Geography of Language Flashcards
enclaves
Linguistic islands
places with unrelated languages to those that surround them
linguistic divergence
branching of languages separation of an ancestral population into two groups through migration and the cessation of interaction between the descendants of the two groups
Leads to dialects
Language family
Most general grouping of languages
i.e. Indo-european
Language group
A more specific category than language family
i.e. Germanic
Language
A group of dialects that are mutually intelligible
Usually there is one dialect judged to be “standard” and other dialects are judged as “deviant” relative to that dialect
Dialect
A regionally-specific way of speaking a language–includes characteristic vocabulary, grammar, and expressions
cognates
words that mean similar or related things in different languages and also share common linguistic meaning
Indo-European language family
Where English is derived from
a group of people who expanded through Europe starting around 2000 BC
over 50% of languages spoken today are from this family
Saxons (language group)
From Indo-european family
Invaded the UK and brought germanic dialect
vikings
from Norway
“Old Norse”
lower social status associated with their language
Normans
Old French
Diffusion was hierarchical:
Dignity and royalty associated with
High ways of saying things are derived from a language spoken by conquerors and nobility
Middle English
All of the ingredients in place by now, but it is still evolving
Layered- germanic and romance
Germanic Languages
branched off indo-european family
where more everyday, ordinary, common words are derived from in english
Geopolitics (languages)
helps define linguistic realties
separation- people emphasize linguistic difference to the point of treating different dialects of a single Scandinavian language as if they are separate languages
Togetherness- to assert unity (e.g. throughout the Arab world or China) people minimize linguistic differences
Language Borrowing
Just because languages share words doesn’t mean they branched from same origin
• occurs in context of unequal power- weaker borrows more from the stronger
Francization
growing political resistance by francophones
I.e. Quebec: Made French the official language in the workplace, schools, and government offices
Language Politics
weaker groups tend to adopt more linguistic elements from strong groups than vice versa
efforts can be made to revive a language or dialect
Altaic language family
language family of central eurasia
languages are spoken in a wide arc stretching from northeast Asia through Central Asia to Anatolia and eastern Europe
Afro-asiatic language family
A large family of languages spoken in northern Africa and southwest Asia, comprising the Semitic, Chadic, Cushitic, Berber, Omotic, and ancient Egyptian language
Austronesian language family
a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia, Madagascar and the Pacific,
Niger-congo language family
one of the world’s major language families, and Africa’s largest in terms of geographical area,
Sino-tibetan language family
language family predominant in east, south and southeast asia
second only to the Indo-European languages in terms of the number of native speakers.
Slavic languages
group of indo-european language family
most of Eastern Europe, much of the Balkans, parts of Central Europe, and the northern part of Asia.
Celtic language
of the indo-european language family
mostly spoken on the north-western edge of Europe, notably in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Brittany, Cornwall, and the Isle of Man
