The Geography of Language
La Geografía del Idioma
La Géographie de Langue
La Geografia di Lingua
Die Geographie der Sprache
Language Defined
Organized system of spoken words by which people communicate with one another with mutual comprehension (Getis, 1985).
Geographer’s Perspective on Language
Language Distribution indicates
Roots of Language
How to Write Down a Language?
Roots of Language
Ideograms� - Sumerian; Chinese; Egyptian; Japanese
How to Write Down a Language?
Roots of Language
How to Write Down a Language?
Phonetic
- Most languages, including Romance languages
Symbols (letters) represent sounds, not ideas. A phonetic alphabet is the key innovation.
Languages and Language Families
Language Divisions
Language Families
a family may be divided into several divisions or branches
Language Branches
Language Groups
Indo-European Language Branches
Non-Indo-European Language Families and Branches
Language Divisions for English
-- Indo-European
-- Germanic
-- West Germanic
-- English
-- Northeastern
-- Boston (Pak da ka o-fa dere, pleese!)
Which languages share a common ancestor?
Many Indo-European languages have common words for snow, winter, spring; for dog, horse, cow, sheep bear but not camel, lion, elephant, or tiger; for beech, oak, pine, willow, but not palm or banyan tree.
Some Indo-European Shared Words
Indo-European Language Family (50% of World)
Main Branches:
Indo-European Language Family - Germanic Branch
West Germanic
East Germanic
Germanic Branch - English
Diffused throughout the world by hundreds of years of British colonialism. Brought to New World by British colonies in 1600s. Has become an important global lingua franca.
Development of English
Germanic Tribes (Germany/Denmanrk)
Vikings (Norway)
Normans (French)
Development of English - Adopted Words
Germanic Tribes (Germany/Denmark)
Vikings (Norway)
Normans (French)
Indo-European Language Family - Romance Branch
Like English these languages have been spread by Colonialism.
Indo-European Family - Romance Branch
The Roman Empire, at its height in 2nd century A.D., extinguished many local languages. After the fall of Rome in the 5th century, communication declined and languages evolved again.
Literature was all written in Latin until the 13th and 14th centuries.
Sino-Tibetan Language Family (20%)
Branches:
Chinese languages based on 420 one syllable words with meaning infered from context and tone.
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.
Afro-Asiatic Language Family
Main Branch:
Semitic
Language of the Koran; spread by Islamic Faith and Islamic (Ottoman) Empires
Language of the old Testament (with Aramaic); completely revived from extinction in Israel, 1948.
Niger-Congo Difffusion
Language�Complexity
In Nigeria ethnic conflict between southern Ibos and western Yoruba led the government to move the capital to a more neutral central location (Abuja). Many other ethnic battles rage continuously.
In Switzerland, four official languages, a history of peace and tolerance, and a political system that puts power in the hands of local leaders ensure peace.
Nigeria has more than 200 individual languages!
Key Terms
PIDGIN - a form of speech that adopts simplified grammar and limited vocabulary from a lingua franca, used for communication between speakers of two different languages.
Examples include Hawaiian Pidgin and the creoles of West Africa that resulted from the slave trade.
“No eat da candy, Bruddah, it's pilau. Da thing wen fall on da ground.”
Give us da food we need fo today an every day.�Hemmo our shame, an let us go�Fo all da kine bad stuff we do to you,�Jalike us guys let da odda guys go awready,�And we no stay huhu wit dem�Fo all da kine bad stuff dey do to us.�No let us get chance fo do bad kine stuff,�But take us outa dea, so da Bad Guy no can hurt us.�Cuz you our King.�You get da real power,�An you stay awesome foeva.�Dass it!”
Matthew 6:9-13 “The Lord’s Prayer”
- Taken from Da Jesus Book, a twelve year effort by 6 linguists to translate the New Testament into Hawaiian Pidgin, published 2001
Key Terms
CREOLE - a language that results from the mixing of a colonizer’s language with an indigenous language. Often they are pidgins.
a. mo pe aste sa banan�b. de bin alde luk dat big tri�c. a waka go a wosu�d. olmaan i kas-im chek�e. li pote sa bay mo�f. ja fruher wir bleiben�g. dis smol swain i bin go fo maket�
I am buying the banana�they always looked for a big tree�he walked home�the old man is cashing a check�he brought that for me�Yes at first we remained�this little pig went to market
Can you guess which colonizing language is the base for each of the following creole examples?
New Orleans’ �French Quarter
Key Terms
CREOLE - a language that results from the mixing of a colonizer’s language with an indigenous language. Often they are pidgins
a. mo pe aste sa banan�b. de bin alde luk dat big tri�c. a waka go a wosu�d. olmaan i kas-im chek�e. li pote sa bay mo�f. ja fruher wir bleiben�g. dis smol swain i bin go fo maket�
French based Seychelles Creole �English based Roper River Creole English based Saran�English based Cape York Creole �French based Guyanais�German based Papua New Guinea Pidgin German English based Cameroon Pidgin
Can you guess which colonizing language is the base for each of the following creole examples?
New Orleans’ �French Quarter
Key Terms
DIALECT - a regional variety of a language distinguished by pronunciation, spelling, and vocabulary.
Social Dialects - can denote social class and standing.
Vernacular Dialects - the common, slang, speech of a region.
Term �Is he fair dinkum? �Why I declare!�Down by the crick�bludger �mosquito hawk�nappies
Meaning�Is he real or genuine? �That’s remarkable!�Down by the stream (creek)�freeloader; welfare �dragon fly�diapers
Location�Australia�Deep South (U.S.)�Middle Atlantic States�Australia�South (U.S.)�Britain; Brit. Colonies
Key Terms
ISOLATED LANGUAGE - a language that is not related to any other languages and thus not connected to any language families. Examples include Basque and Korean.
Basque Spain
Language and the Environment�(Linguistic Ecology)
TOPONYM - a place name. These are language on the land, reflecting past inhabitants and their relation to the land.
Devil’s Tower, WY
Badwater, Death Valley
Mt Cook, New Zealand
Cook Islands, Polynesia
Endangered Languages
As recently as 3,000 years ago, there were 10,000 to 15,000 languages in the world.
Now: about 6000 left.
Of those, 1/2 will be gone by the year 2100 and all but 500 of the rest will be endangered.
More than 90 percent of the languages in existence today will be extinct or threatened in little more than a century if current trends continue.
Endangered Languages
Why are they disappearing?
Globalization
Migration (Urbanization)
Economic Development
- Lingua Francas Media
Internet (Requires Arabic Character Set)
Lingua Franca - a language used for trade by two people who speak different native tongues.
World’s Top 10 Languages�
English Speaking Countries
Interesting Facts about the English Language�
Internet Hosts
Fig. 5-1-1: A large proportion of the world’s internet users and hosts are in the developed countries of North America and western Europe.
Internet Hosts, by Language
Fig 5-1-1a: The large majority of internet hosts in 1999 used English, Chinese, Japanese, or European languages.
Key Points
McDonald’s, Israel