Introduction to Languages of the World PDF

About the languages of the world Figure 1: Language families (source Wikipedia ) Introduction How many languages are there in the world? Common reference works indicate between 3,000 and 10,000 languages; as of 1980, research mainly indicates 6,000-7,0...

About the languages of the world Figure 1: Language families (source Wikipedia ) Introduction How many languages are there in the world? Common reference works indicate between 3,000 and 10,000 languages; as of 1980, research mainly indicates 6,000-7,000. Ethnologue: 6,909 (of which 400 †) Classification and Index of the World's Languages: 4500 International Encyclopedia of Linguistics: 6300 Atlas of the World's Languages: 6796 A Guide to the World's Languages: 5000 Wikipedia: 6500 (source unknown) What explains the strong fluctuation? Overview works Until the 2nd half of the 20th century there were only a few overview works, the number of languages was estimated or extrapolated. The German Wikipedia gives 6,500 languages - source unknown! From the 80's use of modern data recording technology. Language death (linguicide): The loss rate of languages is estimated differently by researchers: languages die out again and again. The distribution of speakers among languages is also highly unbalanced: Of the approximately 6-8,000 languages, the five largest, Mandarin (Chinese), English, Hindi-Urdu, Spanish, and Russian, already account for 40% of all speakers. Hundreds of languages, on the other hand, are spoken by small tribes, perhaps only a handful of people. Every year, several of these languages become extinct. Previously unknown languages 6 There are in unexplored or little explored areas of the earth today still unknown peoples and languages (concerns Indonesian islands like Borneo, Papua New Guinea, South American and African rainforest areas). Outdated data Also for listed languages often only few current data available: For 3,074 languages in Ethnologue (13th ed. 1996) comment "Survey needed." This "survey" should indicate whether all speakers of a region use the same language, or whether they use dialectal variants, or whether they speak different languages. Languages have different names The number of existing language names is considerably larger than the number of actually different languages: Many languages are known by different names belonging to different languages. Cf. from Europe: Dutch and Dutch, Provençal and Occitan, Cymric and Welsh are each (almost) the same. German is called so by the speakers themselves, but in other language areas German, Allemand, Tedesco and Nemeckij. Cf. Ethnologue 2005: for the 6,912 languages, 7,299 main entries + 39,491 alternative names and dialects are given, e.g. Berom (Nigeria) also under: Birom, Berum, Gbang, Kibo, Kibbo, Kibbun, Kibyen, Aboro, Boro-Aboro, Afango, Chenberom, Shosho. Of such names, some are exonyms (namings from outside, not by own speakers *inside *inside); many names contain valuations (scale from "friendly" - "insulting". Shosho is an insulting exonym; cf. attitude towards French and France in "He speaks French" / "He speaks Frog"). Conversely, the same name may be given to different languages (e.g. Mexicano for Spanish in Mexico and for Native American language Nahuatl). It is often not certain that a language reported under one name is identical with a language later known by a different name. The lists of the world's languages probably contain many such synonyms. Dialect vs. language Many of these names refer to "dialects" of a "language". Leads to the more than 100-year-old problem of the dialect vs. language distinction: Do we regard certain idioms as independent languages or as dialects of one and the same language? Cf. Europe: if Swiss German, for example, is a German dialect, why not Dutch, if they are roughly equidistant from High German? The criteria for this distinction are not uniformly handled by linguists; often sufficient information for a decision is missing. Linguistic criteria for differentiation: similarities in phonetics, vocabulary and grammar as well as mutual intelligibility or major structural differences. Extra-linguistic (political-social) criteria: Common "roofing" by a written language, existence of a written, especially literary tradition, different language awareness. Mostly political and historical reasons for classification as two or more "languages" despite mutual intelligibility (e.g. Hindi/Urdu, Flemish/Dutch, Serbian/Bosnian/Croatian, Xhosa/Zulu, Swedish/Danish/Norwegian...). Conversely languages mutually not understandable, but subsumed under a "language" for political-historical reasons (e.g. the "dialects" of Saami; 8 main dialect groups of Chinese, here however "roofed" by common written language). On the criterion of mutual intelligibility: dialects are continuously different from each other, cf. e.g. a journey in Germany or Italy from north to south. Neighboring dialects are mutually intelligible, but not the poles of the dialect continuum. Furthermore, the criterion can be decisive at most in a political and historical vacuum. Thus, it is indeed applied by linguists for exotic areas, but it does not apply in Europe with traditionally fixed social and political boundaries. For example, according to this criterion, Galician is a dialect of Portuguese, but 7 since it is not spoken in Portugal, its speakers prefer it to be considered as a separate language. Linguists should accept what speakers state about the status of their idiom. Attempted solution of the project "Global Language Register" (1 9 9 7 f f. ): Division into a) tongue = outer language, b) language = inner language = idiom, c) dialect. The tongues and idioms add up to 10,000 languages! Even global languages such as English, especially in its function as a lingua franca, continue to develop into their own varieties, which can become languages in their own right, especially when local political circumstances demand it. Language Stigmas Minority languages are often