Language

More than just a method of communication

What is language?

• Language: an organized system of spoken words by which people communicate with mutual comprehension

• Ideas, attitudes or intent through signs, sounds or gestures

• Language is an open system not a closed system• Finite sounds exist with potential for infinite

meanings • Contains displacement

Classifications of language

• More than half the world inhabitants speaks just 8 tongues• Isogloss: a geographic area where a language is spoken• 5,000 years ago: 10,000- 15,000 tongues • Today: about 6,000 remain• Nearly extinct languages

– Africa 37– The Americas 161– Asia 55– Europe 7– The Pacific 157

World Language Distribution of Living Languages (Figure 5.2)

• Total number of languages 31,000-300,000 – There are more dead languages than those that are still

living – One to two languages lost every week (mostly in Papua New

Guinea and Indonesia) • 6,800 languages spoken today (2006 data)– 1/3 Asia– 30% Africa– 19% in the Pacific area– 15% in the America– 3% in Europe

Most Widely Spoken Tongues in the world

First language:• 1. Mandarin Chinese- 882 million• 2. Spanish- 325 million• 3. English- 312- 380 million • 4. Arabic- 206-422 million• 5. Hindi- 181 million• 6. Portuguese- 178 million• 7. Bengali- 173 million• 8. Russian- 146 million • 9. Japanese- 128 million • 10. German- 96 million

English is the official language of 83 countries

World language distribution reflects the dynamic pattern of human movement settlements and colonization

How do languages spread?

• Language spread (geo) the increase or relocation through time in the area over which a language is spoken

• Relocation diffusion- language may spread because their speaks occupy new territories – Colonization of the Americas and Australia

• Expansion Diffusion: Acquire more speaks (often Hierarchical diffusion) acculturation– Spread of Latin in western Europe and Arabic in western Asia

and north Africa – India in 19th century English administrative and judicial system– Prestige of language

Barriers: Prevent language spread

• Cultural barriers • Physical barriers

Language and Religion

• Language and religion are the basic components of cultures• Mentifacts- the central, enduring elements of a culture

expressing its values and believes (Ex: language religion and folklore)

• Ideological subsystems- the complex of ideas, believes knowledge and means of communication that characterize a culture

• The ever changing strands for languages and religions in their present day structure and spatial patterns are simply the temporary largest phase in a continuing progression of cultural change

The Geography of Language

• Language is the most important medium by which it culture is transmitted

• Language helps to distinguish the worlds diverse social groups

Classifications of language

• Language- organized system of spoken words by which people communicate which each other with mutual comprehension

• The language commonly called “Chinese” is more properly seen as a group of distinct but related languages: Mandarin, Cantonese, Hakka and others. “Chinese” has uniformity only in the fact that all the varied Chinese languages are written alike

• The restricted language dominance reflects the reality that the worlds linguistic diversity is rapidly shrinking. There are 7,000 tongues still remaining, between 20% and 50% are not learned by children and are effectively dead.

• Language family- a group of languages descendent from a single earlier tongue– Ex: Romance languages: Italian, French, Portuguese,

Spanish, Romanian• Protolanguage: an assumed reconstructed or

recorded ancestral language. – Example: Panis a Latin word for bread

• pane- Italian• Pain - French• Pan- Spanish

• Protolanguage– Common ancestor to any group of today’s languages

• Language family– Languages related by descent from a common protolanguage– Members of the same language family may not be mutually

intelligible

• Cognates – words related somewhat like cousins– i.e. reign or royal (English) & Rajah (Hindi)

• Etymology – study of word origins

Spatial Interaction helps create:• Lingua franca –

A language used among speakers of different languages for the purposes of 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.

What Role does Language Play in Making Places?

Key Question:

Place

• 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 by making it unique.

Toponymy

• Study of place names• Can tell you information about the origin of

the place • Examples in the U.S– Nevada– New Mexico– Florida– Colorado

Toponym

• Toponym – a place name

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

Changing Toponyms• When people change the toponym of a place, they have the

power to “wipe out the past and call forth the new.” - Yi-Fu Tuan

Changing Toponyms

Major reasons people change toponyms:After decolonizationAfter a political revolutionTo memorialize people or eventsTo commodify or brand a place

Martin Luther King, Jr. Streets

Geographer Derek Alderman asks:

* Where are MLK streets?* Why are they where they are?* What controversies surround memorializing MLK with a street name?

Where are MLK Streets in the US?

The Languages of Europe

Romance languages

Germanic languages

Slavic languages

Euskera

The Basque speak the Euskera language, which is in no way related to any other language family in Europe.

How did Euskera survive?

Languages of Subsaharan Africa

- extreme language diversity

- effects of colonialism

Nigeria

more than 400 different languages.

Dispersal HypothesisIndo-European languages first moved from the hearth eastward into present-day Iran and then around the Caspian and into Europe.

From Anatolia diffused Europe’s languagesFrom the Western Arc of Fertile Crescent diffused North

Africa and Arabia’s languagesFrom the Eastern Arc of Fertile Crescent diffused Southwest

Asia and South Asia’s languages.

Renfrew Hypothesis:Proto-Indo-European began in the Fertile Crescent, and then:

Agriculture TheoryWith increased food supply and increased population, speakers from the hearth of Indo-European languages migrated into Europe.

• Language is not mere communication… but symbolic form of communication

• Linguist Bert Vaux’s study of dialects in American English points to the differences in words for common things such as soft drinks and sandwiches. Describe a time when you said something and a speaker of another dialect did not understand word you used. Was the word a term for a common thing? Why do you think dialects have different words for common things, things found across dialects, such as soft drinks and sandwiches.

Linguistic Differentiation

• National languages– Imposed or encouraged by government with

varying success• Nation building– Philological nationalism• Belief that mother tongues have given birth to nations.

• Postcolonial societies– Imposed official languages by colonial ruler• Not spoken by locals

Multiple Language States

• Polyglot states– Having multiple official languages– Can promote political devolution

• United States– English always lingua franca– Three major dialects in 13 colonies– Non-English languages– English is de facto official language, not de jure

Language Change

• Migration, separation and isolation give rise to separate, mutually unintelligible languages because the society speaking the parent protolanguage no longer remain unitary

• Change is gradual and cumulative

Germanic Languages

• Germanic languages: including English, German, Dutch and the Scandinavian tongues and are related decedents of a less well known Proto-Germanic language spoken by people who lived in southern Scandinavian and along the north sea

• Dialects– Minor variations within a language

• Standard language– Following formal rule of diction and grammar

• Official language– Primary language for any given country– Defacto or Dejure?

• Lingua franca– Current language of international discourse

• The study of different dialects across space

• Speech community– a group of people who speak together

• Isoglosses– Frequently parallel physical landscape features

• Geographical dialect continuum