language of Judaism’s bible and Christianity’s old testament.
Niger-Congo- 95% of Sub-Saharan Africa uses languages from this family. The most widely spoken are Yoruba, Igbo, and Swahili. Swahili is the official languages of many African Countries.
Nilo-Saharan- Used by 53 million people in North-Central Africa. It is broken into 6 branches.

### 5.2-Why do languages diffuse?

Origin and Diffusion of Romance Languages-

Romance Languages derived from Latin. The rise of the city Rome brought the diffusion of it’s Latin language. As Roman armies conquered, they brought their language with them and suppressed others. Latin language varied by provinces because of the integration of native and Latin. Communication between provinces then began to decline, creating more variation between Latin. Distinct languages evolved. Romance Languages have spread across worldwide.

Common Ancestry of Indo-european Languages

Proto-Indo speakers, which are speakers that indo-European languages originated from, includes words that describe the physical environment. As they spread different languages changed due to their environments. The origination of Indo-European languages is unclear.

Diffusion of Indo-European

Nomadic Warrior Theory-

The first Proto-Indo European speakers were the kurgans. They domesticated horses and used chariots first, and they migrated in search of grazing land for their animals. This took them west to Europe, east to Siberia, and southeast to Iran and South Asia. As Kurgans had military superiority, they conquered much of Europe and South Asia. -Marija Gimbutas

Sedentary Farmer Theory-

The first Proto-Indo European speakers lived 2,000 years before the kurgans in Turkey. Indo-European language spread through Europe and South Asia along with agricultural practices. The language triumphed due to growth in population because they grew their food.

Origin and Diffusion of English

Tribes called the Celts arrived in the British Isles in 2000 B.C.E., until mainland Europe invaded and pushed them to west and north Britain.

German Invasian

The tribes that invaded Britian were the Angles, Jutes, and Saxons. Modern english has derived from these tribes.

Norman Invasion

England was conquered by the normans in 1066. The Normans spoke french, and established it as England’s official language. Although the common people spoke english. Conflict with France caused more people in England to not want to speak french, and english took over again. While French was the official language of England, French speakers and common english speakers converged their language which contrbutes to modern english today.

Diffusion of English

The worldwide diffusion of english started with English people migrated with their language to North America. It diffused in the 17th century, after England defeated France in a battle for the land in North America. The presence of english in North America was assured after this. Around this time England took control of Ireland, South Asia, and South and East Africa. English then became the official language of these areas.