stigmatized in the surrounding society. They are then sometimes disowned by their own speakers. At the end of the 20th century, the number of languages in the world nominally increased somewhat, and this only because some governments relaxed their restrictive language policies somewhat and therefore more people professed their language (see above under 6: "different language awareness"). How many languages are at risk? Endangered languages (almost always) belong to the small language communities. Therefore often synonymous with small languages. The term small languages is more neutral than dwarf languages or micro languages (Haarmann 2001a: dwarf languages, 2001b: small languages). Number of speakers for "small languages": less than 1000 (Haarmann 2001b). Estimation of the size and viability of a language community depending, among other things, on the estimated total number of languages on earth and on the "normal" rate of development of languages. A language is "dead" when no one speaks it anymore. But it can be handed down in the form of a record; it can serve as a "technical language" for certain groups (cf. Latin for church, for medicine), it can even be "revived"/revitalized. If only 1 speaker* exists, only "inner conversation" is possible. It is not meaningful to state an absolute number of speakers for "threat", since the ecological, geographical, economic, and social context must be taken into account in each case: In isolated rural settlements 500 speakers can mean stability of a language; the same number as an immigrant minority in a modern city tends to assimilate to the dominant language. For many island states in the Pacific: 500 speakers means stability; Central Europe: assimilation. Crystal (2000) criticizes uncritical compilation as "endangered languages" solely on the basis of numerical ratios, thus in Yamamoto (1997) languages between 300 and 500 speakers* are placed in an endangered subgroup, such as Santa Ana dialect of Keresan (USA), Ulwa (Nicaragua), Sahaptin (USA). But size of the settlements concerned is different and thus speaker *in *number to be weighted differently: Santa Ana dialect in a community of 600 people, Ulwa in community of 2,000 people, Sahaptin in community of 12,000 people. But also counter-example Yamamoto's: Karitiana (Brazil) had 185 speakers* of different ages in mid- nineties. Since the total number of the settlement was 191 people, 9 6 % o f the population there spoke this language. Moreover, since the children continue to learn Karitiana as a first language and Portuguese only as a second language, there can be no question of a threat based solely on the number of speakers. 8  On the other hand, in many cases the number of speakers is meaningful, so steps of 100 speakers (very threatened), 500 speakers (threatened), 1000 speakers (somewhat less threatened) etc. are useful for compilations, see also Haarmann above. For a short period of time 10,000 speakers mean security, but not for decades in the savannah zone of Africa (here it is estimated that at least 20,000 speakers are necessary for the survival of the language) or in West Africa, where even hundreds of thousands of speakers of a local language have no chance against the English and French creoles. Even Yoruba (20 million speakers) is being pushed back by English as a language of education. Cf. also the decline of Breton against French: in 1905, the number of Breton speakers was estimated at 1.4 million, in 2000 about 250,000 speakers. The 8 "major languages" of the world (Mandarin, Spanish, English, Bengali, Hindi, Portuguese, Russian, Japanese) are spoken by about 2.5 billion speakers (number due to multilingualism). Conversely, 9 6 % o f the world's languages are spoken by only 4% of the population. Projections: According to Krauss (1992), only 500-600 languages will remain in 2-3 generations; in contrast, Cahill (2003): still about 3,000-4,000. Factors of language endangerment Physical Hazards: – Natural disasters (earthquakes, storms, tidal waves, floods, volcanic eruptions, etc.). Survivors have to emigrate to the slums of the big cities, where they are linguistically assimilated. – Environmental degradation (contributed by humans) – Famines (example: Ireland, cause: potato blight) – Drought (example: Sahel) – Introduced diseases. Population of all of America decimated by 90% within 200 years of discovery; central Mexico: over 20 million people in 1518, down to 1.6 million in 1620. Present: AIDS in Africa. – Economic exploitation: Leads to desertification through overcultivation, overgrazing, cash cropping (cultivation of crops not for own food, but for sale to large international companies, e.g. peanuts, cotton), deforestation (example: Amazon), road construction. Is the cause of unpredictable migrations of peoples, which are then often associated with loss of culture and language in the metropolitan slums. At the same time, in numerous cases associated with land theft and human rights violations. – Political threat: civil wars, international conflicts; consequence of war also destruction of archives, e.g. material on the Vanimono (Papua New Guinea) collected by missionaries destroyed in fighting between Allies and Japanese in World War II; slavery (deportation and isolation led to loss of language and emergence of pidgins). – Interaction of political and economic factors particularly frequent, e.g. Colombia: intervention of regular, paramilitary, guerrilla and mercenary troops in drug war; indigenous peoples become economically dependent on drug cultivation; e.g. Brazil, Amazonia: Enslavement for rubber plantations, forced relocation to cities. Culture-changing factors: – Life of the population is secured, but cultural assimilation to a dominant culture leads to the demise of the non-dominant culture and development of new cultural habits. 