1. Chapter 9 - The Diffusion of Languages
Tracing Linguistic Diversification
The Language Tree
Theories of Language Diffusion
Diffusion to the Pacific and the Americas
Influence on Individual Languages

2. Tracing Linguistic Diversification
Hints from Analysis of “Sound Shift”
- Milk - lacte (Latin) - latta (Italian) - leche (Spanish) and lait (French)
- Eight - octo (Latin) - otto - ocho -huit
Such backward reconstruction,called “deep reconstruction”, is crucial to linguistic research
William Jones - discovered the resemblance between Sanskrit (ancient Indian language) and Greek and Latin in 18th century
Jacob Grimm, 19th century, suggested that related languages have similar consonants which would change over time in a predictable way(Softening of consonants)

3. Proto Indo-European Language
Ancestral language
The predecessor of Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit
Link Romance language and other languages together
To prove its existence:
1) reconstruction
2) Locate the hearths
3) Diffusion routes must be traced
4) knowledge of the ways of life

4. Divergence - August Schleicher
Language divergence -languages differentiated over time and space
19th century, suggested by August Schleicher, Language - dialects - isolated dialects - discrete languages, for example - Spanish and Portuguese an now is Quebecois French
languages spread by relocation diffusion, but sometimes cause long- isolated languages, difficult for reconstruction
Replacement
Invasion of major language causes the replacement process which make the reconstruction of small branch of the language complicate.
Language Island - Hungarian, Finnish, Estonia and Basque survive (fig 8-3)

5. Theories of Language Diffusion
Conquest Theory
from Black Sea (proposed homeland, today Ukraine and Russia) spread westward using horse and wheel and trading, sound shift represents a long period of westward divergence, beginning the diffusion and differentiation of Latin, Germanic and Slavonic languages
Celtic group was pushed to the west of the Europe by newer language
Agriculture Theory
After more archeological records revealed, Luca Cavalli-Sforza and Robert Ammerman proposed that agriculture not conquest diffused the P-I-E languages. Proposed homeland - Anatolia (Turkey), between 7 and 9000 years ago.

6. Agriculture Theory
1n 1984, Thomas Gamkrelidze and Victor Ivanov (who reconstructed most of Proto-Indo-European Language), proposed the source area: Anatolia in modern Turkey
Vocabulary - mountain streams, valleys, rapids, lakes, mountain trees, and other high-relief landforms

7. Support for the Agr. Theory
Analyses of protein (gene)-shows the evidence of the distance decay from southern Turkey -Balkans-west and northern Europe. Farming spread into Europe.
Every generation (25yrs) Ag.frontier moved 11 miles. In 1500yrs, European frontiers would have been completely penetrated by farmers (Ammerman and Cavallo-Sforza)

8. Drawback of the Ag. theory
Anatolian region not a good place for farming and no archeological evidence to support the culture hearth
Some prefer the dispersal hypothesis (fig 9-2) and fig9-3

9. The search for a superfamily
Colin Renfrew - 3 Agr. Hearths
1) Anatolia -Indo-European
2) Western arc of Fertile Crescent - languages of Africa and Arabia
3) Eastern arc of Fertile Crescent - Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, later replaced by Indo-European

10. The Renfrew Model
3 Agri. hearths 1) Anatolian -> Europe Indo-Europ
2) Western arc of the Fertile Crescent -> N Africa and Arabia
3) Eastern arc of the Fertile Crescent -> Iran, Irag, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, later replaced by Indo-Eur

11. Russian Scholars-Vladislav Illich-Svitych and Aharon Dologopolsky
Nostratic - pre-Proto-Indo-European reconstructed by them independently
No domesticated plants or animals in Nostratic - hunter-gatherers,not farmers- “dog=wolf” means domestication of wolves
About 14,000 years ago, dog bones were found - Nostratic may have been used.

12. Nostratic
Could be the ancestral language of 1)Proto-Indo-European (Indo-European) 2)Kartvelian language (southern Caucasus), 3) Uralic-Altaic (Hungarian, Finnish, Turkish and Mongolian) 4) Dravidian and 5) Afro-Asiatic (Arabic)
But, we still don’t know what gave rise to Nostratic.

13. Pacific Diffusion Papuan from New Guinea,extended east- and westward
Austronesian began in coastal China - Taiwan (6000yrs ago)
Puzzles- 1)Why took so long from East Asia to islands off the Asia’s coast
2) Complexity due to invasion of other languages or isolation?
3) No Nostratic model for the languages of the Asian mainland reconstructed
Pacific Diffusion
Taiwan
Philippines
Malayo-Polynesian
(Madagascar, Melaniesia
Micronesia and Fiji)
Polynesian
(Maori in New Zealand)

14. Figure 9-6
Austronesian - reached Taiwan 6000 yrs ago (words for rice, field, farm, water buffalo, plow and canoe)
New Zealand years ago
Australia - 50,000 to 60,000 years ago
New Guinea - even earlier
Bellwood’s Pacific-realm model shows the stages in the expansion of Austronesian languages

15. Diffusion in the Americas
Native Americans, no more than 40 millions before the European invasion, came from Asia via Bering land bridge around 12,000 to 13,000 yrs ago (long believed)
The Languages were supposed to be simple without other language’s presence, but there are as many as 200 American Indian Languages now.
Divergence occurred within short period of time after crossing Bering Land Bridge.
The Greenberg Hypothesis-three indigenous American Languages -1)Oldest and largest -Amerind, 2) Na-Dene-Canada, Alaska and Apache and Navajo and 3) Eskimo-Aleut

16. Greenberg Hypothesis Support and Controversies
If Amerind Languages are the same family, the divergence must have occurred during a period of more than yrs.
Support and Controversies
No proper reconstruction procedures involved
He compared similar-sounding words in contemporary languages not sound-shifts.
Supportive archeological data, first wave of migration may have happened 40,000 B.P.
Dental data- supported three wave of migration
Majority of linguists still doubt the 3-wave and 3-family hypothesis.
But, the controversy will be resolved from Genetic and Archeological research, eventually.

17. Guatemala 15 30 N and 90 15 W Area - slightly smaller than Tennessee
Pop million
/1000 migrants
Roman Catholic, Protestant, indigenous Mayan beliefs
Languages - Spanish 60%, Amerindian 40%
Literacy - 50%, 75% below poverty line

18. Technology-interaction
Individual Languages
Remain in contact with each other->keep the languages alive
Three components influences world’s language mosaic:
Writing-makes
languages stabilized
Technology-interaction
between people
Political Org -
Limit access/scope
Middle Ages - invention of
printing press and rise of
nation-state are important
factors to the modern
languages. Such as..
Printings of Luther Bible in
German and King James Bible
in English set the standard
forms of languages for
Germany and English
Chinese/Latin-dispersed languages
over continents through Pol. org.
Languages diverged after
Roman Empire fell

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