AP Human Geography: Language Chapter 5 PDF

# AP Human Geography: Language ## Chapter 5 ### Introduction * It's estimated that there are over 7000 languages spoken in the world (7,299) * Only 10 languages are spoken by more than 100 million people: 1. English 2. Spanish 3. Portuguese 4. Russian 5. German 6. Mandarin...

# AP Human Geography: Language ## Chapter 5 ### Introduction * It's estimated that there are over 7000 languages spoken in the world (7,299) * Only 10 languages are spoken by more than 100 million people: 1. English 2. Spanish 3. Portuguese 4. Russian 5. German 6. Mandarin 7. Hindi 8. Bengali 9. Arabic 10. Japanese * Number of people speaking each language: | Number of People | Number of Languages | | :---: | :---: | | Over 5 million | 100 | | Between 2 and 5 million people | 70 | | Fewer than 2 million people | 6,000+ | ### Introduction Continued * **Language:** A system of communication through speech * **Speech:** A collection of sounds that have the same meaning to a group of people * **Literary Tradition:** A system of written communication * Not all have a literary tradition which makes them difficult to document * Countries designate an official language that is used by the government for laws and public communications * If a country has more than one official language, they use both for public communications * Language is part of one's culture or one's values and tangible artifacts * This the next 3 chapters discusses cultural values: 1. Chapter 5 - Language 2. Chapter 6 - Religion 3. Chapter 7 - Ethnicity ### Key Issue 1: Where are English-language speakers distributed? ### Origin & Diffusion of Language * English is spoken by 500 million people worldwide * Second only to Mandarin * Nearly all Mandarin speakers are in China * English speakers are distributed around the world * English is the official language in 50 countries * This is first among all languages * 2 billion people live in a country that lists English as official language * Not all of those people can speak it ### English Colonies * The distribution of English around the world exists because of British Imperialism | Location | Century Established | | :---: | :---: | | North America | 17th | | Ireland | 17th | | South Asia | mid 18th | | South Pacific | late 18th | | South Africa | late 19th | * The U.S. is also responsible for the diffusion of the English language (Philippines) * Original English in England: Germanic language * The British Isles have been inhabited for 1000s of years * Very little is known about the early language until Celts arrived around 2000 BC * Around 450 AD, tribes from mainland Europe invaded, pushing the Celts to remote areas ### Invasion * The 3 main invading tribes were the: 1. Angles - Southern Denmark 2. Jutes - Northern Denmark 3. Saxons - Northwestern Germany * People of English heritage are often called Anglo-Saxons from the 2 largest tribes * The name England comes from the term "Angles land" * "Angle" meant corner and they came form the corner of Gangny and Holstein * Angles was spelled "Engels" in Old English and their language was known as "englisc" * Other people eventually invaded England and added to the language * A major example would be the Vikings from Norway in the 9th Century * Although the Vikings were defeated, some stayed and affected the language ### Norman Invasion * English is quite a bit different from German today because of the Norman invasion of 1066 * The Normans came from France and established French as the official language * Lasted 300 years * Leaders spoke French * The uneducated masses spoke English * By 1204, England came into deep conflict with France * Less people wanted to speak French * Parliament acted to make English the official language again * Didn't actually happen until 1489 * During the 300 years that French was the official language: * Commoners spoke English * Royals spoke French * This created a new, modern English language ### Dialects of English * A dialect is a regional variation of a language distinguished by distinctive vocabulary, spelling, and pronunciation * This difference happens due to migration and widespread distribution * British speak differently than Americans, Indians, and Australians * Dialects can differ between regions of a country as well (South vs. North) * **British receive a distinct "standard language (BRP) - The standard language that is used in London and is recognized as the standard of British speech.