LANGUAGE Chapter 6. Belgium Language has been a divisive issue in Belgium for years Flemish,...
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Transcript of LANGUAGE Chapter 6. Belgium Language has been a divisive issue in Belgium for years Flemish,...
LANGUAGEChapter 6
Belgium
Language has been a divisive issue in Belgium for years
Flemish, (Germanic language, similar to Dutch)
Flanders: North
85% of locals speak
French, Wallonia
Southern ½ of Belgium
Brussels – capital city, located in Flanders (officially bilingual)
19th cent. French-speaking elite in Brussels – “Frenchification” : promoted French when dealing with other countries, French speakers controlled economy and government
Those who opposed Frenchification of Flanders sought linguistic rights – right to use their language in public
1920s Flemish leaders called for partition of the country
In general (all countries, places) Those in power often endorse their language or dialect as the correct one
Belgium1960s – fixed partition went into effect, Flemish / Flanders & French / Wallonia
- gov’t in Brussels is a distinct region, bilingual but there is a strict limit on the use of French in the rest of the North
- the process strengthened the sense of Flemish identity, fueled counter movement among the French Walloons
As heavy industry became less competitive, economy shifted to high tech, light industry, and service – led power to shift to North
- Currently most of the power and decision making takes place in the individual gov’ts of Flanders and Wallonia
- No parties operate on a national scale – only regionally
- Brussels is the seat of the EU Council and Commission
- Will prevent Wallonia and Flanders from splitting
What Are Languages, and What Role Do Languages Play in Culture?
Language: A set of sounds, combinations of sounds, and symbols used for communication
Standard language: A language that is published, widely distributed, and purposefully taught
Role of government in standardizing a language
What Are Languages, and What Role Do Languages Play in Culture?
Cornerstone of culture: laterally shapes our very thoughts
Who we are is shaped, reinforced, and defined by language
Reflect where we have been, what a culture values even our thought process and the way we
experience things is shaped by language
Colonization Led to loss of language under pressure from others
Forced the colonized to speak the language of the colonizer
Enforced by government(public) and church(mission) schools
What Are Languages, and What Role Do Languages Play in Culture?
Forced assimilation
Includes: indigenous peoples to speak native languages
Ex: US native American policies
Shared Language
- Makes people in a culture visible to each other
- Binds their identity together as a culture
- Language is also personal: our thoughts and dreams are articulated in our language
Some African languages have no term for the concept of god
Greek language has no term for homosexuality
What Are Languages, and What Role Do Languages Play in Culture?
Forced assimilation
Countermovement's opposed to Spanish speakers in US
“Official English” policies
English would be the official language of the government
1980s over 30 different states considered legislation declaring English the State’s official language
A few have passed English-plus laws, encouraging bilingualism for non-English speakers
Others are officially bilingual
New Mexico and Hawai’i
What Are Languages, and What Role Do Languages Play in Culture?
Quebec, Canada (Quebecois)
Focused on passing laws to promote the province’s distinct version of the French language
Canada is officially bilingual Reflects colonial divisions
Majority of people in Quebec speak French at home
Quebecois have on several occasions pushed for independence
A majority has never voted for succession
The provincial government has passed several laws requiring and promoting the use of French in the province
1977 Quebec government required business to demonstrate they functioned in French
Many businesses moved out of the province to Ontario
What Are Languages, and What Role Do Languages Play in Culture?
Quebec law requires French advertising to be twice as large as English
Not all Quebecois identify as French English, indigenous people
New immigrants must learn French under Quebec law
The province of Quebec even has an embassy in France
What is language? Mutual intelligibility – means that two people can understand
each other when speaking Two dialects of one language for example
Linguists reject this criterion
They say mutual intelligibility is almost impossible to measure
Scandinavia: Danes and Norwegians will be able to understand one another but we think of the Danish and Norwegian as distinct languages
Other languages that are recognized as separate but mutually intelligible include: Spanish/Portugese, Hindi/Urdu, Navajo/Apache, Serbian/Croatian
Mutual Intelligibility Isogloss: A geographic boundary within which a
particular linguistic feature occurs Criterion for a language: Speakers can understand each
other Problems
Measuring “mutual intelligibility” Standard languages and government impact on
what is a “language” and what is a “dialect” Dialect: variant of standard language by ethnicity or
region Vocabulary Syntax Cadence, pace Pronunciation
Example of Dialect
What Are Languages, and What Role Do Languages Play in Culture?
