what religion and where in the world?

What Religion and Where in the

World?

Eastern Orthodox

Latvia

The Mosaic of

Languages

Chapter 5

The Human

Mosaic

Why geographers study language

Provides the single most common variable by which cultural groups are identified

Provides the main means by which learned customs and skills pass from one generation to the next

Facilitates cultural diffusion of innovations

Because languages vary spatially, they reinforce the sense of region and place

Study of language called linguistic geography and geolinguistics by geographers

Terms used in the study of language

Language — tongues that cannot be

mutually understood

Dialects — variant forms of a language that

have not lost mutual comprehension

A speaker of English can understand the

various dialect of the language

A dialect is distinctive enough in vocabulary

and pronunciation to label its speaker

Some 6,000 languages and many more

dialects are spoken today


Pidgin language — results when different linguistic groups come into contact

Serves the purposes of commerce

Has a small vocabulary derived from the various contact groups

Speakers of different languages need to communicate but don't share a common language.

Official language of Papua, New Guinea is a largely English-derived pidgin language, which includes Spanish, German, and Papuan words

Spanglish


Lingua franca — a language that spreads

over a wide area where it is not the mother

tongue

A language of communication and commerce

Swahili language has this status in much of

East Africa

English is Lingua franca of international

business world-wide

Kenya

Kenya has two official languages: Swahili and English. These lingua franca facilitate communication among Bantu, Nilotic, and Cushitic language speakers.

Swahili developed along the coast of East Africa where Bantu came in contact with Arabic spoken by Arab sea traders.

Kenya

English became important during the British colonial period and is still associated with high status.

This shopping center caters to Maasai herders who speak a Nilotic language and Kikuyu farmers who speak a Bantu language.

Jambo means “hello” in Swahili.->

On your

copy outline

with hi-liter

countries

that speak

Swahili

On the left page of

your notebook

Colonial

Chloropleth

language map of

Africa- Color the

countries the

following colors

French- Blue

English - Red

Portuguese- Yellow

Italian- Green,

Spanish - Orange -

The Mosaic of Languages

Linguistic Culture Regions

Linguistic Diffusion

Linguistic Ecology

Culturo-Linguistic Integration

Linguistic Landscapes

Language characteristics used to

define linguistic culture regions

isoglosses — borders of individual

word usages or pronunciations

No two words, phrases, or

pronunciations have exactly the same

spatial distribution

Spatially isoglosses crisscross one

another

Typically cluster together in “bundles”

Bundles serve as the most satisfactory

dividing lines among dialects and

languages

English dialects in the United States

Dialects reveal a vivid geography

American English is hardly uniform from region to region

At least three major dialects, corresponding to major culture regions, developed in the eastern United States by the time of the American Revolution

Northern

Midland

Southern

Dialect Activity http://polyglot.lss.wisc.edu/dare/Audio.html

http://polyglot.lss.wisc.edu/dare/Audio.html


The three subcultures expanded

westward and their dialects spread

and fragmented

Retained much of their basic character

even beyond the Mississippi River

Have distinctive vocabularies and

pronunciations

Drawing dialect boundaries is often

tricky


Today, many regional words are becoming

old-fashioned, but new words display

regional variations

The following words are all used to

describe a controlled-access divided

highway

Freeway — a California word

Turnpike and parkway — mainly northeastern

and Midwestern words

Thruway, expressway, and interstate


Many African-Americans speak their own form of English — Black English

Once dismissed as inferior substandard English

Grew out of a pidgin that developed on early slave plantations

Today, spoken by about 80 percent of African-Americans

Used by ghetto dwellers who have not made their compromises with mainstream American culture

Many features separate it from standard speech, for example:

Lack of pronoun differentiation between genders

Use of undifferentiated pronouns


Many African-Americans speak their own form of English — Black English

Not recognized as part of the proper grammar of a separate linguistic group

Considered evidence of verbal inability or impoverishment

In the Southern dialect, African-Americans have made substantial contributions to speech

