1. Why are Languages Distributed the way they are?
Key Question 2:
Why are Languages Distributed the way they are?

2. How are Languages Formed?
Can find linkages among languages by examining sound shifts – a slight change in a word across languages over time.
eg. Milk = lacte in Latin
latta in Italian
leche in Spanish
lait in French

3. How are Languages Formed?
Language divergence –
when a lack of spatial interaction among speakers of a language breaks the language into dialects and then new languages.
Language convergence –
when peoples with different languages have consistent spatial interaction and their languages collapse into one.

4. History of English Old English: 450- 1100 CE
Old German meets Celt
Norse invasion
Beowulf
Middle English: CE
Old German/Celtic meets Old French (Nordic)
1066: Normans
Chaucer

5. Modern English: 1500- current day
Early Modern:
German/ Celtic/ French (Nordic) meets new words and changes pronunciation (Great vowel shift- shorter sounds)
Exploration
Shakespeare
Late Modern
Standardized Spelling
Changes in vocabulary (Industrial Revolution)

8. How do Linguists Study 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)

9. Historical Linkages among Languages
Indo-European language family
Proto-Indo-European language
Nostratic Language

10. Searching for the first language
The “Ur language”
Nostratic—ancestral speech of Middle East 12,000 to 20,000 years ago
Ancestor to nine modern language families
A 500-word dictionary has been compiled
Contemporary to ↑: Dene-Caucasian
led to Sino-Tibetan, Basque, and Native-American: Na-Dene

11. Renfrew Hypothesis:
Proto-Indo-European began in the Fertile Crescent, and then:
From Anatolia diffused Europe’s languages
From the Western Arc of Fertile Crescent diffused North
Africa and Arabia’s languages
From the Eastern Arc of Fertile Crescent diffused Southwest
Asia and South Asia’s languages.

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

13. Conquest Theory
Major theory of how Proto-Indo-European diffused into Europe which holds that they early speakers of PIE spread westward on horseback, overpowering earlier inhabitants and beginning the diffusion and differentiation of Indo-European tongues
Vast #’s of archaeologists, linguists and human geographers have long supported this theory
Celtic- region’s oldest language – supports theory that newer languages came from farther east.

14. Dispersal Hypothesis
Indo-European languages first moved from the hearth eastward into present-day Iran and then around the Caspian and into Europe.

15. The Languages of Europe
Romance languages
Germanic languages
Slavic languages

16. Mother = Madre = Màthair = Mutter = Mère = Mati = Mataji
Language families
The Indo-European language family
Largest most wide-spread family
Subfamilies—Romance, Slavic, Germanic, Indic, Celtic, and Iranic
Subfamilies are divided into individual languages
By comparing vocabularies in various languages one can see the kinship
Mother = Madre = Màthair = Mutter = Mère = Mati = Mataji
english
spanish
german
french
Hindi?
Serbo-croatian? ?

18. Indo-European diffusion
Earliest speakers from southern and southeastern Turkey (Anatolia) ca. 8 or 9 thousand years ago
Diffused west and north into Europe
2 theories:
Spread of agriculture
conquest
Later language diffusion occurred with the spread of great political empires: Latin, English, and Russian
Conqueror’s language spread hierarchically
Spread of Latin with Roman conquests
Spanish in Latin America

20. The environment and vocabulary
Spanish language
rough terrain
differences in shape and configuration of mountains
Scottish Gaelic
Common attribute spoken by hill people
Romanian tongue
rugged terrain
use of terrain for livestock herding
English
Developed in wet coastal plains
Poor in words describing mountainous terrain

21. The environment provides refuge
Inhospitable environments offer protection and isolation
Harder or less likely to be conquered
Mountains tend to isolate inhabitants
Linguistic refuge areas
Rugged hill and mountain areas
Excessively cold or dry climates
Impenetrable forests and remote islands
Extensive marshes and swamps

22. Examples of linguistic refuge areas
Caucasus Mountains
Alps, Himalayas, and highlands of Mexico are linguistic shatter belts
American Indian tongue Quechua → Andes Mountains of South America
Rocky Mountains of northern New Mexico, still has an archaic form of Spanish
Appalachian Mts- historically preserved 17th century English

23. Euskera
The Basque speak the Euskera language, which is in now way related to any other language family in Europe.
How did Euskera survive?

25. Switzerland
Switzerland has four recognized national languages: French, German, Italian, and Romansch.
Romansch, Latin group, is spoken by only 1.1% of the population.

26. Other major language families
Sino-Tibetan language family
2nd largest language family
403 languages
Extends throughout most of China and Southeast Asia
Mandarin and Cantonese = dialects or languages?
The Afro-Asiatic family
Has two major divisions—Semitic and Hamitic
Semitic → from Tigris-Euphrates valley westward across the north half of Africa
Arabic is the most widespread Semitic language
Hebrew (which used to be “dead”) is the official language of Israel
Smaller number speak Hamitic languages
Expansion of Arabic decreased the area and number of speakers

27. Languages of Subsaharan Africa - extreme language
Languages of Subsaharan Africa - extreme language diversity - effects of colonialism

28. Nigeria more than 400 different languages.