9 – Demographic submersion: a) immigration of large masses of people, e.g. Australia, North America; b) submersion by numerically small population groups in the case of military (e.g. Europeans in Africa) or economic superiority. Language becomes the emblem of the dominant side; this installs its language as official language, standard language, national language. – Cultural overlapping without geographic proximity, example: Western consumer culture in the 20th century prevails due to urbanization, development of transport possibilities for goods, development of means of communication. Influx into the cities causes linguistic homogenization (South America: Spanish, Portuguese prevail; East Africa: Swahili; Andean regions: Quechua, Aymará; worldwide: English). Worldwide media pressure (radio, TV) leads to dwindling of traditional knowledge and techniques, with effect on language in 3 stages: a) political, social, economic pressure to speak another language through laws, "recommendations" from above, fashion trends, peer group pressure from below...., b) result is bilingualism, c) old language is used less for new needs; people are ashamed of using old language; parents use old language less often in front of children; children use only the new language outside the family. The result is usually a change of language within 10 years. – Subtle forms of language control through loss of domains: when less and less opportunity is offered to speak own languages especially in official domains (e.g. not in offices of civil administrations, in banks), no own media, no higher education possible (e.g. none of the 1200 indigenous languages of Africa in higher education). Possible domains: religion, art, popular entertainment, folklore. Language becomes increasingly "invisible"; Fishman: folklorization of a language.  Lower status is often given by own speakers (own language is "backward", "no progress possible in it", "no social advancement possible with it"). However, studies show that negative attitudes are always initialized by the dominant culture (other language is "barbaric", "deformed", "uncivilized", "devil's work", "unsuitable"; people are "stupid", "lazy"). 10  Classification of languages Language typology Tasks of language typology: Like any typology, a language typology is supposed to provide an overview of the mass of objects and thereby teach us to understand diversity as a realization of unity. The task is mainly to reveal the limits and principles of language diversity, i.e. to relate languages as variants to human language as invariant. A type is a construct, i.e. an ideal pure form, with which the occurring objects are compared and to which they correspond more or less. A typology is therefore not an exhaustive theory of its subject area. The objects also have other properties which are not covered by the typology. A type is a construct, i.e. an ideal pure form, with which the occurring objects are compared and to which they correspond more or less. A typology is therefore not an exhaustive theory of its subject area. The objects also have other Classification properties which are not covered by the typology. Typology Figure 2Typology vs. classification (Source: Christian Lehmann: Sprachypologie und Universalienforschung) In the figure on the left: Two types applied, based on b and l, respectively; in the figure on the right: four classes; the first contains a and c, the second b, d, f, g, h, i, and so on. Typology sets types in a set of individuals as sets of design principles, the bundling of which is excellently developed in some individuals - called "typical" - while it is not so well developed in other individuals. 11  Classification is based on a set of criteria that either apply or do not apply to each of the elements of the classified set; thus, it covers all elements of a set and assigns each to exactly one class. 12 Definition and types of language typologies "Language typology is the classification of languages or components of languages on the basis of shared formal characteristics." According to: Whaley 1997, p. 7 3 types of typologies are particularly important: 1. Morphological language typology 2. Syntactic language typology 3. Phonological language typology Morphological language typology Figure 3Morphological typology Morphological language typology classifies languages on the basis of their morphological features and commonalities. It is examined, with which morphological means the languages operate. That is, one asks which morphological structure underlies the words in a language XY. Roughly, a distinction can be made between the analytic and the synthetic language structure (cf. fig. 3). The synthetic language structure can be further subdivided into the agglutinative, polysynthetic and inflectional type. All language types will be explained in the following. Synthetic language structure (=merging) 1. inflectional languages (e.g. German, Latin, Greek, Arabic): Features: a. Lack of 1:1 correspondence of form and content in grammatical morphemes (1 form has several different functions, different forms have 1 function). Examples lat. [-um][-am][-em][-im] = AKK. SG. FEM (e.g. man-um, puell-am, fid-em, turri-m). lat. [-um][-am][-em] = ACC. SG. MASC. (e.g. amic-um, agricol-am, die-m). lat. [-is] = DAT. PL /ABL. PL. MASC. (e.g. amic-is); DAT. PL. /ABL. PL. FEM. (e.g. ros-is). dt. [-er][-en] = PL. NEUT. /MASC; PL. FEM (e.g. Häus-er, Frau-en). 