Chapter 5

“Language”

Language: …

Language is part of culture. Religion and Ethnicity are communicated through language.

Dialects …- due to Isolation.

The diffusion of language is due to Interaction through migration and trade.

Official Language (standard) - …

GREG SMITHTORONTO STAR - January 20, 2008

A meow is a miaou is a miyau. Unless it's a mia'oon.Or a nyan.

And chickens cluck, if they're not tokking, or doing the caca-racá.As for Lassie, a woof by any other name might well be a vuff, a voff or even a vau.

It all depends on where you are and whom you're talking to. A Greek bee zoums. A German bee summs. A Turkish bee vizzes. A Japanese bee goes . . . boon.

Before you roll your eyes at that one, try rolling it around first in your mouth: boooon, booooonnnnnn, bnnnnnnnnnnnn. Feeling the buzz?Animals sound pretty much the same the world over but people, with our hundreds of languages, don't.

The differences are cultural, to be sure. Different groups have different ways of describing similar things.

"Part of it depends on the speech sounds used in a given language," explains Alexei Kochetov, assistant professor of linguistics at the University of Toronto.

"It also depends on how particular organs – the lips, the tongue, the cheeks – are used in the language."

But there are less complex considerations, like simple twists of fate."It's also random choice," says Kochetov, "depending on how the sound was first heard and how it developed over thousands of years."

A woman in a tribe in the heart of Africa 10,000 years ago hears a bird in the bush and tries to mimic the sound. She teaches it to her son, and as it gets passed on through the generations it becomes embedded in the language.

The result, to English-hearing ears, can be a bit strange.

Animal Sound Dutch English Finnish French German Greek Hebrew Hungarian Italian Japanese Russian SpanishSwedish

Bee droning

buzzbuzz/bzzz

bzz bzzzsumm summ

zoum zoum

bzzz bzzz zzzzboon boon

zh-zh-zh bzzzbuzz buzz

Bird (small) tjiep

cheep/chirp/chirrup/peep

piip   piep pieptsiou tsiou

tziff-tziff csip-csirip chippee pee/pii pii fiyt-fiyt   pip-pip

Cat mewing

miauw meow miau miaou miau miaou miyau miau miaunyan nyan/nyaa nyaa miyau miao

mjan mjan

Cat purring prrr purr hrr ronron srr     doromb purr goro goro mrrr rrr  

Chicken (hen) clucking

tok tokcluck cluck

kot-kotcotcotcodet

tock tockko ko ko/ka ka ka

chuck-chuck

kot kotcoccodé

ku-ku-ku-ku/ko-ko-ko-ko ko-ko-ko

caca-racá/cocorocó/

ock-ock

Chick (baby chicken)

piep piep

cheep/peep

piip piou piou piep piep ko ko ko   csip-csip pio piopiyo piyo

pi-pi-pi pi-pi pip-pip

Cow lowingmoe/boe

mooammuu/möö (calf)

meuh mmuuh moo moo mu muumau mau

mu-u-umuuu/meee

mu mu

Dog barking (medium dog)

woef woef

woof woof/ruff ruff

vuffouah ouah

wau wau gav gavwoof-woof

vau vaubau bau

wan wanhav-hav/gav-gav

guavvov-vov/voff

Language Family trees and estimated numbers of speakers for the main world language families.

Language Roots

- Pre-historic

- Proto-Indo-European or Nostratic

Language Family

- Ancient

- Indo-European

Language Branch

- Very Old

- Germanic

Language Group

-Old

- West Germanic

Actual Language

- Recent

- English

Language Families of the World

Distribution of the world’s main language families. Languages with more than 100 million speakers are named.

Major Language FamiliesPercentage of World Population

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.

INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGE

Indo-European Language Family

The main branches of the Indo-European language family include Germanic, Romance, Balto-Slavic, and Indo-Iranian.

Germanic Branch of Indo-European

The Germanic branch today is divided into North and West Germanic groups. English is in the West Germanic group.

Invasions of England5th–11th centuries

The groups that brought what became English to England included Jutes, Angles, Saxons, and Vikings. The Normans later brought French vocabulary to English.

WHERE IS ENGLISH SPOKEN? -

Colonialization by Britain

Economic Power (language of business - United States)

There are two general theories on how the Indo-European Language Family spread:

1.Kurgan Theory2.Anatolian Hearth Theory

Kurgan Theory of Indo-European Origin

In the Kurgan theory, Proto-Indo-European diffused from the Kurgan hearth north of the Caspian Sea, beginning about 7,000 years ago through conquest and expansion.

Anatolian Hearth Theory of Indo-European Origin

In the Anatolian hearth theory, Indo-European originated in Turkey before the Kurgans and diffused through agricultural expansion.

Languages of Nigeria

More than 200 languages are spoken in Nigeria, the largest country in Africa (by population). English, considered neutral, is the official language.

What Problems can arise from this situation?

French-English Boundary in Canada

Although Canada is bilingual, French speakers are concentrated in the province of Québec, where 80% of the population speaks French.

The Spread of English - Internet Hosts

A large proportion of the world’s internet users and hosts are in the developed countries of North America and western Europe.

Internet Hosts, by Language

The large majority of internet hosts in 1999 used English, Chinese, Japanese, or European languages.

Questions Geographers would ask:

• Where did Languages originate?

• How did lanuages originate? (the bible)

• How and why did they diffuse and where did they diffuse?

• What is the scale of the Language?

• What effects does Globalization have on Language?

• What is the Local Diversity of Language?

Why does Eastern United States have many dialects will Western US does not?

What is the problem of having English as the language of Globalization?

How can the following affect language?•Rivers•Mountains•Agriculture•Trade Routes•Historic Battles•Old ancient boundaries•Overall Climate

Key Terms:

• Dialects: …

• Standard Language: …

• Isogloss: …

• Ideograms: …

• Toponym: …

Creole: …

Extinct Languages: …

Lingua Franca: …

Pidgin: …

Vulgar Latin: …

Vocabulary List

Language Creole Dialect Indo-European languages Isogloss Language Language family Language group Language subfamily Lingua franca Linguistic diversity Monolingual/multilingual Official language Pidgin Toponymy Trade language

The End