LANGUAGE

Chapter 6 Lecture

What Are Languages, and What Role Do Languages Play

in Culture?

• Language: A set of sounds, combinations of sounds, and symbols used for communication

• Standard language: A language that is published, widely distributed, and purposefully taught

• Role of government in standardizing a language

Example: Gov’t-forced assimilation

Example of Dialect

Example: Dialect

• African American Vernacular English (AAVE)– Aka “Ebonics”

• Standard American English

Non-English Speakers in the US

Language and Politics

The Internet: Globalization of Language

Language Formation

• Sound shifts, slight changes in a word across languages over time

Milk = lacte in Latin leche in Spanish lait in French latta in Italian

• Language divergence: Breakup of a language into dialects and then new languages from lack of interaction among speakers

• Language convergence: When peoples with different languages have consistent interaction and their languages blend into one

Historical Linkages among Languages

• Proto-Indo-European

• (proto = first; original)

The Languages of Europe

• Romance languages– French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese

• Germanic languages– English, German, Danish, Swedish

• Slavic languages– Russian, Polish, Czech

The Case of Euskera

Spoken by the Basque and in no way related to any other language family in Europe

Languages of Subsaharan Africa

• Dominant language family: Niger-Congo

Nigeria

How Do Languages Diffuse?

• Human interaction• Print distribution• Migration • Trade• Rise of nation-states• Colonialism

Elizabeth J. Leppman

Effects of Spatial Interaction

• Lingua franca: A language used among speakers of different languages for trade and commerce

• Pidgin language: A language created when people combine parts of two or more languages into a simplified structure and vocabulary

• Creole language: A pidgin language that has developed a more complex structure and vocabulary and has become the native language of a group of people– Haitian creole, Jamaican patois

What Role Does Language Play in Making Places?

• Place: The uniqueness of a location, what people do in a location, what they create, how they impart a certain character, a certain imprint on the location

• Toponym: A place name– Imparts a certain character on a place– Reflects the social processes in a place– Can give a glimpse of the history of a

place

• Town with the longest name in the world– In Wales (UK)

• Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwlllla-ntysiliogogogoch

• Translation:"Saint Mary's Church in the hollow of white hazel near a rapid whirlpool and the Church of Saint Tysilio near the red cave."