Southern dialect is becoming increasingly identified with African-Americans

Caucasians in the Southern region are shifting to Midland speech


American dialects suggest we are not becoming a more national culture by overwhelming regional cultures

Linguistic divergence is still under way

Dialects continue to mutate on a regional level

Local variations in grammar and pronunciation proliferate

The homogenizing influence of radio, television, and other mass media is being defied

Pop vs Soda http://www.popvssoda.com/

QuickTime™ and aTIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

What Patterns can you

identify? Why do they

exist?

http://www.popvssoda.com/

London, England

London, England

While English is spoken in many parts of the world, all English words are not mutually intelligible.

This London tube (subway) sign say that anyone performing there (eg singing or playing for money) is subject to a fine of subsection.

Are tubes, subway, and busking dialect words?




Linguistic Ecology



Indo-European diffusion

Earliest speakers apparently lived in southern and southeastern Turkey (Anatolia) about eight or nine thousand years ago

Diffused west and north into Europe

Represented expansion of farming people at expense of hunters and gatherers

As people dispersed and lost contact, different variant forms of the language caused fragmentation of the family

Indo-European diffusion

Later language diffusion occurred with the spread of great political empires, especially Latin, English, and Russian

Relocation and expansion diffusion were not mutually exclusive

Relocation diffusion by conquering elite implanted their language

Implanted language often gained wider acceptance by expansion diffusion

Conqueror’s language spread hierarchically Spread of Latin with Roman conquests

Spanish in Latin America

Austronesian diffusion

Presumed hearth in the interior of Southeast Asia 5,000 years ago

Initially spread southward into the Malay Peninsula

In a process lasting several thousand years, people sailed in tiny boats across the. uncharted vast seas to New Zealand, Easter Island, Hawaii, and Madagascar

Sailing and navigation was the key to Austronesian spread, not agriculture


The remarkable diffusion of the Polynesian people

Form the eastern part of the Austronesian culture region

Occupy hundreds of Pacific islands in a triangular-shaped realm

New Zealand, Easter Island, and Hawaii form the three apexes of the realm

Made a watery leap of 2,500 miles from the South Pacific to Hawaii

Used outrigger canoes

Went against prevailing winds into a new hemisphere with different navigational stars

No humans had previously found the isolated Hawaiian Islands

Sailors had no way of knowing that land existed in the area


Geographers John Webb and Gerard Ward

studied the prehistoric Polynesian diffusion

Their method involved the development of a

computer model building in data on:

Winds

Ocean currents

Vessel traits and capabilities

Island visibility

Duration of voyage, etc.

Both drift and navigated voyages were considered


Over one hundred thousand voyage simulations were run through the computer

Their conclusions Triangle was probably entered from the west—direction of the ancient Austronesian hearth area

“Island hopping”—migrated from one visible island to another

Core of eastern Polynesia likely reached by navigated voyages

Outer arc from Hawaii through Easter Island to New Zealand reached by intentionally navigated voyages

Searching for the primordial tongue

Using controversial techniques, linguists seek the more elusive prehistoric tongues

Nostratic—ancestral speech of the Middle East 12,000 to 20,000 years ago

Ancestral to nine modern language families

A 500-word dictionary has been compiled

Contemporary with Nostratic were other ancient tongues including Dene-

Searching for the primordial tongue

Dene-Caucasian reputedly gave rise to Sino-Tibetan, Basque, and one form of early Native-American called Na-Dene

Scholars are attempting to find the original linguistic hearth area from which all modern languages have derived

It is believed the original language hearth arose in Africa perhaps 250,000 years ago and diffused from there




Linguistic Ecology



The environment and vocabulary

How the environment affects vocabulary

Spanish language derived from Castile Rich in words describing rough terrain (Table 5.3)

