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

Classification of Languages

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Altaic/Mongolian

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hebrew By the 4th century BC Hebrew was used only for religious services- dead language Revived from religious texts after 1948- creation of Israel Eliezer Ben-Yehuda revived Hebrew

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!”

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

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

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

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

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