13 b. Fusion processes (assimilation processes of lexical and grammatical morphemes). Example lat. virtus, virtut-is; bos, bov-is. c. Internal inflection (formal changes in the lexical morpheme have a meaning-bearing function: 'umlaut', 'ablaut', 'root inflection'). Examples lat. tetigi: tango : tactum dt. Father: fathers, trench: Gräben, Kragen: collars, Haus: houses etc. dt. nehmen: took, singen: sang, ziehen: pulled, binden: Band: Bund etc. 2. agglutinative languages (e.g. Turkish, Hungarian, Japanese, Quechua): Features: a. Frequent 1:1 correspondence of form and content in grammatical morphemes (1 form has a function, 1 function expressed by 1 form). b. There are often clear boundaries between lexical and grammatical morphemes. c. So-called "external inflection". Example Turkish ev House-Sg House ev-ler House-Pl HOUSES ev-ler-imiz House-Pl-Poss.1PL our houses ev-ler-imiz-en House- PL-POSS.1PL-LOK in our houses 3. polysynthetic/incorporating languages (e.g. Chukchi, Eskimo, Lakota, Navajo, Nahuatl): Features: a. Polysynthetic i.e.: one lexical and numerous grammatical morphemes combined into one giant word, often equivalent to a whole sentence, cf. koyukon (Athapascan family): kk'oaɬts'eeyhyee'oyh around wind it (OBJECT) IMPERFECTIVELY move a compact object. "The wind blows it around." b. Incorporative/polysynthetic in a broader sense: several lexical and numerous grammatical morphemes combined into one giant word, often equivalent to a sentence, cf. sibir. Yupik (Eskimo family): tusaa-nngit-su-usaar-tuaannar-sinnaa-nngi-vip-putit HEAR-NEGATIVE-INTRANSITIVE-PART. -pretend-all the time-can-negative-really-2.PERS. SG. INDICATIVE You simply cannot pretend not to be hearing all the time. 14  Analytical language construction (=isolating) Isolating languages (e.g., Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, (almost) English): Features: a. No or hardly any grammatical morphemes. b. Syntactic relations expressed by word order. chines. wo ai nf nf ai wo I love you - you love me (I love you You love me) I love you, you love me The woman loves the man. The man loves the woman. But: The women love the men. The men love the women. As the English example above shows, natural languages in general tend to be assigned to only one of the main morphological types, mostly showing hybrids of these types, e.g. there are also non-inflectional aspects of German, for example: a) in syntax: Invariant predicative adjective, cf. Peter is great (cf. Latin Petrus magnus est), Klaudia is great (cf. Claudia magna est), The sea is great (cf. Mare magnum est),... Trailing attributive adverbia, cf. The tree there, the house next to it, the life here, the picture below,... Idioms and proverbs, cf. Over hill and dale, with man and mouse, No pain, no gain,... Inscriptions and signs, cf. No smoking! Do not lean out! Caution, black ice!... b) Morphology: Weak past tense, cf. Lay-t-e, say-t-e, ask-t-e, day-t-e, my-t-e, complain-t-e, follow-t-e, reserve-t-e, transform-t-e, want-t-e, grant-t-e, shall-t-e, play-t-e, roll-t-e, cheer-t-e, plow-t-e,... In contrast, only about 200 verbs in German still have a strong Past tense such as nehm-en, took; heb-en, lifted; schlag-en, struck,... Present participle, cf. game-ending, running-ending, swimming-ending, living-ending, returning- ending, working-ending, dying-ending,... Past participle, cf. said-d, said-legged, asked-d, said-day, said-mean-d, said-sued, said-followed, said-dreamed,... (cf. furthermore Dutch ge-reserveer-d, ge-concentreer-d, ge-feliciteer-d, gelegaliseer-d, ge-masker-d, ge-meubileer-d, ge-routineer-d,... ) c) Word formation: Multiple derivations and multiple composites, cf. Employment-security-law, Employment-creation-measures, Letter-stamp-auction, Federal- emergency-regulation, Thank-you-very-much, Danube-steam-ship-company, Iron-goods-trading, F 15 ederal-speech-order-service, Trade-supervision-office, out-working, in-working, year-century-turning, coal-n-mon-oxide-poisoning, wage-tax-year-balancing, majority s-voting-right, nation-al-price-bearer, process-guidance-clause, Rhine-Main-Danube-major-ship-route, school-fee-freedom, forget-my-no,... Phonological typologies: (1) by units and paradigms: phonemic typology; (2) by syntagms: phonotactic typology; (3) by phonological processes: Process typology (not elaborated here); (4) according to phonological constraints: Optimality theory 2.1 Phonemic typology a) According to the scope of the phoneme system: The smallest phoneme systems have together Pirahã (Amazonia) and Rotokas (on island Bougainville, to Papua New Guinea; East Papuan language family) with 11 segments. No upper limit has yet been established !Xóõ (Khoi-San language) has about 95 consonants and 24 monophthongic vowels (5 clicks can be modified in up to 17 ways). b) Differentiating phonological typologies: One of the typologies is based on the predominance of consonants over vowels in the phoneme system. Some Caucasian languages, e.g., Kabardian and Abkhazian, combine an extensive consonant system with a very small vowel system; Kabardian and Abkhazian are languages of the northwestern Caucasus (so-called "West Caucasian language family"); only 2 vowels to be attributed, compared to about 80 consonants. c) According to the presence or absence of lexical tones. "Tone language" means that the presence of a tone on a syllable, for example, results in a difference in meaning. Further distinguished are: what types of tones the language has as well as how the tones are associated with larger units. Tone languages: Norwegian and Swedish (2 tones); Baltic languages; ancient Greek; Basque (dialectal); Chinese (Mandarin: 4 tones; Cantonese: 9 tones); Japanese; Thai (5-6 tones); Haussa; most Bantu languages (2 tones; not in Swahili). On interweaving with larger units: Languages such as Chinese and Vietnamese, where (with exceptions) every syllable has "tone," are to be distinguished from languages such as Ancient Greek and Lithuanian, where there is exactly one syllable per (potentially multisyllabic) word on which there is tone opposition. Europe has few tonal languages by world standards, and the existing systems are simple. Tone languages to distinguish between register tones and contour tones. Both can affect single or several consecutive syllables (Swedish). Register tone: the pitch is phonologically distinctive; it remains - depending on the pitch (low, middle, high) - approximately the same; 16 contour tone: the pitch progression is phonologically distinctive; e.g. "rising" (low > middle; low > high), "falling" (high > low); "rising - falling", "falling - rising". Furthermore, the contour tones can still be distinguished according to the length or brevity of the tone progression. Figure 4Tones Mandarin (source Wikipedia) 1. Tone (uniformly high level): 媽 / 妈, mā "mother". 