Standardized Language
Published, widely distributed, purposefully taught
Government sustains it via Teachers examinations and civil service exams
Ireland….. Promotes the use of Irish (Celtic) requiring all government employees to pass
“Kings English” spoken by well-educated people in London
BRP – British Received Pronunciation English … the standard
Who decides – the key question ? Those with the power in government make the decision
What Are Languages, and What Role Do Languages Play in Culture?
Isogloss: geographic boundary within which a particular linguistic feature occurs, rarely a simple line
Fuzzy isoglosses – may signify the dialect has expanded or contacted
Linguists studying dialects : examine pronunciations, vocabularies, use of colloquial phrases and syntax to determine isoglosses
Hans Kurath – linguistic geographer --- drew distinctions between Northern, Southern, Midland (eastern US)
Bert Vaux – used 122 question survey to map US dialects
Soda, pop, coke questions
Hero, po-boy, sub
Why Are Languages Distributed The Way They Are?
Language families- like species, some related & some aren’t Classify languages into families
Within a family languages have a shared but fairly distant origin
Sub-families: commonalities are more definite and the origin is more recent
Individual languages cover smaller extent of territory, and dialects, cover the smallest extent
20 major language families in the world
Indo-European – stretches across the greatest extent of territory and also claims the greatest number of speakers
Within it English is the most widely spoken
Result of colonization
Why Are Languages Distributed The Way They Are?
Austro-Asiatic- survives in the interior of India and in Cambodia and Laos
Austronesian – numerous and diverse Includes Madagascar: must have been settled
by SE Asian seafarers long before Africans came to the Island
Amerindian – remote locations have helped this family to survive
Why Are Languages Distributed The Way They Are?
Language Formation
Linkages among languages marked by sound shifts, slight changes in a word across languages over time
Milk = lacte in Latin leche in Spanish
lait in French latta in Italian Language divergence: Breakup of a language into
dialects and then new languages from lack of interaction among speakers
Language convergence: When peoples with different languages have consistent interaction and their languages blend into one
Language extinction: no longer has native speakers
Language Formation One way to find and chart similarities would be to use sound shifts
Linkages among languages marked by sound shifts, slight changes in a word across languages over time
Milk = lacte in Latin leche in Spanish
lait in French latta in Italian
Proto-Indo-European
Ancestral language of Indo-European
If found it would give us the hearth of ancient Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit
To do so…..
- The vocabulary would have to be reconstructed
- The hearth would have to be located
- Routes of diffusion needed to be traced
The Study of Historical LanguagesBackward reconstruction: Tracking sound shifts and the hardening of
consonants backward to reveal an “original” language
• Can deduce the vocabulary of an extinct language
• Deep Reconstruction - Can recreate ancient languages
Reconstruct an inventory of several hundred words
Nostratic Language
No name for domesticated plants or animals existed – therefore they were hunter gatherers
Words for dog and wolf were the same – suggests domestication of wolves occurring at this time
Fossil record indicates 14,000 years ago, before Agricult Rev.
Not only believed to be ancestral language of Proto-Indo-European but also of the Karvelian languages of the Caucasus region, the Uralic-Altaic languages, the Dravidian Languages of India, and the Afro-Asiatic language family,
Locating the Hearth of Proto-Indo-European
Language divergence: Breakup of a language into dialects and then new languages from lack of interaction among speakers Spanish & Portuguese Quebecois & French
Language convergence: When peoples with different languages have consistent interaction and their languages blend into one
Linguist hypothesize the hearth of Proto-Indo Black Sea to East Central Europe
speakers dispersed, vocabularies grew, linguistic divergence occurred, spurring new languages
Proto-Indo dates back to people who used horses, had the wheel, traded widely
Locating the Hearth of Proto-Indo-European
Renfrew Hypothesis : claims Proto-Indo from the Anatolia (Turkey) Diffused to Europe’s Indo-European languages Western arc of the Fertile Crescent came the
languages of N. Africa and Arabia Fertile Crescent's eastern arc ancient languages
spread into present day Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India Later replaced by Indo-European languages
Alternative theories: Oppenheimer argues people came out of Central
Africa, moved through Arabia and into India (80 K years ago)
Then migrated out of India (50K) into Europe
Historical Linkages among Languages
Indo-European language family
Proto-Indo-European language
Nostratic Language (ancient ancestor of Proto-Indo-European Language)
Locating the Hearth of Proto-Indo-European
Tracing the Routes of Diffusion of Proto-Indo-European Why focus on Europe?
