Ch. 5 Key Issue 2 Why Is English Related to Other Languages?

Classifying Languages Language Family (Indo-European) – Sub families/branch (Germanic) – Group (west Germanic) Individual language (English) – Dialect (BRP, American English) Official Languages of UN – English – Spanish – French – Russia – Chinese (Mandarin) – Arabic Has faced criticism for favoring English over the other 5

***Reconstructing a language Sound shifts- slight changes in words across languages with common roots. Milk and eight in Latin: lacte/oto – Italian: latta/otto; Spanish: leche/ocho; French: lait/huit Even if you did not know these languages come from Latin, you could deduce the connection between them all through sound shifts Constants become “softer” as time goes on: Vater (German), vader (Dutch), father Language divergence due to isolation from other speakers (the splitting of branches) Language convergence- 2 languages into 1

Indo-European Language Family “From India to Europe” Most widely spoken family of languages by far Divided into 8 branches (subfamilies) – 4 are spoken by large number of people Germanic Indo-Iranian Balto-Slavic Romance

Germanic Branch English is a member of the West Germanic language group Reflects expansion of peoples out of Northern Europe to the West and South

Indo-Iranian Branch Most speakers of all the Indo-European family branches 100+ languages Divided into Eastern (Indic) and Western (Iranian)

Indic vs. Iranian Indic (India, Pak, Bang) – Cultural diversity through languages in India (438 languages!) – Hindi vs Urdu Hindi is official language in India, written in Devanagari Urdu is written in Arabic, has Islamic roots Iranian (Iran and SW Asia) – Persian/Farsi, Kurdish, Pashto – Written in Arabic

Balto-Slavic Branch Took over some areas left open by collapse of Roman Empire Eastern group: – Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian – Soviet Union required Russian in all of its territories (Russification) – After break up of USSR, former countries adopted own languages West group: – Polish, Czech and Slovak – Serbo-Croatian  different languages for cultural identity purposes – Roman vs Cyrillic alphabet

Cyrillic vs. Roman Alphabet

Romance Branch Evolved from Romans/Latin – Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, Romanian Physical boundaries served as intervening obstacles and now represent isoglosses Diffused with extent of Roman empire over 700 year period, Vulgar Latin = nonstandard version of Latin, used in daily life When Roman Empire collapsed, lack of communication resulted in the forming of distinct languages; some mixed with local languages as well

Roman Empire

Romance Languages

Romance Dialects Spanish and Portuguese diffused to Americas through exploration; 90% of speakers live outside Europe! – Spanish: 18 LA countries; Portuguese: Brazil – Treaty of Tordesillas- E/W division of globe Solidified Spanish in LA and Portuguese in Brazil – Standardization of written Portuguese Brazilian version favored over traditional Portuguese– Portugal-Portuguese upset

Treaty of Tordesillas

Dialect vs. language Are 2 languages distinct languages or 2 dialects of the same language? – Difficult to tell because everyone regards their own “language” as distinct  cultural diversity! – Romance languages in former colonies are considered separate/distinct because the differ substantially (ex. Creolized languages) Creolized Languages in former colonies – * “ A slave who was born in the master’s house” – Indigenous people adopting language of colonizer and mixing it with own language

A Proto-Indo-European Language? “First” language of the Indo-European family? Since all languages of the Indo-Euro family are related, they must have a common origin. “Internal” evidence of common words – Words derived from daily lives: oak, bear, snow = shared words (all Indo-Euro languages have them) – Probably lived in cold climate away from ocean = no common word for ocean  had to add individually as the encountered the ocean – Backward reconstruction-looking for the “hardening” of consonants in sounds shifts

PIE!

Where did the P.I.E. speakers come from? 2 different theories to where the hearth could’ve been Nomadic Warrior Thesis/Conquest Theory – PIEs were Kurgans from Russia/Kazakhstan – Used domesticated horses as weapons to conquer Europe and South Asia – Their language spread because they were in power

Where did the P.I.E. speakers come from? Sedentary Farmer Thesis/Dispersal Hypothesis – 2000 years before Kurgans – From Anatolia (Turkey) – These PIEs diffused through migration routes and peaceful sharing of food; stable food supply allowed population to increase – As people migrated the language dispersed throughout Europe

Nostraic Language? Even before the P.I.E! Possibly the language that was once spoken by humans early in history; connects PIE with other languages of world However, we have little knowledge of the human language tree “below the surface”

Below the surface

Language and Politics Comparing Europe's linguistic and political maps shows a high correlation between the languages spoken and the boundaries of countries Languages that spread beyond a country’s borders may reflect a past loss of territory The Basque language isolated in Andorra Mnt. Region; separatists movements