2. Tone (rising from the middle level): 麻, má "hemp" 3. Tone (descends from just middle tone and then rises a little more): 馬 / 马, mǎ "horse" 4. Tone (sharply falling tone): 罵 / 骂, mà "to scold". 2.2 Phonotactic typology By syllable structure: A typology of syllable structure is based on the gradual expansion of its complexity. The optimal syllable breaks down into onset and rhyme. The optimal minimal syllable has the structure "KV"; this structure is universal according to Roman Jakobson. According to Sommer 1970, Olgolo (northeastern Australia) is a language without open syllables. This is partly confirmed by Dixon 1970. However, there is also a tendency here to create consonantal antony for nouns by class prefixes. The expansion of the onset leads to consonant groups. The expansion of the rhyme leads first to a subdivision into nucleus (syllable nucleus; older: syllable peak; part of the syllable with acoustic maximum) and coda (final consonance at the right edge of the syllable), then to an expansion of the nucleus (diphthongs) as well as to an expansion of the coda tending to mirror the onset (syllable final consonant groups). Complex syllable structure, especially consonant groups at the syllable boundary, is probably a diachronic prerequisite for a rich consonant system. Languages with few consonants (Hawaiian, Italian) usually have also only simple consonant groups; languages with many consonants (Abkhazian, see above), however, vice versa. Also a comparison Polish - German - English shows decreasing number of consonants and decreasing complexity of consonant groups. According to prosodic structure: A simple criterion of a prosodic typology is the presence of word accent: German has word accent, French does not. Languages with word accent: a) with fixed, i.e. phonologically regulated word accent, e.g. Latin; in Czech, Latvian, Finnish, Hungarian the accent is on the first syllable, Polish: penultimate syllable, Macedonian: third to last syllable, b) with free (not phonologically regulated) word accent, e.g. German (root stress), Russian, Bulgarian, Spanish, Italian, English. In syntagmatic structure, there tends to be a regular rhythm that results in the recurrence of a particular phonological unit within a given unit of time. There are two types here: 17   Accent-counting languages (stress-timed): major and minor accents follow in regular time intervals, regardless of the number of intervening syllables; examples: English, German. Stress-timing leads to reductive processes, especially syncope (i.e., omission of an unstressed vowel inside a word).  Syllable-counting languages (syllable-timed): The time intervals between individual syllables tend to be quantitatively equal; occurs primarily in languages with simpler syllable structure; examples: Italian, Spanish, Hungarian, Japanese. Relationship between phonological and other typologies Typology actually looks for connections. Most of what has been cited here does not go much beyond classification according to various criteria considered important; for example, little is yet known about the relationship of vowel to consonant systems or about the relationship of the segmental to the prosodic system. More extensive typologies relating phonological types to types of other linguistic levels are largely speculative. Such connections have been sought practically only with morphological typology; explicitly, but - according to Lehmann - not very convincingly in Skalička 1964. So far, one generally suspects: 1) Correlation between the type of phonological processes and the morphological type in the sense of "agglutinative vs. fusional (inflectional)": – Predominance of phonetically motivated, fully productive ("postlexical") processes (e.g., vowel harmony) in the agglutinative type; – Predominance of arbitrary, unproductive ("prelexical") processes in the inflectional type. The morpho(no)logization of phonological rules leads to the inflectional type, e.g. at the ablaut, umlaut. Likewise, Latin rhotacism has such morphological function (Latin inflectional type!). - On the other hand, in the transition from inflectional to agglutinative morphology (example: Indo-Iranian languages) the morphonological change is lost (Schmidt 1977). Rhotacism: change from consonants to r, especially in dental fricatives. 2) Sandhi and liaison (absence of phonological word boundaries) favor univerberation in clitization; this leads to polysynthesis and possibly composition. – Cliticization: For enclitic (annexation of an unstressed or weakly stressed word to the preceding word, at the same time phonetic weakening; example: dt. kommste "kommst du") and proclitic (annexation of an unstressed or weakly stressed word to the following word, dto. phonetic weakening; example: dt. 's war "es war"). – Univerbization: Process and result of the merging of multi-member syntactic constructions into one word. Serves to condense information and avoids unwieldy constructions. Example: German Achtstundentag (instead of: Arbeitstag von 8 Stunden). – Sandhi: When phonological changes occur when two word forms (internal sandhi) or two words (external sandhi) meet. Example: behavior of the English indefinite article before consonant (a book) or before vowel (an egg). – Liaison: A silent final consonant is nevertheless articulated before a vowel-initial word. Example: French les amis [leza'mi] vs. les mots [le'mo]. 3) The more complex the tone system, the simpler the morphology. The languages with the most complex tone systems are isolating. On the one hand, presumably the tone preserves the integrity of the syllable; on the other hand, there is probably too much tone sandhi taking place within the word for a complex word structure to be compatible with a complex tone system. 