Clear the language diffused into Europe over time Significant body of historical research and archaeology
focus on the early peopling of Europe
How did the language arrive? Conquest Theory: early speakers of Proto-Indo-European
spread for east to west on horseback, overpowering original inhabitants
Led to diffusion and differentiation of Indo-Euro tongues
Agricultural Theory: spread westward through Europe with the diffusion of agriculture
@ 18 kilometers per generation farmers would have complete penetrated the Euro frontier in 1500 years
Close to what the archeological record suggests
Locating the Hearth of Proto-Indo-European
Dispersal hypothesis Indo-European languages arose fro Proto-Indo-
European 1st carried eastward into SW Asia Next to Caspian Sea region Then across Russian Ukrainian plains to the
Balkans
We still do not know where Proto-Indo-European language was born, or the location of the hearth
Some propose that Nostratic is a direct successor of proto-world language going back to the dawn of human history……..
Considered highly speculative
Locating the Hearth of Proto-Indo-European
Euskera (the Basques) survives to this day as a direct link to Europe’s pre-farming era It is no way related to any other language
family in Europe Survived for thousands of years w/o blending
with other languages or diffusing Basques have a strong identity tied to their
language Treated horribly by Franco Post Franco, Spanish gov’t recognized
Basque autonomy in its 1979, own parliament and official recognition of their language
The Case of Euskera
Spoken by the Basque and in no way related to any other language family in Europe
European Language Families Romance languages: French, Spanish, Portuguese,
Italian, & Romanian ----- Latin based….. Spread by the Roman Empire
Germanic languages: German, English, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish Expansion of peoples out of northerner Europe to the
west and south Mixed in some areas that were part of the Roman
Empire
Early English absorb words from other languages and people:
Vikings, Saxons, Angles, French
Slavic languages: Russian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Ukrainian, Slovenian, Serbo-Croatian, and Bulgarian
Revived languages revived language is one that, having experienced near or
complete extinction as either a spoken or written language, has been intentionally revived and has regained some of its former status.
The most frequent reason for extinction is the marginalization of local languages within a wider dominant nation state, which might at times amount to outright political oppression.
This process normally works alongside economic and cultural pressures for greater centralization and assimilation.
Once a language has become marginalized in this way, it is often perceived as being "useless" by its remaining speakers, who associate it with low social status and poverty, and consequently fail to pass it on to the next generation.
Examples: Ainu, Belarusian, Hawaiian, Cornish, Hebrew, Latin, Maori, Sanskrit, Wampanoag
The Internet: Globalization of Language
Language and Politics
Non-English Speakers
Political issue of speakers of Spanish and other languages vs. those desiring English only
Agriculture Theory
With increased food supply and population, migration of speakers from the hearth of
Indo-European languages into Europe
Dispersal Hypothesis From the hearth eastward into present-day
Iran Around the Caspian Into Europe
Languages of Subsaharan Africa
Dominant language family: Niger-Congo
Relatively recent migration
Continued recognizable similarities among subfamilies
Displacement of Khoisan family, now in Southwestern Africa
One of the oldest languages
Bushmen of the Kalahari (include clicking sounds)
Bushmen
Nigeria
More than 500 languages
3 most prominent
Hausa – N 35M
Yoruba – SW 25M
Ibo – SE 25M
Vast majority of lang. spoken by fewer than 1M
Nigeria a colonial creation
Nigeria
Minor languages have survived b/c daily survival, community, and culture are tied closely to the local scale in Nigeria
Would be no Nigeria w/o British colonialism
Borders ignore cultural divide
True of most of Africa
1962 after Independence - choice of English as “official” language rather than any indigenous language
Has helped to avoid some conflicts based on langue
Problems – students spend much time during primary school learning English, leads to less time spent on other subjects
For many English is irrelevant when they leave school
The country is having doubts about its relationship with English as the official language
Spanglish & Franglais
Franglais means a mangled combination of English and French, produced either by poor knowledge of one or the other language or for humorous effect.