Distinguishes subtle differences in shape and configuration of mountains

Scottish Gaelic Describes types of rough terrain

Common attribute spoken by hill people

Romanian tongue Also from a region of rugged terrain

Words tend to be keyed to use of terrain for livestock herding


English

Developed in wet coastal plains

Very poor in words describing

mountainous terrain

Abounds with words describing flowing

streams

Rural American South—river, creek,

branch, fork, prong, run, bayou, and

slough


Vocabularies develop for features of

the environment that involve

livelihood

Detailed vocabularies are necessary

to communicate sophisticated

information relevant to the adaptive

strategy

The environment provides refuge

Inhospitable environments offer protection and isolation

Provide outnumbered linguistic groups refuge from aggressive neighbors

Linguistic refuge areas Rugged bill and mountain areas

Excessively cold or dry climates

Impenetrable forests and remote islands

Extensive marshes and swamps

Unpleasant environments rarely attract conquerors

Mountains tend to isolate inhabitants of one valley from another

Examples of linguistic refuge areas

Rugged Caucasus Mountains and nearby ranges in central Eurasia are populated by a large variety of peoples

Alps, Himalayas, and highlands of Mexico are linguistic shatter belts — areas where diverse languages are spoken

American Indian tongue Quechua clings to a refuge in the Andes Mountains of South America

In the Rocky Mountains of northern New Mexico, an archaic form of Spanish survives due to isolation that ended in the early 1900s

Examples of linguistic refuge areas

The Dhofar, a mountain tribe in Oman, preserve Hamitic speech that otherwise has vanished from Asia

Tundra climates of the far north have sheltered certain Uralic, Altaic, and Inukitut (Eskimo) speakers

On Sea Islands, off the coast of South Carolina and Georgia, some remnant of an African language, Gullah, still are spoken

Switzerland

Switzerland has

four recognized

national languages:

French, German,

Italian, and

Romansch.

Romansch, a

language of Latin

origin, is spoken by

only 1.1% of the

population.

Switzerland

Nevertheless, it

has survived in the

alpine linguistic

refuge of the upper

Rhine and Inn

Rivers and was

given official

recognition in

1938.

Switzerland

This traditional

Engadine (Inn

valley) house is

decorated by

sgraffito whereby

designs are

scratched through

a white limewash

coating to expose

the underlying grey

plaster.

Linguistic Ecology

Today environmental isolation is no

longer the linguistic force it once was

Inhospitable lands and islands are

reachable by airplanes

Marshes and forests are being

drained and cleared by farmers

The world is interactive

The environment guides migration

Migrants were often attracted to new lands that seemed environmentally similar to their homelands

They could pursue adaptive strategies known to them

Germanic Indo-Europeans chose familiar temperate zones in America, New Zealand, and Australia

Semitic peoples rarely spread outside arid and semiarid climates

Ancestors of modern Hungarians left grasslands of inner Eurasia for new homes in the grassy Alföld, one of the few prairie areas of Europe


Environmental barriers and natural

routeways guided linguistic groups along

certain paths

Indo-Europeans traveled through low

mountain passes to the Indian

subcontinent, avoiding the Himalayas and

barren Deccan Plateau

In India today, the Indo-

European/Dravidian language boundary

seems to approximate an ecological

boundary


Mountain barriers frequently serve as

linguistic borders

In part of the Alps, speakers of German

and Italian live on opposite sides of a

major ridge

Portions of mountain rim along the

northern edge of the Fertile Crescent

form the border between Semitic and

Indo-European tongues


Linguistic borders that follow such

physical features tend to be stable

and endure for thousands of years

Language borders that cross plains

and major routes of communication

are frequently unstable — Germanic-

Slavic boundary on the North

European Plain



Overlap of languages complicates

drawing of linguistic borders

In any given area more than one

tongue may be spoken — Ecuador

Language barriers are rarely sharp



Geographers encounter a

core/periphery pattern

rather than a dividing line

Dominance of language

diminishes away from the

center of the region

Outlying zone of

bilingualism

Linguistic “islands” often

further complicate the

drawing of language

borders



Dialect terms often overlap considerably,

making it difficult to draw isoglossess

Linguistic geographers often disagree about

how many dialects are present

Disagreement also occurs on where lines

should be drawn

Boundaries are necessarily simplified and

at best generalizations

Language families

The Indo-European language family Largest most wide-spread family

Spoken on all continents

Dominant in Europe, Russia, North and South America, Australia, and parts of southwestern Asia and India

