Language

Key Issue 1: Where Are English-Language Speakers Distributed?

• English is spoken fluently by a total of one half billion people

• This is more than any other language except Mandarin

• It is very widely distributed throughout the world, and is the official language in 50 countries

Why is English so widely distributed?

• The people of England first migrated with their language when they established colonies

• The United States is also responsible for diffusing English to many different places (ex - Philippines

Where did English first originate?

• The British Isles is the official origin of the English language

• Tribes from the mainland of Europe invaded the British by pushing the Celts into the remote northern and western parts of Britain

• These tribes included the Angles, Jutes, and Saxons

• Anglo-Saxons originated in England, and the name “England” comes from the Angles land

• Modern English evolved primarily from the language spoken by the Angles, Jutes, and Saxons

How is English related to other languages?

• Because England was conquered by the Normans, it is different from German

• Many straightforward words come from Germanic roots

• Fancy and more elegant words are often French

Dialect• Dialect is a

regional variation of a language, distinguished by distinctive vocabulary, spelling, and pronunciation

• Because of the large number of speakers and its wide distribution around the world, English has a large number of dialects

How do the dialects differ?

• The United States and England have completely different dialects even though they share the same language, English

• Isolation is a key reason for the differences in vocabulary and spelling in these two countries

• Within the United States, dialects can be distinguished between the eastern and northern US

Key Issue 2: Why is English Related to Other Languages?

• English is part of the Indo-European Language Family, and more specifically the Germanic branch

• This is because it was spoken by the Germanic tribes that invade England 1500 years ago

• This is then divided into 8 branches

• 4 main branches: Indo-Iranian, Romance, Germanic, and Balto-Slavic

• 4 less common branches: Albanian, Armenian, Greek, and Celtic

Indo-Iranian Branch

• Divided into 2 groups - Eastern Group (Indic) and Western Group (Iranian)

• Iranian Group:– Major Iranian group languages include Persian,

Pashto, and Kurdish• Indic Group:– The widely used language in India is in the Indic group– 1/3 of Indians use Hindi– The principal language of Pakistan is Urdu– In 1947 Hindu became the official language for India

Balto-Slavic Branch

• Divided into East, West, and South Slavic groups

• The most widely used Slavic languages are primarily Eastern, Ex: Russia

• Polish - most commonly spoken Western Slavic language; Czech and Slovak also popular

Romance Language Branch

• Evolved from the Latin language• 4 most widely used Romance languages:

Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Italian• Spanish and French are 2 of the 6 total official

languages of the United Nations• The dialect of the Ile-de France region became

the standard form of French• Spanish is the official language in 18 Latin

American states

Romance Language Branch

Key Issue 38 main language branches:• Indo European (lime green): spoken by 48% of the world, Ex: English• Sino Tibetan (red): spoken by 26% of the world, Ex: Chinese• Afro Asiatic (yellow): spoken by 6% of the world, Ex: Arabic• Austronesian (pink): spoken by 5% of the world, Ex: Southeast Asia• Dravidian (light green): spoken by 4% of the world, Ex: India• Altaic (dark green): spoken by 3% of the world, Ex: mostly in Asia• Niger-Congo (orange): spoken by 3% of the world• Japanese: spoken by 2% of the world

Extinct Languages

• An extinct language is a language once spoken and also used fairly recently, but not used anymore

• Examples: Celtic, Hebrew– Because Judaism is still in practice and is a

religion, Hebrew is technically not dead but still has come to not be a common language

Multilingual States:• A multilingual state is a

state that uses multiple languages

• Example: Belgium (French, Dutch, and German)

Isolate Languages:• A language unrelated to

any other language, and therefore not attached to any language family

• Examples: The Bosque in the Bosque region of France near the Spain border

Other Terms to Know– Language Family: a collection of languages related through a

common ancestral language that existed long before recorded history. (Indo-European largest)

– Language Branch: a collection of languages related through a common ancestral language that existed several thousand years ago. Differences are not extensive or as old as with language families.

– Language Group: a collection of languages within a branch that share a common origin in the relatively recent past and display relatively few differences in grammar and vocabulary.

– Lingua Franca: an international language of communication, Ex: English

– Pidgin language: learning a simplified lingua franca– Ebonics: An African American dialect of English– Franglais – French and English– Spanglish – Spanish and English– Denglish – German and English

Photo Sourceshttp://www.thw.coventry.sch.uk/MFL/MFL.htmhttp://www.schooljotter.com/imagefolders/lansbury/British_Isles.jpghttp://cd7.e2bn.net/e2bn/leas/c99/schools/cd7/website/images/anglo-saxon-Map.jpghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_language_influences_in_Englishhttp://robertspage.com/diausa.gifhttp://www.personal.psu.edu/ejp10/blogs/thinking/cognition/http://ninitalk.wordpress.com/2009/04/27/348/http://dnghu.org/indoeuropean/indoeuropean_archivos/image029.pnghttp://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/85/

Romance_languages_and_Romanian.pnghttp://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/8c/Human_Language_Families_Map_

%28Wikipedia_Colors_.PNGhttp://s2.ned.univie.ac.at/Publicaties/taalgeschiedenis/en/belgie.gif