You can call me Profe Tewell…or Entrenador Tewell… or Profe-Entrenador Tewell It’s time to TALK a little about LANGUAGE…

Origin of Languages

History and Evolution Scientists don’t know when language was first used by humans or their ancestors Estimates range –2 million years ago  Homo habilis –40 thousand years ago  Cro-Magnon man –Writing came much later, so there’s not a lot of data –Oral tradition There are an estimated 6,089 languages actively used in the world

Babel Christian tradition –Babel (Babylon) was a city that united humanity, all speaking a single language and migrating from the east; it was the first city to be built after the Great Flood. The people decided their city should have a tower so immense that it would have "its top in the heavens." Do you know how the story goes?

Culture Hearth An area where a distinctive set of cultural traits develops –Fertile Crescent (Mesopotamia) –Nile River Valley (Modern Egypt, Ethiopia)

Huong- Yellow River Ganges Plain Indus Valley Fertile Crescent (Mesopotamia) West Africa Meso- (Middle) America Andean America Nile River Valley

The first person that I see touch their nose with their left index finger gets….. To answer a question about this lesson… If they get it right, man…it’s CANDY CITY!

Question How many languages are there, roughly? A. 4,000 B. 5,000 C. 6,000 D. 7,000

Brothers, Sisters, Cousins Just like our society, languages are grouped into families that have common ancestors –Who is the common ancestor of you and your mother or father? –Who is the common ancestor of you and your cousin? –What language is the common ancestor of French and Spanish? –From what language has English evolved?

Major Language Families Indo-European  Largest Family –3 billion speakers Roughly half the World’s population –Divided into 443 different languages –Most of the major languages of Europe, the Americas, and many Asian languages

Indo-European (cont’d) Each of the following languages is an Indo- European language that has more than 100 million speakers –Bengali (India, Bangladesh) –English (scattered…why?) –French (scattered…why?) –German (scattered…why?) –Hindi (India) –Portuguese (scattered…why?) –Russian (Russia and former USSR) –Spanish (scattered…why?)

You thought the last one was complicated…get a gander at the next one!

Diffusion of Indo-European Languages

Subfamilies of Indo-European Languages Germanic –German –English –Dutch –Norwegian –Swedish –Danish –Others (Frisian, Afrikaans)

Subfamilies of Indo-European Languages Romantic –Derived from Latin …Roman Empire –French –Spanish –Portuguese –Italian

Sino-Tibetan 2 nd largest in terms of the number of native speakers –250 different languages –Major subfamily  Chinese languages

Diffusion of Sino-Tibetan Languages

Afro-Asiatic 285 million native speakers 240 different languages Including: Arabic, Hebrew –North Africa –East Africa –Southwest Asia (Middle-East)

Afro-Asiatic

Tribal Central and Southern African Languages Were spread by the Bantu Tribe between 5 and 7 thousand years ago (5000 BC- 3000BC) The Bantu were forced to move southward because of invasion, drought, and possible internal strife

“Tribal” is the name that I have given to those languages originating with the Bantu Migration –Khosian –Niger-Congo –Nilo-saharan Languages used primarily south of the Sahara Desert

Austronesian Fewest number of native speakers Largest number of languages… Where  From Madagascar to Easter Island

Why are there so few Austronesian language speakers, yet so many languages?

A “Created Language?” Esperanto… Compilation of different languages Designed to make it easy for everyone to communicate 1800s-early 1900s  as many as 2 million people learned the language No country adopted it, though The Esperanto Alphabet: –a b c ĉ d e f g ĝ h ĥ i j ĵ k l m n o p r s ŝ t u ŭ v z

Most Widely Spoken Languages? 1.Mandarin Chinese (874 million, 16 countries) 2.Hindi (366 million, 17 countries) 3.English (341 million, 104 countries) 4.Spanish (322 million, 43 countries) 5.Bengali (207 million, 9 countries) 6.Portuguese (176 million, 33 countries) 7.Russian (167 million, 30 countries) 8.Japanese (125 million, 26 countries) 9.German (100 million, 40 countries) 10.Korean (78 million, 31 countries) 11.French (77 million, 53 countries)