Chapter 6 LANGUAGE

Fact of the day Fastest growing culture/language is….. Hispanic/Spanish

Belgium case study Regional divisions by language (p151) North- Flemings/Flanders (Dutch) South Walloons (French) –Capital is French speaking but in a Dutch region making division difficult –Causes gov. problems and political fights

What are languages and their roles? Language- systematic means of communicating ideas or feelings using sounds, signs, or gestures

France French have the idea of a pure language 1975 banned foreign words in ads 1992 made French the “official language” 1995 created fines for using foreign (English) words in public addresses

Canada Province Quebec faces issues between English and French speakers 85% speak French and the province claims French as their language Tried to outlaw all English signs

Standard language- where society teaches rules and grammar for one language Dialect- regional variation of the national language, have different rhythm, phrases, pronunciation, vocab, and pace –Isogloss- the boundary where the dialects transition

Mutual intelligibility- people can understand one another with different dialects –Dialect chains- dialects close to one another will sound similar

Why are languages distributed the way they are? Officially over 500 languages Classified as: – language family (common ancestor LONG AGO) –Language subfamily/branch- have some commonalities –Language groups- sets of individual languages that share similar things like grammar rules

Indo-European family- spoken by over half of the world Spread through migration group branch/subfamily family

Language formation Sound shift- observe how the same word meaning changes over time (milk in Latin is lacte, French lait, Spanish leche) Proto Indo European thought to be the first language of the Indo European family

Backwards reconstruction- tracing the background of words to completely reconstruct an ancient language –Use vocabulary, location, and diffusion routes to rebuild –Deep reconstruction is recreating a language and then recreating the language that preceded it –Nostratic thought to be the first language on earth

Language divergence-when a new language forms usually due to isolation of a group of people Language convergence- when two languages collapse into one

Language theories (spread of Indo European languages) Renfrew- three language hearths –Turkey, Eastern Fertile Crescent, Western Fertile Crescent Conquest theory- started near Russia with conquerings West Agriculture theory- started in Turkey farmers moved northwest looking for better land

European subfamilies Romance languages- areas dominated by Roman Empire Germanic- Expansion from Germany north to Norway and Sweden Slavic- from migration of Slavic people from Ukraine to Eastern Europe

Africa Most languages are unwritten but mainly grouped into 4 families (Niger-Congo biggest) Oldest language in Africa is Khosian with clicks Most languages came from the Bantu language

Nigeria 3 major regional languages; 12 major languages; 230 tribal languages Colonialism divided the land and created language issues Ibo, Yoruba, Hausa main lang. English is official lang. Difficult for school children

How do languages diffuse? Lingua franca- common form of communication used by traders Pidgin- when a combo of languages are used in daily life (Spanglish) Creole- when a pidgin becomes an official language

Monolingual states- countries that speak one language (Japan, Portugal) Multilingual- states that speak more than one language (Belgium, South Africa) Global language attempt by creating Esperanto…failed

Official language- language that a country adopts legally to unite the people –Used in many African countries by adopting the colonial language instead of the many tribal languages –Some countries have many official languages –India has the most with 22

What role does language play in making places? Toponyms- naming of places –10 types: descriptive (Rocky Mtns.); associative (Mill Valley); commerative (San Francisco); commendatory (Paradise Valley); incidents (Battle Creek); possession (Johnson City); folk (Plains, GA) manufactured (Truth or Consequence) mistakes (Lasker); shift (Lancaster)

Changing place names can change history –Usually change with a change in power –Colonial African names changed with independence –Can be used for memory –Can be commodified and sold for a name (Tropicana field)