Classification of Language Flashcards
What’s the difference between a language and a dialect?
-“A language is a dialect with an army”, so they have mutual intelligibility but there is a strong difference socio-politically.
How many languages are there in the world?
-There are between 3000-8000 languages in the world, the textbook puts it at 7000
Why do languages disappear?
1) The speakers die or are killed
2) Languages aren’t protected
3) A different language is favoured for social or economic reasons, so it is not taught to subsequent generations
What are the 3 types of classification and how do they classify languages?
Genetic: Their historical relatedness
Linguistic: Their shared features
Areal: Shared features due to inter-language contact
What are language universals?
These are features shared by all languages
What are language implications?
If _____ then ____
They do not work both directions… only the one way written
What are salient features?
These are “marked” features that change can be seen from
What are marked features?
These are features that are relatively rare
ie more than 9 vowels, or less than 5
What are marked features
These are features that are commonly found throughout languages
What is the average number of vowels, what are they and why?
The average number of vowels is 5 (but the normal range is between 5-9)
/i/ /e/ /a/ /u/ and /o/
These are the most common because they are the most spread apart and therefore are the most distinctive from each other.
What is the most common vowel?
/a/
What are 2 vowel tendencies?
1) Front vowels and low vowels tend to be unrounded (french is an exception)
2) Back vowels tend to be rounded
What are 2 vowel implications?
1) If you have nasals you will have orals
2) If you contrast long vowels, you’ll contrast short ones
What are the 3 most common consonants and what is the most common one?
1) /p/ /t/ and /k/
2) /t/ is the most common consonant
What are some general characteristics of consonants?
1) Nasal consonants are common, with /n/ being the most common
2) Languages without liquids are rare
3) Voiceless consonants are more common
What are the most common fricatives?
/s/ and /f/
Having fricatives implies having ________
stops
Voiced obstruents implies having _____ ones.
voiceless
What are sonorants?
These are any phonemes that can be sung…
they are always voiced
What is the suprasegmental system?
This is where tones come into play.
What are the 2 types of tones?
1) Level: –high __ low
2) contours: ⤴ rising ⤷ falling
What is the implication of tones?
Contour tones imply level ones
What is a tonal tendency?
There is usually just 2 levels, but never more than 4.
What is the most common syllable structure?
CV or V, they are found in all languages
What is an implication concerning clusters?
If a language allowed clusters in the onset/code, they will allow single consonants in the onset/coda.
What does English allow in coda clusters?
There can only be nasal + consonant.
Our longest cluster is 3… SPLit.
Definition and characteristics: isolating (analytic)
- This used free morphemes for both lexical and grammatical information
- Languages that use this have relatively free word order.
Definition and characteristics: Agglutinating
- There is an extensive use of affixation
- Each morpheme has an identifiable function or interpretation
- there is a 1-to-1 ratio for morphemes
Definition and characteristics: Fusional (inflectional)
- One affix performs 2 or more functions
e. g gender, number and function
Definition and characteristics: Polysynthetic
-There is no way to see an inflected word from a clause.
-There is more than 1 root in a string
-
Definition and characteristics: Mixed Types
-This is when languages draw on more than one process at a time
The presence of ____ affixes implies _____ ones
1) inflectional
2) derivational
If a language only has suffixes, it will have ______
postpositions
Regarding affixes, ____ are more common than ____
1) Suffixes
2) Prefixes
What occurs closer to the root? Inflectional or derivational affixes?
Derivational
What is an ergative language?
- This is a language that treats the subjects of intransitive verbs like objects
- It does so by morphological processes
What are the 3 most common WO patterns?
SVO
SOV
VSO
What is a grammatical hierarchy?
Subject > Direct Object > Indirect object
This means that some functions/positions are more likely to undergo certain process than others.
If the order is VO, it most likely has __positions
If the order is OV, it most likely have __positions
1) prepositions
2) postpositions
Northern Germanic language
Scandinavian
Western Germanic language
German and English
Eastern Germanic language
Gothic (all extinct)
Insular
Brythonic (Welsh) and Goidelic (Irish/Scottish Gaelic)
The celtic family is composed of what 2 branches?
Insular and Continental (now extinct)
Italic languages are derived from what form of latin?
Vulgar
What are the 4 main branches of Italic
1) Ibero
2) Gallo
3) Italo
4) Balkano
Many many branches are a part of the Indo-European family?
9
Spanish and Portuguese are a part of what large category?
Ibero
Gallo (Italic) includes what languages?
French, Catalan and Romanch
What baltic language is is part of Italic branch?
Romanian
What larger branch is Greek part of?
Hellenic
What two languages are part of the Baltic branch?
Latvian and Lithuanian
What’s the difference between Hindu and Urdu?
There is no different linguistically … Just socially and culturally.
Urdu uses sand script
Hindu is spoken by hindus
What are the branches and languages on the main Slavic branch?
East: Russian and Ukrainian
West: Czech, Slovac and Polish
South: Bulgarian and Serbo-Croatian
What is a language Phyla?
It’s an attempt to group language families into even larger groups
What are the political groups of Aboriginal Languages?
- Metis
- Inuit
- First Nations
How many aboriginal families and isolates are there?
11
Algonquian
- 80K speakers (most widely spoken language)
- Spoken all across Canada
- Cree is the most well known
Eskimo-Aluet
- 25K speakers
- Know as Inuktitut
- Found in Northern Canada, Alaska and Greenland
Athabascan
- Spoken in Northern BC, AB and SK
- Dene is the most widely spoken (Chipewyan)
- Has the greatest amount of internal variation
Siouan-Catawban
- 17k speakers, mostly in the USA with about 1500 in Canada
- The Canadian dialect is called Stoney
- Stoney is found in southern AB and Assiniboine is spoken in saskatchewan.
Salish
- 10 Languages
- Fewer than 2000 speakers
- Spoken in BC e.g Okanagan
Tsimishianic
- 2 Languages
- Fewer than 2000 speakers
- Spoken in North west BC
Iroquian
- 4K speakers
- Spoken in Quebec and Southern Ontario
- Main language is Mohawk
Wakashan
- 5 distinct languages
- 900 speakers in total
- Spoken on Vancouver Island
What are the two isolates
- Haida
- Koutenay-Kinbasket
Haida
- 40 speakers
- Only found on Haida Gwaii
Koutenay-Kinbasket
- 12 Speakers
- BC side of the rockies
What is an example of a Contact Language?
- Michif is a mix between Cree (VP) and French (NP)
- There are currently no more than 1000 speakers
What is the difference between apparent time studies and real time studies.
Real time: You study the change in real life. They are expensive and take a long time
Apparent: You look at generational differences in order to see the differences