18 19 Syntactic typology according to grammatical relations Classification of languages according to the "fundamental relations" or coding of their actants into nominative-accusative languages, ergative-absolutive languages, active-inactive languages. Underlying assumption that among the patterns of the simple propositional sentence the intransitive and the transitive activity sentence are the most important, and among the semantic roles the agent and the patiens. Most common types in decreasing frequency: Nominative-accusative languages Latin, English, French, Russian, German, Arabic, Turkish, Hopi... Ergative-absolutive languages Basque, Georgian, Eskimo (Inuit), Chinook, Yukatek, Dyirbal... Active-Inactive-Languages Haida, Tuscarora, Lakota, Pomo, Guaraní, Lhasa-Tibetan... Nominative language (also: accusative language): For this purpose, all European languages - except Basque. The nominative case indicates a. the verb completion of intransitive verbs (equally for ACT and INACT; in the above example: the soldier marched + the oak fell), b. the agent of transitive verbs (ob. Example: the ducks ate the stale bread). The accusative indicates only the patiens (here INACT as object) of transitive verbs (ob. Example: the ducks ate the stale bread). Table 1Nominative-accusative languages Subject (agent) Object (Patiens) Transitive verb NOMINATIVE ACCUSATIVE Intransitive verb NOMINATIVE -– Use the same case for SUBJECT of the transitive & intransitive verb, namely NOMINATIVE. For the direct OBJECT of the transitive verb, a different case is used, namely ACCUSATIVE. Subject Object Transitive verb The dog eats NOMINATIVE the lining. ACCUSATIVE Intransitive verb The dog stinks. NOMINATIVE -– 20 Ergative language (also: absolute language): A basic case, "absolutive" marks the verb complement of intransitive verbs, regardless of their semantic role (i.e., agent-patiens) as well as the patiens of transitive verbs. The "ergative" indicates the agent of transitive verbs Table 2Ergative languages Subject (agent) Object (Patiens) transitive ERGATIVE ABSOLUTIVE intransitive ABSOLUTIVE Split ergativity : Many languages have only partial ergative features, e.g. in several Australian languages the nominal system is ergative, but the pronominal system is nominative; in Hindi (and some other Asian languages) sentences are ergative only in the preterite, nominative otherwise. Active-Inactive Language: The agent is marked on the verb or verb complement for this semantic role in the morphological category "active" (ACT), regardless of whether the sentence is transitive (ob. Example: the ducks ate the...bread) or intransitive (ob. Example: the soldier marches; the woman is working). The patiens is marked on the verb or verb complement for this semantic role by the morphological category "inactive" (INACT). The verb action can be a) transitive (ob. example: the ducks ate the stale bread), b) intransitive (the oak fell; as well as state verbs that do not require an agent). Cf. also older German, where in state verbs the carrier of the state was marked mainly in the dat. or accus. cf. mich friert (vs. es friert mich vs. ich friere), mir ist angst. Example from the East Pomo (California, only a few speakers left): wí ce.xelka "i slip (on purpose)" há ce.xelka "i slip (without intention)" Table 3Active-Inactive Languages Subject (agent) Object (Patiens) transitive Active Inactive intransitive Active 21 Genetic (Genealogical) Method: Example Europe Genetic relatedness (languages with a common origin) has been represented in linguistics since the 19th century in the form of language families. The relationship is sometimes readily apparent - cf. Romance languages, where the common origin from Latin dialects is historically known - sometimes only after lengthy research. Thus, Hittite (an Anatolian language) was not recognized as Indo-European until 1915, and Tocharian (a language spoken in the Chinese part of Turkestan in the Middle Ages) until 1908. Not all languages of the earth can be divided into language families. But the affiliation of almost all languages of the earth to a certain language family is methodically secured basic knowledge. The most important method of research and classification: comparison of words of the same meaning of the languages concerned (so-called base words, which are known to be borrowed only rarely from another language). Thus one can recognize e.g. by the number words of different languages the affiliation to a common language family and their close relationship (representation without diacritics): german Gothic czech Latin Greek sanskrit japanese one ains, aina any, jedna unus, una heis, mia ekas hitotsu two twai, twos dva, dve duo, duae dyo dva futatsu three thries tri tres treis tryas mittsu four fidwor cytyri quattuor tettares catvares yottsu five fimf pet quinque pente panca itsutsu six saihs sest sex hex sat muttsu seven subun sedm septem hepta sapta nanatsu eight ahtau osm octo octo asta qattsu nine niun devet novem ennea nava kokonotsu ten taihun deset decem deka dasa to Japanese is not one of them, although Japan is geographically closer to India than India is to France, for example; so geographical proximity alone is not decisive. The real proof of close relationship was provided by grammatical similarities. They are more important because words are more often borrowed from another language through language contact (trade, neighborhood, invasion, etc.) than the internal structure of a language. Words are borrowed relatively quickly (with the import of a new commodity usually its name is also introduced), grammatical rules usually only after centuries. Demonstrate grammatical similarity by comparing verb forms, such as: german Sanskrit Ancient Greek Latin Old Irish Gothic I carry bhár-ami phér-o fer-o bir-u baír-a you wear bhár-asi phér-ice fer-s bir-i baír-is he wears bhár-ati phér-ei fer-t ber-id baír-ith we carry bhár-amas phér-omen fer-imus ber-mi baír-am you carry bhár-atha phér-ete fer-tis ber-the baír-ith they carry bhár-anti phér-ousi fer-unt ber-it baír-and Europe and its language families (autochthonous; without modern migration) 22 Europe is characterized by the presence of Indo-European languages. Besides, Finno-Ugric, Uralic, Altaic