Chapter 5 Learning Guide Language

Transcription

1 Chapter 5 Learning Guide Language Key Issue 1 Where Are English-Language Speakers Distributed? Pgs Define language: System of communication through speech which is a collection of sounds that a group of people understands to have the same meaning 2. Define official language: Language a country designates used by the government for all laws, reports & public objects such as money & road signs Origin & Diffusion of English 3. How did English become widely diffused? Through colonial expansion by England in the 17 th, 18 th & 19 th centuries (migration from England) 4. What 3 European people originally came together to form the English people and English language? Angles, Jutes & Saxons 5. Where did these people come from? Angles southern Denmark; Jutes northern Denmark; Saxons northwest Germany 6. What 2 subsequent invasions added additional words to the evolving English language? Vikings & Normans (French) Dialects of English 7. Dialects are defined as regional variations of a language and are distinguished by 3 things. What are they? Vocabulary, spelling & pronunciation 8. Define standard language: Form of language used for official government business, education & mass communications 9. What is the standard language for of English? Where did it come from (3 cities)? How was it diffused throughout Britain? British Received Pronunciation (BRP). London, Cambridge & Oxford. Via the printing press which produced dictionaries & grammar books

2 10. In a single word, why is American English different from that spoken in England? Isolation 11. Language differences, as exhibited in dialects tend to be greater in rural areas than in cities because farmers tend to be isolated from interaction with people with other dialects. 12. People from all 3 eastern regions migrated into the Midwest, Great Plains and Western United States. Why is there a relatively uniform form of English (dialect) spoken across this enormous area? Migration or mobility of Americans

3 Chapter 5 Learning Guide Language Key Issue 2 Why is English Related to Other Languages? Pgs Define language family: Collection of languages related through a common ancestral language that existed long before recorded history 2. Define language branch: Collection of languages related through a common ancestral language that existed several thousand years ago (recorded history) 3. Define language group: Collection of languages within a branch that share a common origin and have few differences in grammar and vocabulary Indo-European Branches 4. Germanic Branch: Using the reading, complete this chart. West Germanic Group Germanic Branch North Germanic Group German English Danish Faeroese Icelandic Swedish Norwegian 5. Indo-Iranian Branch: Make 2 bullets charts from the reading. Iranian Group (Western) - Iran & southwest Asia - Persian (Farsi) in Iran - Pashto in Afghanistan - Kurdish used by Kurds in western Iran, northern Iraq & eastern Turkey - ALL written in Arabic Indic Group (Eastern) - Languages of India, Pakistan & Bangladesh languages spoken in India - Official languages of India Hindi & English - 22 scheduled languages - Hindi spoken many ways but only written 1 way (Devanagari) Balto-Slavic Branch: Answer questions How did Russian become the most important East Slavic language? With the rise of the Soviet Union to power after WWII it forced native speakers

4 of other languages to learn Russian 7. What is the most important West Slavic language? Polish 8. Describe the controversy between Czech and Slovak languages under Czechoslovakia s government? What happened? Government tried to balance the use of both languages. This contributed to the resentment of Czechs by the Slovaks 9. Why are South Slavic languages, which were once very similar to each other, becoming increasingly different today? Due to isolation & hostility towards one another these because these countries are no longer unified under Yugoslavia 10. The four most contemporary Romance languages are Spanish, Portuguese, French & Italian. 11. How did Latin languages diffuse in Europe? What happened to the native languages? They were brought by Romans who conquered lands, and native languages were suppressed 12. Define Vulgar Latin: Latin that was the spoken form of the masses (populace) & not the literary form 13. Why is it that nearly 90% of Spanish & Portuguese speakers live outside of Europe? Due to the colonial activities of Spain & Portugal in Latin America 14. Why is it difficult to distinguish individual languages from dialects? Because people choose to believe their languages are distinct 15. Define creolized language: Language that results in mixing the colonizer s language with the indigenous language Origin & Diffusion of Indo-European 16. What is the name of the (theoretical) common ancestral language of all languages discussed in this key issue of the chapter? Proto-Indo-European 17. Why is its existence difficult (impossible) to prove? It existed thousands of years before the invention of writing or recorded history

5 18. Contrast the 2 views of the origin of this language in the chart below. Kurgan Theory - Nomadic Warrior Thesis - Kurgans (from present day Russia) - Kurgans conquered land in Europe & southern Asia spreading Proto-Indo- European - Between BC Renfrew Hypothesis - Sedentary Farmer Thesis - In present day Turkey 2,000 years before the Kurgans - Diffused through Europe & southern Asia through agricultural practices

