WORLD GEOGRAPHY Oct. 24, 2014

Today Unit 5 – Language (continued)

Unit 5 - Language - Languages and the role they play in culture - Language distribution - Diffusion of language - Language and places

Language and culture - Language contains much of cultural identity: “Visibility” Place of origin Names of people, places, and things Arts (e.g. music, literature) PERCEPTION (to a degree, at least)

Language and culture Example: Place names in the U.S. vs. China U.S. - often indicative of the ethnic groups that originally settled in the area e.g. San Francisco (Spanish) Williamsburg (German) China (Mandarin) – Often determined by geographic location

What constitutes a language? - Mutual intelligibility - Standardized languages - Dialects

Mutual Intelligibility Criterion for a language: Speakers can understand each other Problems - Measuring “mutual intelligibility” - Standard languages and government impact on what is a “language” and what is a “dialect”

Mutual Intelligibility Criterion for a language: Speakers can understand each other Problems - Measuring “mutual intelligibility” e.g. Mandarin Chinese vs. Cantonese Chinese vs. Standard written Chinese - more than 8 dialects of Chinese

Mutual Intelligibility Criterion for a language: Speakers can understand each other Problems - Standard languages and government impact on what is a “language” and what is a “dialect”

Dialect Variant of standard language by ethnicity or region: - Vocabulary - Syntax - Cadence, pace - Pronunciation Scottish dialect: BRP: 15F F 15F F

Dialect Creates the question of what the “true” language is.

Dialect Isogloss: A geographic boundary within which a particular linguistic feature occurs

Dialect

Standardized language “One that is published, widely distributed, and purposefully taught.” (p. 172) e.g. Beijing Mandarin BRP (British Received Pronunciation) Parisian French Korean spoken in Seoul - Essentially, decided through power

Language distribution - Language formation - Historical languages (Proto-Indo European) Languages of Europe and Africa (next class)

Language distribution

Language formation Linkages among languages marked by sound shifts, slight changes in a word across languages over time “Milk” = lacte in Latin leche in Spanish lait in French latta in Italian “I’m hungry” = J'ai faim (French) Ho fame (Italian) Tengo hambre (Spanish)

Language formation Language divergence: Breakup of a language into dialects and then new languages from lack of interaction among speakers e.g. Latin  Romance languages - French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian

Language formation Language convergence: When peoples with different languages have consistent interaction and their languages blend into one e.g. Old English + Norman French = Middle English (which eventually developed into modern English)

Study of historical languages Backward reconstruction: Tracking sound shifts and the hardening of consonants backward to reveal an “original” language Can deduce the vocabulary of an extinct language Can recreate ancient languages (deep reconstruction) Proto-Indo European: European_vocabularyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo- European_vocabulary

Historical linkages among languages Indo-European language family Proto-Indo-European language Nostratic Language (ancient ancestor of Proto-Indo-European Language)

Origins of Proto-Indo European Renfrew Hypothesis: Began in the Fertile Crescent, and then: - Europe’s languages from Anatolia - North Africa and Arabia’s languages from the Western Arc of Fertile Crescent - Southwest Asia and South Asia’s languages from the Eastern Arc of Fertile Crescent

Agriculture Theory With increased food supply and population, migration of speakers from the hearth of Indo- European languages into Europe

Dispersal Hypothesis From the hearth eastward into present-day Iran Around the Caspian Into Europe

Proto-Indo European translator