languages and even a Mongolian language as well as the isolated* language Basque are present in Europe (*in isolation, single; do not confuse with isolating!). Figure 5The Indo-European language family Figure 6Non-Indo-European language families 23  Language families in Europe 1. Indo-European (also: Indo-European) 1.1. Albanian 1.2. Baltic (Latvian, Lithuanian) 1.3. Germanic (e.g. English, Yiddish, Danish, Icelandic) 1.4. Greek 1.5. Indo-European (e.g. Romanes, Ossetian) 1.6. Celtic (e.g. Breton, Cymric (= Welsh), New Irish) 1.7. Romance (e.g. French, Spanish, Italian, Romanian) 1.8. Slavic (e.g. Russian, Czech, Polish, Slovenian) 2. Uralic 2.1. Finnish (e.g. Finnish, Estonian, Syrian) 2.2. Ugrian (e.g. Hungarian) 2.3. Samoyedic 3. Turkic languages (e.g. Turkish, Gagauz, Tatar, Chuvash) 4. Caucasian languages (e.g. Abkhazian, Chechen) 5. Mongolian (Kalmükish) 6. Semitic (Maltese) 7. Isolated and pre-Indo-European language: Basque Sometimes Armenian (south of the Caucasus) is counted among the European languages, e.g. in Wieser's Encyclopedia of the Languages of the European East, but Maltese is not listed there. For comparison: Table of contents from Wieser. The Indo-European=Indo-European Language Family Indo-European is the name of a family of languages that first spread over Europe and large parts of South Asia, and which today, due to colonialism and especially the spread of English, can be found all over the world. Idg. Languages are spoken by more than two billion people as a first or second language, making them the most widespread language family in the world. The term "Indo-European" or "Indo-European" (cf. Wachter 1997): After the discovery of the relationship of numerous languages between Western Europe and India, a term was needed for the newly discovered language family. To enumerate all members was "inexpedient" (F. Schlegel wrote e.g. in 1819 - for the sake of clarity, not to coin a technical term - Indo-Latin- Persian-Germanic language family). Radical abbreviation, e.g. like later Eurasian, failed because of the many languages of Asia not belonging to it; also European actually does not include a part of the languages of Europe (e.g. Basque, Hungarian, Estonian, Finnish). The relationship with Celtic was recognized at all only with delay. Terminological attempts in the 19th century : – indo-germanique (C. Malte-Brun, Danish geographer, exiled in Paris from 1800, 1810) – Indoeuropean (Th. Young, 1813) – japetisk (Danish; R.C. Rask, 1815) – Indian-German (F. Schmitthenner, 1826) – Sanskrit (W. v. Humboldt, 1827) – indoceltic (A.F. Pott, 1840) 24  – arioeuropeo (G.I. Ascoli, 1854) – Aryan (F.M. Müller, 1861, Oxford) et al. The designations were soon also translated, e.g. into – Indo-Germanic (J.H. v. Klaproth, 1823) – indogermanico (A. Balbi, 1826) – Indo-German (J.C. Prichard, 1826; however, he preferred Indo-European) – indo-européen (A. Pictet, 1836) – aryaque (H. Chavée, 1867). The passage decisive for the term Indo-European in the work "Précis de la géographie universelle" (vol. 2, 1810: 577) by Malte-Brun: "Nous nommerons en premier lieu la famille des langues indo-Germaniques, qui règnent depuis les bords du Gange jusqu'aux rivages de l'Islande." An important factor that eventually helped the term Indo-European, described by Prichard (1826) as "the most general (term)," to break through was probably that both Indo-German and Indo-Germanic meant "Indo-Germanic" to an Anglo-Saxon and were therefore perceived as not general enough. German and Germanic were then predominantly used to refer to Germany, whereas Teutonic prevailed as a term for the Germanic languages as a whole, i.e. including English. The linguist Merritt Ruhlen used the term Indo-Hittite in the 20th century to emphasize a special position of Hittite or the Anatolian language group within Idg. Origin and spin-off: The Indo-European languages are genetically related in the linguistic sense; that their similarity is based only on typological assimilation in the manner of a linguistic alliance can be ruled out today. At the end of the 18th century, William Jones (English Orientalist) recognized from similarities between Sanskrit and some European languages that there must be a common root. Early Sanskrit grammarians had already systematically classified the components of their ancient language. Franz Bopp in 1816 (Über das Konjugationssystem der Sanskritsprache in Vergleichung mit jenem der griechischen, lateinischen, persischen und germanischen Sprache) brought the methodical proof of the relationship of these languages. Through numerous investigations, especially extensive grammatical and phonetic comparisons of European languages, conclusions were drawn about the phonology and grammar of the "original language" (Proto-Indo-European), leading to the reconstruction of a hypothetical language and estimates of its division into different languages. Greek, Hittite, and Sanskrit were already differentiated around 2000 B.C.; however, their characteristics indicate that about 1000 years earlier, around 3000 B.C., there must still have been a unified Ursprache. During the differentiation the development proceeded differently in the individual regions: When Tocharian and Hittite were already independent languages, the West Germanic languages (e.g. Italic, Celtic, Germanic) still formed a continuum, a uniform language area. Based on common word stems of the Idg. languages, attempts have been made in the last decades in cooperation with archaeology to determine the area of origin of the Indo-Europeans. Thereby both East Anatolia, areas north of the Black Sea or Southeast Europe were suggested. Of the numerous hypotheses about this original homeland of the Indo-Europeans, for example Kurgan thesis, Anatolia thesis, none is generally accepted. Probably linguistic reconstructions can be worked out only in the cooperation of linguistics and archaeology. Whether human 25 genetics can make statements is controversial: population geneticists like Luigi