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7 Chapter 5 Learning Guide Language Key Issue 3 Where Are Other Language Families Distributed? Pgs Language Families of the World Make brief notes on each of the following language families as you read about them in this section (i.e. how many people speak a language of that family, where spoken, common languages, etc.) Indo-European Family: Spoken by 46% of world s people; includes Germanic, Romance, Balto-Slavic & Indo- Iranian Sino-Tibetan Family: Spoken by 21% of world s people (mostly in China); most important language is Mandarin & is imposed by Chinese gov t; Uniform written language that has many ideograms (characters) that represent ideas Austronesian Family: Spoken by 6% (mostly in S.E. Asia); specifically Indonesia; 122 active languages; most common Javanese Afro-Asiatic Family: Spoken by 6% (mostly in Middle East); most spoken language is Arabic Niger-Congo Family: Spoken by 6% (mostly in Africa); 95% of Sub-Saharan Africa speak the languages; Swahili is most common language & is 1 st or 2 nd language of the people Dravidian Family: Spoken by 4% mostly in India Japanese Family: Spoken by 2%; use of ideograms (characters) that represent ideas & phonetic symbols Altaic Family: Spoken by 2% (mostly in Asia); most spoken language is Turkish; once written in Arabic, then Roman alphabet, then Cyrillic Korean Family: Written in a system called Hankul (each letter represents a sound); words derive from Chinese & Japanese Austro-Asiatic Family: Spoken by 2% (mostly in S.E. Asia); Vietnamese most spoken language & written in Roman alphabet (A,B,C, etc.)

8 Tai Kadai: Principal language spoken in Thailand & some portions of China Uralic Family: Languages spoken in Estonia, Finland & Hungary; 1 st used 7,000 years ago by people in Ural Mountains of Russia & spread to Europe through migration Nilo-Saharan Family: Northern & central Africa; only a few speakers but divided into 6 branches Khoisan Family: Southwest coast of Africa; unique usage of clicking sounds; named by whites in southern Africa as Hottentot

9 Chapter 5 Learning Guide Language Key Issue 4 Why Do People Preserve Local Languages? Pgs Prepare detailed notes with bullets and notations on the maps regarding the following case studies: Nigeria: Problems in a multi-linguistic state (Figure 5-20) Celtic Languages: The struggle for survival of a language family Belgium: Political & linguistic divides Notes: Africa s most populous country; 514 distinct languages; No national unity due to no common language; Different regions battle; To reduce tensions, gov t moved the capital from Lagos (southwest) to Abuja (central, neutral region); Example of great language & cultural diversity

10 Notes: - Ireland Irish Gaelic (1.5 mil speak it) & English - Scotland Scottish Gaelic spoken by 1% of population; Gaelic brought by Irish - Wales Brythonic (Welsh) spoken by 22% of population; declined in 19 th century when English speakers migrated to work in coal mines - Brittany Breton (incorporates French) spoken by 250,000 - Cornwall Cornish became extinct in 18 th century; attempting to revive it Notes: - Belgium divided into 2 different regions (Flanders in north & Wallonia in south) - Flanders Flemings speak Flemish (dialect of Dutch) - Wallonia Walloons speak French - Many in Flanders want Belgium divided into 2 separate countries - Flanders would be one of Europe s richest, while Wallonia would be one of Europe s poorest

11 2. Complete the chart below by taking notes on the various languages/countries & the issues they are facing. Hebrew Has been revived after becoming nearly extinct in 4 th century BC; became one of the official languages of Israel in 1948 to unify all the refugees; 4,000 new Hebrew words had to be created; modern Hebrew dictionary created Switzerland Peacefully exists with multiple languages; key is decentralized gov t where local authorities hold most of power; 4 official languages German, French, Romansh & Italian; cultural diversity accepted because power is in small communities Basque Isolated language not attached to any language family; 1 st language of people of Pyrenees mountains of northern Spain & southwest France; lack of connection to other languages reflects isolation of the Basque people Icelandic Related to Germanic branch of Indo-Euro family; received language from migrants from Norway; Icelandic is least changed Germanic language due to Iceland being so isolated & not coming in contact with other Germanic languages 3. Define lingua franca: Language of international communication by people with different native languages 4. Define pidgin language: Form of speech used by different native speakers that adopts simplified grammar & vocabulary of a lingua franca 5. How has expansion diffusion occurred with English? Through diffusion of vocabulary, spelling & pronunciation as well as English words fusing with other languages