Languages of the World

• Great diversity of languages
• Languages can be grouped in many different ways
• There are language universals
• Languages are under constant change; they change, die, and may be revived

Language Diversity

• World's population = approx. 5.5 billion
• Number of languages spoken = 5,000 +

You can reach over half of the world's population speaking only 8 languages:

English 443 million

Spanish 341 million

Russian 293 million

Portuguese 173 million

Mandarin 864 million

Hindi 352 million

Bengali 184 million

Japanese 125 million

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2775 million

• Add some other common languages (French, German, Indonesian), and this number quickly rises.

Some languages which are not so prolific:

Fala (NW Spain): 10,500 speakers (1981)

Sunam (Northern India): 1,175 speakers (1994)

Akum (Cameroon): 600 speakers (1986)

Valpei (Vanuatu): 300 speakers (1983)

Chetco (S. Oregon): 5 speakers (1962)(most likely extinct)

 

• Does not include the vast number of dialects which may or may not be listed as separate languages. 

Language Grouping

• History
• Common grammars/sounds
• Political boundaries

Historical linguistics

• Figuring out what the origin of languages are
• Which languages are related? 

Similar lexical items (or "cognates")

• Basic terms for everyday objects

   

  English | German | French

  foot | Fuss | pied

  hand | Hand | main

  blood | Blut | sang

  drink | trinken | boire

  full | voll | plein

  stone | Stein | pierre

   

• Which languages belong together?

Can be misleading: Government/administration terms in the same languages

English | German | French

government | Regierung | gouvernement

court | Furst | court

pray | beten | prier

judge | Richter | juge

•  Which languages look similar now?
• English and German are the two which are most closely related, but French and English ahappen to share many words when it comes to terms involving government. This is because of the historical link between American and French governmental system around the time of the Revolutionary War (and the Revolution in France). (It turns out that English and French also have similar words for items related to cooking; French cooking terms were borrowed into English, e.g. saute and rotisserie)
• Comparing lexical items can be tricky:

Accidental similarities can also be misleading:

 

English: man 'man'

Korean: man 'man'

German: nass 'wet'

Zuni: nas 'wet'

• Words can, by chance, have similar forms and meanings in completely unrelated languages.

Origin

• Common ancestors who spoke a proto-language

  Austronesian languages in SE Asia/Pacific Islands

• Bantu languages of Africa
• Do not need to be geographically related

  English: Britain, North America, Australia

Geography/Political grouping

• Grouping by geography is often misleading

  Ex: There are dozens of languages spoken in China: - - Mandarin, Cantonese, Min Nan

  All "Chinese" speakers may not be able to understand each other

  Because speakers of these different language are grouped together geographically/politically, we tend to think that they all speak "Chinese"

Mutual intelligibility: Languages are considered mutually intelligible if speakers from these two different languages can understand each other

• Ex: Norway and Denmark

  In political terms, there are two different official languages: Norwegian and Danish

  Norwegian and Danish are mutually intelligible

• Most geographic language grouping is political or national, not based on language similarities/differences
• These groupings can shift rather suddenly

  Ex: Serbo-Croatia:

  Pre-1990, one language: Serbo-Croatian

  After different countries were established: Serbian and Croatian

  These two languages were "created" for social/political reasons

Language typology

• Typology refers to the study of grouping languages scientifically by sounds or grammar
• Not dependant on geographic or political terms
• Languages can be grouped a number of different ways

Phonology

Languages can be grouped by the different sounds that make up the phonological inventory of that language.

• "Click" languages of the Kalahari Desert (South Africa) and Damin (Australia)
• These languages are geographically distant and do not share a common origin

Sound patterns

• Syllables: CV CVC CCVCC
• Languages can be grouped by the patterns of syllables

Morphology

• Languages can be grouped according to their morphological structure
• There are three majopr types of morphological groupings

Isolating languages

• "Simplest" morphology: one word = one form = one meaning

  Ex: Vietnamese

  Khi toi den nha ban toi, chung toi bat dau lam bai

  when I came house friend I, plural I begin do lesson

  'When I came to my friend's house, we began to do lessons.'

Inflecting languages

• Words change to express meanings; suffixes and prefixes

  Ex: English

  to run: 3rd person, singular, present tense = 'runs'

  past tense = 'ran'

Incorporating languages

• Single words which consist of many elements of meaning
• Entire "sentences" can be contained within a single word

  Ex: Siberian Yupik (Eskimo)

  anngyaghllangyugtuq

  anngya &endash; ghlla &endash; ng &endash; yug &endash; tuq

  boat-AUGMENT-acquire-want-3.sing

  'He wants to acquire a big boat'

Syntax

• Languages can be grouped according to their basci syntactic structure
• These groupings are typically made ont he basis of the odering of three basic elements in a simple sentence:

  Subject (S)

  Verb (V)

  Object (O)

• English is an SVO language; the basic ordering in English is Subject-Verb-Object

  "The dog chased the cat"

• Otherwise unrelated languages can be grouped with English based on their syntax

  Ex: Javanese

  Siti maca buku kuwi

  Siti reads book that

  "Siti reads that book"

• In simple sentences like this, Javanese is also an SVO language

The Life and Death of a Language

• Languages "die" when there are no native speakers left
• Two-thirds of the world's languages have < 10,000 speakers
• Some predict that 90% of the world's languages will die in the next 100 years

Why do languages die?

• Few speakers (Yiddish)
• No young speakers who are learning the language natively
• Low prestige for the language; less likely that it will be passed on (Faroese?: death by MTV!)
• Contact with other languages (Native American languages)

Languages may be revived

• Modern Hebrew is a revived language
• Without access to other languages, young speakers are forced to adopt their own (Nicaraguan Sign Language)