Franglais usually consists of either filling in gaps in one's knowledge of French with English words, using false friends with their incorrect meaning or speaking French in such a manner that (although ostensibly "French") would be incomprehensible to a French-speaker who does not also have a knowledge of English (for example, by using a literal translation of English idiomatic phrases). Some examples of Franglais are:
Longtemps, pas voir. – Long time, no see.
Je vais driver downtown. – I'm going to drive downtown. (Je vais aller en voiture au centre-ville)
Je suis tired. – I am tired. (Je suis fatigué)
Je ne care pas. – I don't care. (Ça m'est égal OR Je m'en fiche)
Spanglish & Franglais
Spanglish refers to the blend (at different degrees) of Spanish and English, in the speech of people who speak parts of two languages, or whose normal language is different from that of the country where they live. The term Spanglish was first brought into literature by the Puerto Rican Salvador Tio.
Despite its widespread use among the Hispanic population, Spanglish is not an actual language. Linguists commonly refer to a phenomenon like Spanglish as a pidgin, which is a language based on a simplified syntax and grammar that acts as an intermediary between people who don't have a common language.
How Do Languages Diffuse?
Human interaction
Print distribution Migration Trade Rise of nation-
states Colonialism
Elizabeth J. Leppman
Effects of Spatial Interaction
Roman Empire
Han Empire
Guttenberg – printing press
Allowed the bible to be printed in other languages besides Latin, helped to standardize European languages
Mercantilism and colonialism then spread language
Lingua franca: A language used among speakers of different languages for trade and commerce Lingua franc : commercial language of the Franks (southern France) in
Mediterranean (mixed w/ Italian, Greek, Spanish, Arabic)
Can be a single language, or a mixture of two or more languages
English is now considered the linguistic common denominator that binds together multilingual India
Swahili is the lingua franca of most of Africa (combination of Bantu, Arabic, Persian) 100 million speakers
Effects of Spatial Interaction
Pidgin language: A language created when people combine parts of two or more languages into a simplified structure and vocabulary Has a limited vocabulary Very few grammatical rules Is not the first language of any person
Effects of Spatial Interaction
Creole language: A pidgin language that has developed a more complex structure and vocabulary and has become the native language of a group of people Examples:
Afrikaans (West German, S. Africa, Namibia, Batswana, Zimbabwe, Dutch, Malay, Portuguese, Bantu)
Swahili Bazaar Malay (Malaysian & Chinese traders)
spoken from Philippines to Malaysia Haitian Creole
Multilingualism
Monolingual state: A country in which only one language is spoken Japan, Venezuela, Iceland No country is truly
Multilingual state: A country in which more than one language is in use Can, Belg.
Official language: Government-selected language or languages to try to enhance communication in a multilingual state Attempt to tie the nation
together Often the language of the
colonizer The powerful elite and
education
Problem with multi-lingual states
Increased cost of printing government signs and literature
Confusion, as some place names are identified differently in different languages
Antagonism between different language speakers
Global Language
English as lingua franca for Commerce Science Travel Business Popular culture
Differences between American and British English
Different pronunciation of words, spelling of words (civilization/civilisation) , vocabulary for some objects (football/soccer)
(approx. 40 countries use English as an official language)
Continued use of native languages for day-to-day activities
What Role Does Language Play in Making Places?
Place: The uniqueness of a location, what people do in a location, what they create, how they impart a certain character, a certain imprint on the location
Toponym: A place name Imparts a certain character on a place
Reflects the social processes in a place
Can give a glimpse of the history of a place
Changing Toponyms
Major reasons people change toponyms
After decolonization
After a political revolution
Descriptive - rocky mountains
Associative - mill valley, CA
Commemorative - San Francisco
Commendatory - Paradise Valley, Ar
Incidents - Battle Creek, MI
Possession- Johnson City, Texas
Folk culture - Plains, Georgia
Manufactured - Truth and Consequences, NM
Mistakes - Lasker, NC (named after Alaska)
Shift names - relocated names …… Lancaster PA, Lancaster England, Rome, GA…… Cairo, GA
Changing Toponyms
Commodification
- pop culture, common to by, sell and trade toponyms for the purpose of profiting from names
- Disney Corp.
-Euro Disney, Japan
- branding of places
- Coors field, FedEx Field, MCI Center, Fleet Center
- THAT’S ALL FOLKS………………….