MODERN LANGUAGE MOSAICS

Changing Cultural Composition in the United States Hispanics population on the rise An “official” second language?  Even divides Hispanic communities  Hispanic policy organization report, 1990 Early European immigrants faced language barrier…

Language and Culture Current debates  Language vs. cultural preservation  English = international communication standard  Some countries have made English (or another language) their official language Neocolonialism to some Emotional attachment important What is the US’s official language?

Language and Trade The Esperanto experiment: L.L. Zamehof, a Polish Oculist in the 1880s. Based on existing natural languages to create a second language that would be easily learned. Thousands use it to communicate worldwide. Elvish: invented by J.R. R. Tolkien. Was invented by Tolkien but not intended as Esperanto. Spoken by Elvish inhabitors of Middle- Earth, pronunciation and script are not easy to learn. There are several dictionaries and language course. Lingua franca  Linguistic convergence of Frankish, Italian, Greek, Spanish, and Arabic  Today’s usage of “lingua franca” Swahili has become the lingua franca of East Africa In West Africa Hausa is a regional tongue

Language and Trade Creolization  “Pidgin”  Sometimes a mother tongue  Difficult distinguishing between them & dialects  Gullah or Geechee: 10,000 descendents of African slaves in coastal islands of S.C., GA, and North Florida. Gullah cuisine based on African foodstuffs, okra  Gullah language combination of Elizabethan English and African tongues  The only surviving example of an English- based Creole language in North America.

Kung Fu English-the impact of a global lingua franca in China

Multilingualism Few true monolingual states left  Japan, Uruguay, Venezuela, Iceland, Portugal, Poland, and Lesotho Multilingual states  Linguistic fragmentation can reflect cultural pluralism

Multilingualism Regional expression  Examples: Switzerland Russia Andean Cultures

Multilingualism Canada  French & English speaking areas  Still divided

Multilingualism Belgium Dutch-speaking and French-speaking regions Brussels officially bilingual, but majority speak French Reflects 19 th century efforts to build an integrated state Linguistic partition in 1920s For Flemish identity Language regions tend to foster regionalism

Multilingualism Nigeria A colonial creation Three major regional languages  230 established tongues English as “official” language  Repercussions?

Official languages Serve different purposes  Enhance internal communication and interaction  Colonial influence  Official language can cause problems Hindi example  US official language? None!

Toponymy: The study of place names When you study toponymy you learn much about the culture of places. -Why, AZ -Nothing, AZ -Peru, ME -Bolivia, SC In many instances the toponym could be two part names: -a specific or given part -generic or classifying part For Example: Penn’s Forest, Pennsylvania

Place names give evidence of past cultures Dutch in Michigan, French in Lousiana Toponyms in the United States show the diffusion of people with distinct dialects: -Northern toponyms: center, corner names of towns, east, west, north, south Vermont: Randolph Center, South Randolph, East Randolph, North Randolph, Hewetts Corners (Check out Seattle) Midland: gap, cove, hollow, knob and burgh. Pittsburgh, Bald Knob, Stillhouse Hollow Southern: bayou, gully, store

George Stewart: 10 categories descriptive (Rockville, MD) associative (Great Falls, MT) incident (Harper’s Ferry, MD) possessive (Martha’s Vineyard) commendatory (Providence, R.I.) commemorative (Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School) folk-etymology (Plains, GA) manufactured (Truth or Consequences, New Mexico) mistake (Lasker, NC) so-called shift names (Norfolk, VA) Originally a name in England and used when people moved

Revival of minority languages: Why? Preserve culture Devolution: Basques Nationalism: Celtic, Welsh, Hawaiian Revival of extinct languages: Hebrew

Resources De Blij, Harm, J. (2007). Human Geography People, Place and Culture. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons Inc. Domosh, Mona, Neumann, Roderic, Price, Patricia, & Jordan-Bychkov, The Human Mosaic, A Cultural Approach to Human Geography. New York: W.H. Freeman and Company. Fellman, Jerome, D., Getis, Arthur, & Getis, Judith, Human Geography, Landscapes of Human Activities. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill Higher Education. Pulsipher, Lydia Mihelic and Alex M. and Pulsipher, World Regional Geography, Global Patterns, Local Lives. W.H. Freeman and Company New York. Rubenstein, James M. (2008). An introduction to human geography The cultural landscape. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.