Chapter 5 language

Ethnologue

www.ethnologue.com

    SIL- ummer institute of linguistics

    There are 7,299 languages

    10 of these languages (including English) are spoken by over 100,000,000 people

Case study page 146

    French is spoken by ¼ of the Canadian population.

    There are two legal languages in quebec

    Hispanics in the us speak spanish

    28 million Spanish speakers living in the USA

    Florida has Cubans

    Southwest has Mexicans

Language- a system of communication through speech, a collection of sounds that a group of people understands to have the same meaning.

    Many languages have a literary tradition, a system of written communication

Some governments will have an official language, language used by the government for courts, laws and public objects

Language is a part of culture

 

ESSAY POSSIBLILITY ONE NOT

Origin of English:

    Germanic language

    When the celts arrived in England, speaking celtic languages

around 450 AD, Germanic tribes invaded England

• Angles
  
• Juts
  
• Saxons
  

Denmark and germany were occupied by the Germanic

England was called angle's land

9^th century other groups contributed to English

• Ie Vikings from Norway
  
  • Vikings invaded plundered and left
    
• 1066 the Normans invaded from france
  
• For 300 years, French was the official language of England
  
• That's why modern day English is a mix of german and French
  

English today!

    ½ billion people and is the second only to mandarin china

    Diffusion of English to the british empire which was quite expansive

• 17^th century was brought over to north America
  
• More modern diffusion took place when English was spread by the US to the phillipines
  
• There are now 50 countries that speak English.
  

Dialects of English

Dialect- a regional variation of the language distinguished by distinctive vocabulary, spelling, and pronunciation

In a language of multiple dialects, one dialect may be recognized as the standard language

• Standard language- a dialect that is well established and widely recognized as the most acceptable for government, business, education, and mass communication.
  
  • Ie: brp- british received pronunciation- the standard form of british speech and is commonly used by politicians, broadcasters and actors in Britain
    

After norman control of England, 5 dialects emerged across the country

Eventually every county formed a distinct dialect, and eventually one dialect emerged as the standard language

The dialect that emerged as the standard language was spoken by the upper class and was the language that was taught at caimbridge and oxford

When the printing press came to kengland in 1476, this contributed to the advancement of the standard language—they could mass produce grammar books and English dictionaries

Regional differences still exist especially in rural areas

Today, England is divided up into 3 dialects, northern, midland, and southern

 

Essay possibility 2

    In the 17^th century british colonists settled in north America

    One of the reasons why American English is different than british English, is because of the     isolation

    Therefore

 

 

I missed the end of EP2 sorry guys. If someone loans me the notes in class, Ill get it up as soon as I can.

 

 

Dialects in the USA

    Eastern US- most differences in dialect pronunciations

• New England
  
• Middle atlantic
  
• Southeastern
  

Isogloss- a word usage boundary

• 2 isoglosses in eastern US
  

Language differences tend to be greater in rural areas than they are in cities because farmers tend to live more isolated lives

There are fewer differences in cities

English and other languages-

Language family-A collection of languages related through a common ancestor from long before recorded history

Language branch- a collection of languages related through a common ancestor that existed several thousand years ago, after recorded history started

*outline*

Origin and diffusion of romance languages

    Latin- the "roman's language" --> romance

    Vulgar latin spoken by the common people of the romance language

    Each romance language has many dialects

• For example, Castilian emerged as the more acceptable language of spain
  

Spanish and portugese have diffused through colonization to America

• Ie- 18 latin American countires speak Spanish each with its own dialect
  
• Portugese in brazil
  

There have been modern efforts to standardize

• Brazil and Portugal decided to integrate portugese and Brazilian words together in 1994
  
• The Spanish royal academy in spain added new words from latin America in 1992
  

Some colonial romance languages have been creolized---

• Results form the mixture of the colonizing language with the language of the people being dominated
  
  • Ie- French creole spoken in Haiti
    

 

EP3- the origin and diffusion of indo-european

The origin of indo-european history cannot be determined because it started before recorded history.

There are many popular theories or models

    Kurgan hearth theory

• By marija gimbutas
  
• The first prot-indo-european speakers were the kurgan people of current day Russia and kazikstan. from there languages spread to present day Europe
  

Renfrew model

• Colin Renfrew
  
• First prot-indo-european speakers came before the kurgans. They came from 3 agricultural hearths—
  
  • Anatolia- these people made agricultural innovations and took them and their language west to Europe and east to asia
    
  • Western arc of the fertile crescent- diffused to north Africa and Arabia
    
  • Eastern arc of the fertile crescent- spread to jmodern day iran, afghanista, Pakistan, india. Later replaced by indo-european languages
    

Nostratic theory

• Russian scholars
  
• Used a core vocabulary to try to discover pre-proto-indo-european language. They discovered this language which they called "Nostratic."
  

END EP3

 

Key issue 4

    No lecture

    Br study

Case study

*Charles de Gaule visited quebec in the 1960s…. long live free quebec. They've been pushing for independence since. They changed names and places in the province.

*Hispanic America. 47 millions Americans speak another language at home. 27 sates have laws making English the official language. Different courts have ruled these laws to be unconstitutional.