Language Families

Use this powerpoint to supplement the information on the graphic organizer on page 5 of your Ch 5: Language guided reading and to color code the global distribution of language families map on the last page of the guided reading.

Distribution of Language Families

• Indo-European = largest language family• 46% of the world’s population • Spread across globe through colonialism/migration

– most widely diffused language family – See following maps!!!!

• Remember this family includes language branches associated with Europe (Germanic, Slavic, Romance etc.) but also branches in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Iran!

Indo-European

Indo-European

Indo-European Distribution

Indo-European Distribution

Indo-European Distribution

Indo-European Distribution

Indo-European Distribution

Indo-European Distribution

Distribution of Language Families

• Classification of languages– Sino-Tibetan = 2nd largest language family

• 21% of the world’s population – Mandarin = most speakers single native language in

the world

Sino-Tibetan Family

Distribution of Other Language Families • Africa

– extensive diversity• 1,000 distinct languages • + thousands of dialects• ignore for our purposes the Saharan and

Sudanic branches mapped in your textbook.

– Niger-Congo family• 95% of sub-Saharan • Originated in west/central

Africa (Cameroon/Nigeria)• Spread thru “Bantu expansion”

beginning c. 1000 BCE – Example = “Zulus”

Distribution of Other Language Families • Africa

– extensive diversity– Niger-Congo family– Khoisan

• Hunter/gatherers (San)– “Bushmen” = derogatory

• Pastoralists (Khoi)– “Hottentots” = derogatory

• “Clicking” languages– Oldest form of human

communication?

Languages of North Africa and Middle

East• Afro-Asiatic (Semitic)

– Arabic = most widely spoken Semitic language

• ironic since Arabs are often accused of “anti-semitism”

• spread thru diffusion of Islam• Other Arabic influence mainly

through Quran and trade– Swahili “people of the coast” =

Bantu + Arabic influence– Urdu = Hindi + Arabic

– Hebrew, Berber• Hebrew = once extinct, sacred

language revived with est. of the state of Israel

Languages of Central Asia and the Middle East

• Altaic or (Turkic) language family• Turkish = most widely spoken language in family

– Ottoman migration brings Turkic from Central Asia to “Turkey”

• Central Asia (Kazaks = “Kazakhstan”, Uzbekistan etc., Mongolian)

– Formerly suppressed under Russian Empire/USSR (Russification)

• Japanese and Korean (now considered part)

Distribution of Other Language Families – Uralic

• Significant Non-Indo-European family in Europe– Estonian, Hungarian, and Finnish languages

– Basques? Unknown or nonexistent relation to other languages

• “Language isolate” = language cutoff from family by in-migration or unrelated to other languages.

– Basque speakers were cutoff and isolated by the waves of Indo-European speakers (Celts, Germanic tribes, etc.) migrating into Europe

Other Language Families

Other Language Families• Dravidian: South Indian languages

– dated from before Aryan invasion– Dravidian Tamils vs. Indo-Euro Singhalese = Sri Lanka civil war

• Austronesian (Malay-Polynesian)– SE Asia, Philippines, Indonesia, Madagascar– Diffuses to Madagascar, involved the crossing of the Indian Ocean in

outrigger canoes (AWESOME!) • Austro-Asiatic (Mon-Khmer)

– Vietnam and Cambodia and other non-contiguous areas in South and Southeast Asia

– Use register contrast, modal (normal) voice and breathy (lax) voice or between modal voice and creaky voice.

• Caucasian – Caucasus mountainous region = most lang. family diversity, why?– 4 language families, many religions

• Other = 7,000 languages total, 50- 90% extinct by 2100

Caucasus = region with most language family diversity

Other Language Families