1. Chapter 5 language

2. Key Issue #1
Where are English-Language Speakers Distributed?

3. Where Are English Language Speakers Distributed?
Global distribution of language results from 2 geographic processes-interaction and isolation
Origin and diffusion of English
English is spoken by appx ½ billion people as a first language & 2 billion people live in a country where English is an official language
English colonies
Origins of English
German invasions
Norman invasions

4. English-Speaking Countries
Fig. 5-1: English is the official language in 42 countries, including some in which it is not the most widely spoken language. It is also used and understood in many others.
Figure 5-2

5. Invasions of England 5th–11th centuries
Fig. 5-2: The groups that brought what became English to England included Jutes, Angles, Saxons, and Vikings. The Normans later brought French vocabulary to English.

6. Where Are English Language Speakers Distributed?
Dialects of English
Dialect = a regional variation of a language set apart by vocabulary, spelling, & pronunciation.
Isogloss = a word-usage boundary
Standard language = a well-established dialect
Dialects
In England
Differences between British and American English

7. Old and Middle English Dialects
Fig. 5-3: The main dialect regions of Old English before the Norman invasion persisted to some extent in the Middle English dialects through the 1400s.

8. Where Are English Language Speakers Distributed?
Dialects of English
Dialects in the United States
Settlement in the eastern United States
New England, Middle Atlantic, & Southeastern
Regional pronunciation differences are more familiar than word differences

9. Dialects in the Eastern U.S.
Fig. 5-4: Hans Kurath divided the eastern U.S. into three dialect regions, whose distribution is similar to that of house types

10. Soft Drink Differences
Figure 5-8

11.
My Fair Lady

12. Key Issue #2
Why Is English Related to Other Languages?

13. Why Is English Related to Other Languages?
Indo-European languages
English is a part of the Indo-European language family-collection of languages related through a common ancestor
Language branch = collection of related languages
Indo-European = eight branches
Four branches have a large number of speakers:
Germanic
Indo-Iranian
Balto-Slavic
Romance

14. Why Is English Related to Other Languages?
Indo-European languages
A language group -collection of languages within a branch that share a common origin in the relatively recent past and display relatively few differences in grammar and vocabulary.
For example, West Germanic is the group within the Germanic branch of the Indo-European family to which English belongs.

15. Indo-European Language Family
Fig. 5-5: The main branches of the Indo-European language family include Germanic, Romance, Balto-Slavic, and Indo-Iranian.

16. Linguistic Differences in Europe and India
Figure 5-10
Figure 5-11

17. Germanic Branch of Indo-European
Fig. 5-6: The Germanic branch today is divided into North and West Germanic groups. English is in the West Germanic group.

18. South Asian Languages and Language Families
Fig. 5-7: Indo-European is the largest of four main language families in South Asia. The country of India has 18 official languages.

19. Romance Branch of Indo-European
Fig. 5-8: The Romance branch includes three of the world’s 12 most widely spoken languages (Spanish, French, and Portuguese), as well as a number of smaller languages and dialects.

20. Why Is English Related to Other Languages?
Origin and diffusion of Indo-European
A “Proto-Indo-European” language?
Internal evidence
Nomadic warrior theory
Sedentary farmer theory

21. Kurgan Theory of Indo-European Origin “Nomadic Warrior” Theory
Fig. 5-9: In the Kurgan theory, Proto-Indo-European diffused from the Kurgan hearth north of the Caspian Sea, beginning about 7,000 years ago.

22. Anatolian Hearth Theory of Indo-European Origin “Sedentary Farmer” Theory
Fig. 5-10: In the Anatolian hearth theory, Indo-European originated in Turkey before the Kurgans and diffused through agricultural expansion.

23. Key Issue #3
Where are Other Language Families Distributed?

24. Where Are Other Language Families Distributed?
Classification of languages
Indo-European = the largest language family
46 percent of the world’s population speaks an Indo- European language
Sino-Tibetan = the second-largest language family
21 percent of the world’s population speaks a Sino- Tibetan language
Mandarin = the most used language in the world

25. Language Families of the World
Fig. 5-11: Distribution of the world’s main language families. Languages with more than 100 million speakers are named.

26. Major Language Families Percentage of World Population
Fig. 5-11a: The percentage of world population speaking each of the main language families. Indo-European and Sino-Tibetan together represent almost 75% of the world’s people.

27. Where Are Other Language Families Distributed?
Languages of the Middle East and Central Asia
Afro-Asiatic
Arabic = most widely spoken
Altaic
Turkish = most widely spoken
Uralic
Estonian, Hungarian, and Finnish

28. Language Family Trees
Fig. 5-12: Family trees and estimated numbers of speakers for the main world language families.

29. Chinese Ideograms
Fig. 5-13: Chinese language ideograms mostly represent concepts rather than sounds. The two basic characters at the top can be built into more complex words.

30. Where Are Other Language Families Distributed?
African language families
Extensive linguistic diversity
1,000 distinct languages + thousands of dialects
Niger-Congo
95 percent of sub-Saharan Africans speak a Niger- Congo language
Nilo-Saharan
Khoisan
“Click” languages

31. Language Families of Africa
Fig. 5-14: The 1,000 or more languages of Africa are divided among five main language families, including Austronesian languages in Madagascar.

32. Languages of Nigeria
Fig. 5-15: More than 200 languages are spoken in Nigeria, the largest country in Africa (by population). English, considered neutral, is the official language.

33. Key Issue #4
Why Do People Preserve Local Languages?

34. Why Do People Preserve Languages?
Preserving language diversity
Extinct languages
473 “endangered” languages today
Examples
Reviving extinct languages: Hebrew
Preserving endangered languages: Celtic
Multilingual states
Walloons and Flemings in Belgium
Switzerland
Isolated languages
Basque
Icelandic

35. Language Divisions in Belgium
Fig. 5-16: There has been much tension in Belgium between Flemings, who live in the north and speak Flemish, a Dutch dialect, and Walloons, who live in the south and speak French.

36. Language Areas in Switzerland
Fig. 5-17: Switzerland remains peaceful with four official languages and a decentralized government structure.

37. Why Do People Preserve Languages?
Global dominance of English
English: An example of a lingua franca
Lingua franca = an international language
Pidgin language = a simplified version of a language
Expansion diffusion of English
Ebonics

38. Why Do People Preserve Languages?
Global dominance of English
Diffusion to other languages
Franglais
The French Academy (1635) = the supreme arbiter of the French language
Spanglish
Denglish

39. French-English Boundary in Canada
Fig. 5-18: Although Canada is bilingual, French speakers are concentrated in the province of Québec, where 80% of the population speaks French.

40. Internet Hosts, by Language
Fig 5-1-1a: The large majority of internet hosts in 1999 used English, Chinese, Japanese, or European languages.