** ### Dialects in England: * English originated with 3 Germanic tribes in England * Each had a distinct Old English dialect that developed: * Anglian - Central * Jutish - Southeast * West Saxon - Southwest * French became the official language of England after 1066 * By the time English was reinstated as the dominant language, 5 dialects appeared: 1. Northern 2. East Midland 3. Southwestern West Midland 4. Southwestern 5. Southwestern (Kentish) ### After several hundred years of living in isolation under French: * Eventually one dialect emerged as the standard language * It originated in wealthy London, as well as Cambridge and Oxford * This dialect was further spread by the: * Invention of the printing press in 1476 * Distribution of grammar books and dictionaries in England the 19th century ### Despite the BRP, there are still about a dozen identifiable dialects in England * These dialects can be divided into 3 main groups: 1. Northern 2. Midland 3. Southern #### Example: * **Northerners** - (ah) sound * **Midland & Southerners** - short (a) sound like U.S. **Example:** * **Midland & Northerners** - (oo) sound * Like U.S. boot **Example:** * **Northerners** - (uh) sound * Like U.S. punt ### Differences between British & American English * English was brought to the Atlantic coast of the U.S. in the 17th century * Later immigrants came to the U.S. and found the language already implemented here * They had some influence on the language * English between the U.S. and England is different due to * The isolation experienced in the 18th & 19th centuries was due to the Atlantic Ocean * People could not easily visit or hear each other's voices * The 20th century has changed this * The two dialects differ in three ways: 1. Vocabulary 2. Spelling 3. Pronunciation ### Differences in Vocabulary * Settlers in U.S. encountered new objects and experiences | Physical Features | Objects | | :---: | :---: | | Mountains | Rivers | | Mountains | Racoons | | Moose | Chipmunk | | Moose | Moccasin | | Canoe | Squash | * The naming of these things was aided by Native American presence ### New Inventions Appeared: * **Elevator vs. Lift** * **Flashlight vs. Torch** ### Differences in Spelling: * The major reason for differences in spelling is **nationalism** * Nationalism is defined as excessive patriotism or yearning for England * Many people wanted to create an identity separate from England * Noah Webster created the 1st American dictionary, but also had an agenda * He believed changing the language would inspire national pride and cultural independence ### Examples of Spelling: 1. Dropping the "u" - 2. Swapping the "c" for an "s" - ### Differences in Pronunciation: * Both sides began to pronounce words differently due to **isolation** * Their interaction was largely confined to letters and not direct speech * One major difference in the pronunciation of "a" and "r" * **Path, fast, half** * Pronounced with the short (a) sound in England * Pronounced with the (ah) sound in U.S. * The "r" is eliminated except before vowels - lord sound like laud * Americans pronounce unaccented syllables more clearly * Secretary - secratry * Necessary - ness'ry * Pronunciation has actually changed more in **England** over the last 200 years * The dominant southern dialect didn't become the standard until after colonization * Therefore, the U.S. doesn't speak "proper" English * Also, very few of the colonists were drawn from the upper-classes ### Dialects in the US: * Dialect differences originated due to differences in dialect of the settlers * Immigrants influenced the language only slightly * The 13 American colonies can be grouped by 3 main groups 1. New England 2. Middle Atlantic 3. Southeastern ### New England (Massachusetts): * Nearly all settlers were from England * 2/3 were Puritans from southeastern England * Very few came from northern England ### Southeastern (Virginia): * 1/2 of these settlers were from Southeast England * This dialect is distinguishable from the northern England dialect * Most Quakers from Northern England dialect ### Middle Atlantic: * Scots & Irish * German Dutch, Swedish learned English here ### Current Dialect Differences in the East: * Isogloss - the boundary for certain words that are not used nationally * One major example of an isogloss is in the Eastern US * This region is broken up into 3 areas: 1. Northern 2. Midlands 3. Southern * Some words are used heavily in one **region**, but not the others * Differences tend to be greater in **rural** areas over cities #### Example: Container used on a farm: * North - pail * Midland & South - bucket #### Example: A small stream: * North- brook * Midlands - run * South - branch * Some words are now **nationally** used, like frying pan (spider or skillet) ## Pronunciation Differences: * Besides using different words for the same thing, the **regions** pronounce words differently * One example would be in New England 1. Dropping the -r, heart sounds like "hot" 2. Using the (ah) sound instead of the ending -r. * The reason is that the Bostonians kept in better contact with people in the south of England. * The dialects for the rest of the US are due to the westward migration. ### Key Issue 2: Why is English Related to Other Languages? * **Language** - a collection of languages related through a prehistoric ancestral language * English is part of the Indo-European language family * Indo-European is the largest language family with nearly 3 billion speaking it as their language ### Indo-European Branches: * A smaller sect of a language family is a language branch * Indo-European is divided into 8 branches (first 4 are spoken by many people) 1. * **To-To-To* 2. **Indo- Iranian** 3. **Romance** 4. **Germanic** 5. **Albanian** 6. **Armenian** 7. **Greek** 8. **Celtic** * Indo-Iranian in South Asia & * Romance in southwestern Europe & North America * Germanic in northwestern Europe & North America * Balto-Slavic in Eastern Europe ### Germanic Branch of Indo-European * English is part of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European family * **Language Group** - a collection of languages with a common origin with few grammar and vocabulary differences * English and German both belong to the West Germanic language group * Although the two languages sound different, they are structurally similar * West Germanic is further broken down into 2 categories: * **High Germanic** - Proper German spoken in the mountainous regions of the south * **Low Germanic** - spoken in the low lands of the north 1. English 2. Dutch 3. Flemish - Belgium (dialect of Dutch) 4. Afrikaans - Spoken in south Africa 5. Frisian - Northeastern Netherlands * The Germanic language branch also includes 4 Scandinavian languages 1. Swedish 2 . Danish 3. Norwegian 4. Icelandic ### Indo-Iranian Branch of Indo-European * Most common Indo-European language branch * This branch includes over 100 languages spoken by 1 billion people * The branch can be divided into 2 groups: 1. **East (Indic)** Group of Indo-Iranian Language Branch * Languages in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh belong to: * Indo-European language family. * Indo-Aryan Branch. * Indo-Iranian Group 2. **West (Iranian)** Group of Indo-Iranian Language Branch * 1/3 of the population of India (mostly in the north) speak the Indic language, Hindi * Hindi is spoken in different ways so it can be considered a collection of languages * Hindi is written only one way called Devanagari (an alphabet) * Pakistan's principle language is called Urdu * It is spoken like Hindi, but uses the Arabic alphabet (followers of the Quran) * Indic languages are the largest language group * One main element of cultural diversity in India is language * India has four important language families * India's constitution recognizes 18 official languages * 90% of the population speaks at least one of these languages * As many as 101 languages can speak a different language * About 1% of the population can speak English ### Iranian (Western) Group of Indo-Iranian Language Branch * Indo-Iranian languages are spoken in Iran and other southwestern Asian countries * These languages are written in the Arabic alphabet * The major languages include: * Persian (Farsi) * Pashto * Tajik * Urdu ### Balto-Slavic Branch of Indo-European * Slavic was once a single language until migration and innovation created differences * Slavic speakers migrated from Asia to Eastern Europe * Slavic languages can be further divided into 4 categories: 1. East 2. West 3. South 4. Baltic ### East Slavic & Baltic Groups of the Balto-Slavic Language Branch * The most widely used of the Slavic languages are the Eastern ones * Russian is spoken by 80% of the Russian population * Russian is one of the 6 official languages of the United Nations * Soviet Officials forced people to learn Russian as a show of cultural unity * When the Soviet Union broke up, independent republics chose other official languages * The two largest after Russian are: 1. Ukrainian 2. Belarusian ### West & South Slavic Groups of the Balto-Slavic Language Branch: * The most