Human Geo 5.1 Questions Flashcards
What is an example of how the study of language follows logically from migration?
The people of Madagascar use a language belonging to the same family as the languages of most of Indonesia and the Philippines. This is strong evidence of migration a long time ago between these two places, and research has shown that migrants sailed across the Indian Ocean from Indonesia to Madagascar about 2,000 years ago. Migration diffused the same language family east across the Pacific to Polynesia, eventually reaching Hawaii and New Zealand.
What helps explain the distribution of individual languages and entire language families?
The interplay between interaction and isolation. The languages used by 2 groups who have few connections after migrating wil begin to diverge, and after a long period without contact, the languages will be so different that they are classified as separate.
Is language still diffused through relocation diffusion? How is language like luggage?
- In the modern world, some diffusion of language is contagious (people adopt words due to electronic contact with others) instead of relocation diffusion.
- People carry language with them when they move from place to place. They incorporate new words into their own language, and they contribute words brought with them to the existing language.
What does New Zealand Biologist Quentin Atkinson believe?
That language originated in Africa. According to him, languages are most complex and diverse in Africa, and humans outside Africa display less linguistic diversity because their languages have had a shorter time in which to evolve into new languages.
How much of the world uses a language belonging to one of 7 language families?
More than 90% of people. 2/3 use a language that belongs to the Indo-European or Sino-Tibetan language family. 5 other language families are used by between 2 and 7% of the world.
The remaining 9% of the world’s people use a language belonging to the other 134 smaller families. What is an example?
Quechuan is the most widely used family in the Western Hemisphere other than Indo-European (about 8 million people). Its speakers primarily live in the Andes of western South America. There are 44 distinct Quechuan languages, and Quechua Cusco is the only one with more than 1 million users. Spanish is the first language for most Quechuan users. Aymara, another indigenous language family in the Andes, has 3 million users.
What is the Indo-Iranian Branch of the Indo-European language family?
This is the branch of the family with the most users. Iranian (Western) group: The major Iranian group languages include Persion, Pashto, and Kurdish.
Indo-Aryan (Eastern) group: The most widely used language is Hindi (the official language of India). India also recognized 22 “scheduled” languages. It’s government is obligated to encourage the use of these languages. Bengali is the 2nd (official language of Bangladesh). Urdu is similar, but classified as a distinct language, and is Pakistan’s official language (although Lahnda is the most spoken in Pakistan).
What is the Germanic Branch of the Indo-European language family?
- West Germanic group: English, German, Dutch
- North Germanic group: 4 Scandinavian languages (Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic, which all derive from Old Norse, the principle language in Scandinavia before 1000 CE. After that time, 4 distinct languages emerged due to migration the the political organization of the region into 4 countries.
What is the Balto-Slavic Branch of the Indo-European language family?
Slavic was once a single languages, but differences developed in the 7th century CE (with migration of Slavs from Asia and living in isolation).
- East Slavic Group: most widely used Slavic languages, primarily Russian (spoken by more than 80% of Russian people, taught as the second language in Soviet-dominated European countries).
- West Slavic Group: Polish, then Czech and Slovak (very similar; speakers can understand each other).
- South Slavic Group: Most widely used is the one spoken in Bosnia, Croatia, Montenegro, and Serbia. Serbo-Croatian was the name when they were all part of Yugoslavia, but now it offends them by reminding them of the Serbs. Instead Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian are preferred to show that each language is unique (though they’re considered to be one language).
What is the Romance Branch of the Indo-European language family?
Most widely used languages are Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Italian. They correspond somewhat to the boundaries of the modern states of Spain, Portugal, France, and Italy. Rugged mountains are boundaries between these countries.
Romanian is the 5th most widely used Romance language, and is the principal language of Romania and Moldova. It’s separated from other Romance- speaking European countries by Slavic-speakers.
What is the Sino-Tibetan language family?
- World’s 2nd most-widely used family. Most commonly used language is Mandarin, spoken by about 3/4 of the Chinese people. It is the official language of China and Taiwan, and one of the 6 official languages of the UN. Seven other Sino-Tibetan languages are used by at least 20 million each in China, mostly in the southern/eastern parts.
What is the Japanese language family?
Written in part with Chinese characters, and uses two systems of phonetic symbols. Chinese cultural traits have diffused into Japanese society, like the original form of writing Japanese, but structures of the 2 languages differ. Foreign terms may be written with one of these sets of phonetic symbols.
What is the Korean language family?
Written in a system known as hankul, where each letter represents a sound, as in Western languages. More than 1/2 the Korean vocabulary derives from Chinese words. Chinese/Japanese words are the principal sources for creating new Korean words to describe new technology and concepts.
What is the Austronesian language family?
Used by 5% of world, mostly in Indonesia, which has many distinct languages/dialects (706 living). Most widely used first language is Javanese, spoken by 84 million people (mostly on the island of Java, where 2/3 of the country’s population is clustered).
What is the Austro-Asiatic language family?
Used by 2% of world. Vietnamese is the most common spoken language of the family, and written with our familiar Latin alphabet, with the addition of diacritical marks above vowels. Alphabet was made in the 17th century by Roman Catholic missionaries.
