HIST 101 Chapter Notes - Chapter 8: Mutual Intelligibility, Dravidian Languages, Romance Languages
9/22/2017 Chapter 08 - A Geography of Languages
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Home > Chapter 08 - A Geography of Languages
Chapter 08 - A Geography of Languages
CHAPTER INTRODUCTION
Language is one of the cornerstones of national identity, cultural unity, and community cohesion. It is the
most important cultural glue—an aspect that binds a culture together—because without language, there
would he no culture. People have very strong feelings about their language and identify with it (people
may be persuaded to change their religion, but not their language). When a people’s language is
threatened, the response is often passionate and protective.
Thousands of languages are spoken in the world today (linguists estimate between 5000 and 6000)and
they serve as both unifiers and dividers of humanity. Ironically, all languages may have a common origin.
Consider the following points carefully as you read this chapter.
Standard Language
Human languages even those spoken in preliterate societies—peoples who speak their languages but do
not write it—are fundamentally different from those of nonhuman primates. Human languages are not
static but change constantly because a vital culture requires a flexible language and the potential
vocabulary of any language is infinite.
Mature and complex cultures—technologically advanced societies—attempt to maintain a standard
language sustained by national institutions and official state examinations. In The modern world, where
innovations diffuse rapidly, such standards are difficult to uphold one problem that arises is: who decides
what the standard language will be? Not surprisingly, the answer has to do with influence and power—
circumstances that often produce problems in a world where cultural identity and national self-interest are
increasingly significant.
Classification and Distribution of Languages
The problem of language classification relates to the definition of language. At issue is what is a
language(according to The dictionary: ”human communication by voice) and what is a dialect (“language
of a particular area or class”)? The issue is a complex one and it is clear that the distinction is not based
on an objective measure of mutual intelligibility. Instead, it must be recognized that what we consider a
language is a function of society’s view of what constitutes a cultural community—a matter mat in mm is
influenced by historical development in the political arena.
Language classification uses terms that are also employed in biology, and for the same reasons: some
languages are related and some are not. Language families are Thought to have a shared, but fairly
distant, origin in a language subfamily, the commonality is more definite. Subfamilies are divided into
language groups, which consist of sets of individual languages.
Figure 8-2 shows the distribution of 20 major language families. On this map, only the Indo-European
language family is broken down into subfamilies (greater detail is shown in Figure 8-3). Spatially, the Indo-
European languages are the most widely dispersed. More people speak languages belonging to the Indo-
European language family than those in any other family. There are good reasons that this pattern. When
the European migration of emigrants and colonists spread over tile world in the last 500 years, one of the
cultural components that spread with them was their language. Add to this the fact that indigenous
populations were virtually wiped out in The Americas and Australia (and their languages with them) and
Document Summary
Home > chapter 08 - a geography of languages. Language is one of the cornerstones of national identity, cultural unity, and community cohesion. It is the most important cultural glue an aspect that binds a culture together because without language, there would he no culture. People have very strong feelings about their language and identify with it (people may be persuaded to change their religion, but not their language). When a people"s language is threatened, the response is often passionate and protective. Thousands of languages are spoken in the world today (linguists estimate between 5000 and 6000)and they serve as both unifiers and dividers of humanity. Ironically, all languages may have a common origin. Consider the following points carefully as you read this chapter. Human languages even those spoken in preliterate societies peoples who speak their languages but do not write it are fundamentally different from those of nonhuman primates.