Subfamilies—Romance, Slavic, Germanic, Indic, Celtic, and Iranic

Subfamilies are divided into individual languages

Seven Indo-European tongues are among the top 10 languages spoken in the world

By comparing vocabularies in various languages one can see the kinship

Language families

The Afro-Asiatic family

Has two major divisions—Semitic and Hamitic

Semitic covers the area from Tigris-Euphrates valley westward through most of the north half of Africa to the Atlantic coast

Domain is large but consists of mostly sparsely populated deserts

Arabic is the most widespread Semitic language

Arabic has the most number of native speakers—about 186 million

Hebrew was a “dead” language used only in religious ceremonies

Today Hebrew is the official language of Israel

Amharic a third major Semitic tongues has 20 million speakers in the mountains of East Africa

Language families

The Afro-Asiatic family Has two major divisions—Semitic and Hamitic

Smaller number of people speak Hamitic languages

Share North and East Africa with Semitic speakers

Spoken by the Berbers of Morocco and Algeria

Spoken by the Tuaregs of the Sahara and Cushites of

East Africa

Originated in Asia but today only spoken in Africa

Expansion of Arabic decreased the area and number of

speakers

Other major language families

Africa south of the Sahara Desert is

dominated by the Niger-Congo family

Spoken by about 200 million people

Greater part of the Niger-Congo culture

region belongs to the Bantu subgroup

Includes Swahili—the lingua franca of

East Africa


Altaic language family

Includes Turkic, Mongolic, and several other

subgroups

Homeland lies largely in deserts, tundras, and

coniferous forests of northern and central Asia

Uralic family

Finnish and Hungarian are the two most

important tongues

Both have official status in their countries


Austronesian language family Most remarkable language family in terms of distribution

Speakers live mainly on tropical islands

Ranges from Madagascar, through Indonesia and the Pacific Islands, to Hawaii and Easter Island

Longitudinal span is more than half way around the world

Latitudinally, ranges from Hawaii and Taiwan in the north to New Zealand in the south

Largest single language in this family is Indonesian —5O million speakers

Most widespread language is Polynesian


Sino-Tibetan language family

One of the major language families of the world

Extends throughout most of China and Southeast Asia

Han Chinese is spoken in a variety of dialects as a mother tongue by 836 million people

Han serves as the official form of speech in China


Japanese/Korean language family

Another major Asian family with nearly

200 million speakers

Seems to have some kinship to both the

Altaic and Austronesian


Austro-Asiatic language family

Found in Southeast Asia, Vietnam,

Cambodia, Thailand, and spoken by

some tribal people of Malaya and parts

of India

Occupies a remnant peripheral domain

Has been encroached upon by Sino-

Tibetan, Indo-European, and

Austronesian


Occupy refuge areas after retreat before rival

groups

Khoisan — found in the Kalahari Desert of southwestern

Africa, characterized by clicking sounds

Dravidian — spoken by numerous darker-skinned people

of southern India and northern Sri Lanka

Others include — Papuan, Caucasic, Nilo-Saharan,

Paleosiberian, Inukitut, and a variety of Amerindian

Basque — spoken on the borderland between Spain and

France is unrelated to any other language in the world

London, England

This display of

newspapers illustrates

the fact that London is

an international city as

well as a major

migration destination.

In South Kensington,

sizable foreign

contribute complexity

London, England

to the linguistic

landscape.

Both Indo-

European (e.g.

French, Spanish

and Swedish) and

Afro-Asiatic (Arab)

language families

are represented

here.

what religion and where in the world?

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