Cavalli-Sforza try to prove that parallels can be drawn between the genetic relationship of even far apart living population groups and linguistic relationship. Outline: The relation of languages to each other, their relationship, can be represented in various ways. One of the best known methods (first used for idg. languages by August Schleicher) is a language tree. Figure 7Language family tree Thereby the trunk represents the Indo-European original language. This original language had different dialects, from which the different languages (branches) developed in the course of the time, which split again into daughter languages (branches) in the course of the time. The family tree illustrates vividly - the origin of a language, - their development, - the degree of their relationship to other languages, - the chronological order of their splitting from the respective main language, - schematically the approximate geographical position of the language in Eurasia. In the "family tree" there are assured as well as speculative branches; the latter concern mainly extinct languages without successor languages. 26  A partly outdated subdivision of the Indo-European languages was made according to the numeral word for "hundred" into Kentum languages as western group (after Latin centum, ancient Greek he-katón) and Satem languages as eastern group (after Avestic satem, ancient Iranian satam, ancient Church Slavonic sъto, Lithuanian simtas). Tocharian has känt, känte for "hundred"; thus, although native to the eastern Tarim Basin, it would have to be included among the Kentish languages. The older division "East=Satem languages" against "West=Kentum languages" can therefore no longer be maintained. However, there are characteristic similarities between the satem and kentum languages, so that the division into kentum and satem languages continues to make limited sense. Cf. Manfred Mayrhofer, Indogermanische Grammatik I, Heidelberg 1986, p. 1 0 2 f f. Conceivable is also the subdivision "satem=center" and "kentum=margin", i.e. the (Kentum-)languages at the margin could not participate in the positive language development in the extended center of the linguistic area, because they were geographically too far away and had lost the direct contact. Several attempts were made to combine the subgroups into larger units. Only the summary of the Indo-Aryan and the Iranian languages to "Indo-Iranian languages" has prevailed. A "Balto-Slavic" language group, the descent of Albanian from Illyrian, a closer relationship between the Italic and the Celtic languages, the assignment of Venetian to Illyrian and also to the Italic languages, a "Thracian-Phrygian" language community, etc., have also been considered. Further development of Indo-European languages Characteristic up to the present is above all the constant decay of inflection. It is known that the basic Indo-European language was strongly inflectional, because very ancient languages such as Sanskrit, Avestic and ancient Greek are inflectional. One had great wealth of forms: – 3 genera (masculine, feminine, neuter), – at least 8 cases: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, vocative, locative, instrumental, ablative - possibly as 9th case the allative (still tangible in Greek verbs; directional case: movement towards a place or person). – The verb system possessed numerous forms which we no longer know today in German and which the classical languages (ancient Greek, Latin) had already lost in part: Forms for aspect, mode, tense, genus, person, numerus, etc. – Different grammatical forms of a word were often marked by ablaut (i.e. vowel change): The root vowel changed systematically to indicate contrasts such as singular and plural or present and past tense, cf. still in German with Mutter/Mütter or gehen/ging. In comparison, relatively modern languages such as English, French, and New Persian have largely eliminated inflections and developed an analytical construction with the help of prepositional constructions and auxiliary verbs. German occupies an intermediate position in this framework. The decline of inflections is mainly due to the loss of final syllables (inaccurate pronunciation of the final syllables during rapid speech or due to simplification during language contacts and generally during language learning). Generally speaking: a. Modern words of Indo-European languages are therefore usually much shorter than their ancestors in the original language. In particular, they have lost most of the (sometimes very extensive) endings. b. To compensate, many languages have developed new forms (especially auxiliary verbs, such as to be and to have) and grammatical distinctions (especially prepositions). 27  Infiniti Trib Example: we have loved, etc. (1ST PERS. ve Trans. e PLURAL, INDIC. PERF. ACTIVE) Lati laud- praise laud lauda-vimus vi = PERFECT TENSE; n are - mus = we (1ST PERS. PLURAL) Alt. paideu- educat paid pe-paideu- ka = PERFECT TENSE; Gr. a e eu- kames mes = we (1ST PERS. PLURAL) Dt. dear- dear- we have In these modern Idg. loved languages, the actual verb Frz. chant- sing chan nous avons has lost almost all endings er t- chant-é and consists (except for the Engl love love love we have ending t in German) only of. - loved the basic form (which is spelled differently in French, but has been pronounced the same way for centuries). - The function of the endings has been taken over by the auxiliary verbs and pronouns. Genetic vs. Typological Language Relatedness English - German (close genetic relationship): mothermhd. muotergerm. *moderPIE *méh₂tēr Mother ME moderOE mōdorPIE *méh₂tēr English - Chinese (typological relationship): isolating language structure ta bu hui yong dao chi fan he no can use Knife eat Rice "He can't eat rice with a knife". No language is purely analytical/synthetic! Insulating The boy will ask the girl for advice. Synthetic: The biggest animals having lived on earth are said to have been dinosaurs. 28 Agglutinative: anti-dis-establish-ment-arian-ism 29