common West Slavic languages in order are: 1. Polish 2. Czech 3. Slovak * Czech & Slovak are very similar * Speakers of each language can understand each other. * Both spoken in Czechoslovakia, Slovakia is 1/2 way though the textcast. * Sports events would be the one's spoken by the Czechs. * The most important South Slav languages are the one's spoken in: 1. Bosnia & Herzegovina 2. Croatia 3. Montenegro 4. Serbia * Bosnians and Croatians write using the Latin alphabet * Montenegrens and Serbs write in the Cyrillic alphabet * When all of these countries were part of Yugoslavia, the language was called Serbo-Croatian * Now the language is divided by specific names: 1. Serbian 2. Bosnian 3. Croatian * The languages are all very similar, but each group has clung to their differences ### Romance Branch of Indo-European * Developed from the Latin language spoken by Romans 2,000 years ago. * The four most common are: 1. Spanish 2. Portuguese 3. French 4. Italian * These languages were isolated by the physical boundaries of their home countries: 1. French & Italy by the Alps 2. France & Spain by the Pyrenees 3. Spain & Portugal by several ranges * The 5th largest Romance language is Romanian. * Romanian speakers are isolated from the other Romance languages by Slavic speakers. * There are several tiny languages in the Romance language branch ### Origin & Diffusion of Romance Languages * These languages were diffused due to the success of the Roman Empire * The Roman Empire stretched from the Atlantic Ocean to the Black sea * The Romans conquered the entire Mediterranean world * As the Romans conquered, they spread their Latin language * The languages differed from province to province due to: 1. The time frame in which they were conquered. 2. The interaction of local words into the langage * Conquered people didn't learn the standard form of Latin * Instead they learned a spoken form called vulgar Latin * The Roman Empire ended in the 5th century CE and as a result; 1. Communication between the provinces declined 2. New language evolved ### Romance Language Dialects * Distinct Romance languages didn't appear suddenly, they evolved over time * Many Romance languages used their own dialect * Spanish & Portuguese diffused due to colonization * The Treaty of Tordesillas was a decree from the Pope to split the new world in two: 1. Western portion to Spain. 2. Eastern portion to Portugal * There are 18 Latin American countries that speak Spanish * Brazil speaks Portuguese and is larger than the other 18 combined * There are 18 times more people speaking Portuguese outside of Portugal * Some languages are difficult to decide if they are their own language or a branch of another. * **A Creole or argot language** is when the colonizing language is used, but with some indigenous words used as well. ### Origin & Diffusion of Indo-European * There is an argument about when and where the Indo-European languages diffused * Some believe they originated from a common language called Proto-Indo-European * Some believe this language existed as many as 8,000 years ago, then diffused into others ### Key Issue 3: Where Are Other Language Families Distributed? ### Classification of Languages: * The major language families are (Figure 5-11 & 5-12): * Indo-European - 41.1.0% * Sino-Tibetan - 26.0% * Austro-Asiatic - 3.6% * Niger-Congo - 1.9% * Altaic - 2.6 * Afro-Asiatic - 1.6 * Austronesian - 9.9% * Some linguists believe that language families were once connected as super families ### Distribution of Language Families: #### Sino-Tibetan Family * Sino-Tibetan language family found in China and other smaller countries in southeast Asia * Most of these languages belong to the **Sinitic Branch** #### Sinitic Branch: * There is no single Chinese language * Mandarin Chinese is: 1. Spoken by 25% of all Chinese people 2. Official language of China and Taiwan. 3. One of 6 official languages of The United Nations. * Other languages of the Sinitic branch are spoken by ten's of millions of Chinese * Despite this, China has a relatively low number of languages spoken compared to India * The government has begun to impose Mandarin on all people * They believe this to display unity and strength in the country * All Chinese languages are spoken differently, but are all written the same * The structure of the Chinese languages is quite different than in English * They are based on 420 one-syllable words that can carry several meanings * The method for writing the Chinese language are also unique * It is written using thousands of characters * These characters are either 1. **Logograms** - represent ideas or concepts, not promoting pronunciation. 2. **Deograms** - produced when speaking ### Austro-Thai & Tibeto-Burman Branches of the Sino-Tibetan Family: * There are two other smaller branches in the Sino-Tibetan family 1. **Austro-Thai** 2. **Tibeto-Burman** * Austro-Thai * Major language: Thai - Mainly used in Thailand and parts of Vietnam * Also used in Laos, Thailand, and parts of Vietnam * Western observers often have a difficult time distinguishing the languages of the East Asian population clusters due to unfamiliar characters * Tibeto-Burman * Major language: Burmese - Mainly used in Myanmar * Japanese and Korean form distinct languages * This is because they are both isolated. 1. Korea is a peninsula 2. Japan is an island * Both of these languages are influenced by the Chinese languages #### Afro-Asiatic Language Family * This family includes **Hebrew** and **Arabic** * It also includes many languages spoken in northern Africa and southwestern Asia * It is the 3rd largest language family * It has international significance because it's languages were used to write the holiest books of the 3 major world religions: 1. Judeo-Christian Bible 2. Islamic Quran 3. Arabic * Arabic is the largest of the languages spoken in North Africa and southwestern Asia * It is the official language in about 25 countries. * There are about 200 million Arabic speakers, but many more have some knowledge of Arabic due to the Quran * Arabic became the 6th official language of the United Nations in 1978 ### Altaic & Uralic Language Families * The Altaic and Uralic families were once considered to be one family. * Recent studies suggest that they are actually separate families * Altaic languages are spread across a 5000-mile band between Turkey & China * Turkish is the most widely spoken Altaic language * Turkish was written in the Arabic alphabet until 1928 when they changed to the Roman alphabet * Altaic languages are the official languages in many of the former Soviet Union Republics #### Uralic Languages: * Every European country speaks an Indo-European language except for 3: 1. Estonia 2. Finland 3. Hungary * These 3 countries speak Uralic languages ### African Language Families * No one knows the exact number of languages spoken in Africa * We know of over 1000 languages and several thousand dialects * This is a result of 1000's of cultural groups inhabiting the continent for 5,000 years with minimal interaction. * Each cultural group created their own language and religion * North Africa is relatively well mapped out, sub-Saharan Africa is not. #### Niger-Congo Language Family: * There are 6 branches to this family * 95% of people in Sub-Saharan Africa speak these languages * There are several million who speak an Indo-European language in south Africa #### Nilo-Saharan Language Family: * These languages are spoken by a few million people in north- central Africa #### Khosian Language Family: * Found in Southwest Africa * Has distinctive clicking sound #### Austronesian Language Family: * Spoken by 6% of the world's people * Most of them in Indonesia * Javanese and Indonesian are the 2 largest * The Austronesian language of Malagasy is spoken on the island of Madagascar ### Nigeria: Conflict Among Speakers of Different Languages * Nigeria is Africa's most populous country * Nigeria has 493 known languages * There are 3 widespread languages that are each used by about 15% of the population * The other 55% use one of the other 490 languages * Because of this major cultural difference, there has been ongoing tension in Nigeria ### Key Issue 4: Why Do People Preserve Local Languages? ### Preserving Language Diversity: * Extinct languages are languages that are no longer in use in daily activities * Many languages are nearly extinct - there are only a few older people who use them and they are not passing them down * Africa - 46 * Americas - 170 * Asia - 78 * Europe - 12 * Pacific - 210 * There were over 500 languages spoken in South America in the 16th century * Only 92 survive today and 14 are nearly extinct * Linguists predict that hundreds of languages will become extinct during the 21st century * They believe that there are only about 300 safe languages ### Hebrew: Reviving Extinct Languages * Hebrew is a language that was extinct, then came back. * The old testament was written in Hebrew and Aramaic. * At the turn of the millennium modern day Israel spoke Hebrew.