TRAD101TRAD101

Languages Languages & Cultures of East& Cultures of East

Discussion QuestionsDiscussion Questions

by Ke Peng

Discussion Questions Discussion Questions Based on Reading 1 and 2Based on Reading 1 and 2

1. The authors mention that languages are dying out.

A. Should they be preserved?

B. Does it matter if they go extinct?

C. If they go extinct what happens to the cultures?

D. What kinds of things are being done to preserve languages?

2. Have you ever studied another language?

A. Was it difficult?

B. Did it have a different word order than your native language?

C. What kinds of things did you find difficult?

3. How many languages are there in the world? Why is this hard to count?

Discussion Questions Discussion Questions Based on Reading 1 and 2Based on Reading 1 and 2

3. How many languages are there in the world? Why is this hard to count?

A. Many parts of the world are insufficiently studied from a linguistic viewpoint.

B. In many cases, it is extremely difficult to distinguish between B. In many cases, it is extremely difficult to distinguish between languages and dialects of the same language.

C. Many languages are on the verge of extinction.• Native American languages

• Australian aboriginal languages

• Ainu (virtually extinct)

• 1/2 of the world’s languages: Extinct in the next 100 years while only 10% of them have been documented.

4. How do Pidgin/Creole count?

Language Overview

Relationships between languages

Guess which country has the Guess which country has the

biggest number of speakers?biggest number of speakers?

Table 1. Estimates of numbers of native speakers globally

in 1995 for the top 10 Languages(D. Graddol, The future of English? British Council, London, 1997)

Table 2. Estimates of numbers of native speakers globally

aged 15 to 24 in 2050(D. Graddol, The future of English? British Council, London, 1997)

The changing percentage of the world’s population

speaking English, Spanish, Hindi/Urdu, and Arabichttp://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/303/5662/1329.pdf

Percentage of European Union populations claiming that

they speak English (European Communication, Standard

Eurobarometer 52, 2000)

• http://www.ethnologue.com/show_map.asp?name=World&seq=10

• How does a language come into being?

• How can we tell if two languages belong to the same language family?belong to the same language family?

Dialect chaina ~ h = form a dialect chain

ab

cd

e

X

Y

Mediterranean Sea fg

h

Other examples:

High German—Central German—Low German

Dutch—German dialect complex

Process of Dialect Chain

• Imagine that there are

variations on an

Island A, but people

can understand

each other

Island A

���☺☺☺

each other

• One day, some

people move to

Island B.

Island A

���

Island B

☺☺☺

Process of Dialect Chain

• At the beginning they can still understand each other, but as the contact gradually diminish, Group A

Island

A

Island

Bdiminish, Group A started to make up new words and pronounce words slightly differentlythan before. Same for Group B

A

���

B

☻☻☻

Process of Dialect Chain

• If the contact

gradually diminish,

Group A would not be

able to understand

what Group B says.

Island

A

���

Island

B

���what Group B says.

Their speech varieties

became mutually

unintelligible.

��� ���

Result of Dialect Chain

• A birth of different languages as a result of dialect chain process (e.g., Austronesian)

• New languages are daughter languages of proto ABCD & sister languages to each other.

Proto ABCD

Lg A Lg B Lg C Lg D

Island

A

���

Island

B

☺☺☺

Island

C

☻☻☻

Island

D

���

Mutual intelligibility—a matter of degree

Influence by several factors

• Shared vocabulary & forms

• Familiarity

• Social & psychological factors• Social & psychological factors

– Easier to understand when you want to

understand

Language Families

• Family Tree Model– Similarities among languages are due to a

genetic relationship among those languages.English man

Germanic German MannGermanic German Mann

Dutch man

We can reconstruct the proto-language (hypothetical

grandmother language) from which the related

languages are derived.

Problems in the family tree model

• Unreal sudden and decisive split of languages in the tree

– Languages usually tend to change gradually.

• Cannot account for linguistic similarities without necessarily being related.

What are the possible reasons

for the similarities between

languages?

Explanations for similarities among

languages

1. Genetic relationshipIndo-European

English (Germanic)Latin-base (Romance)English (Germanic)Latin-base (Romance)

1. foot pedometer, pedal, podiatrist

2. father petrineal

3. three triangle, tripod

4. tooth dental, orthodontist

5. heart cardiac, cardiology

2. Chance

(similarities btwn languages just by chance)

e.g) English Mbabaram (Australian)

dog dog

German ZuniGerman Zuni

nass nas 'wet'

Sanskrit Malay

dva dua 'two'

3. Language Universals

• The sound ma in ‘mother’– English ‘mother’ Chinese ‘ma’ Sanskrit ‘mata’

– Onomatopoeia

English: English: English: English:

cock-a-doodle-doo tik-tock ding-dong

German: Malay:

kikariki tik, tuk ting, tong

Japanese:

kokekokko

3. Language Universals

• Certain language features frequently co-occur

– if a language is SOV, postpositions rather than

prepositions

• ‘the table on’

• Word order typology• Word order typology

S = Subject, O= Object, V = Verb

1. SOV (Japanese, Korean) most frequent

2. SVO (English, Chinese) next most frequent

3. VSO (Welsh, Samoan) less frequent

Other orders are less common.

4. Borrowing

• English

French period � William the Conqueror 1066 AD (Norman French) for almost 300 years. (1362, English reestablished as language of courts)courts)

1. Government

2. Law

3. Military

4. Religion

5. Meat on the table

4. Borrowing

• Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese

– shared features:

• tones

• mono-syllabic• mono-syllabic

• simple syllable structure

• lexical items

– result of Chinese cultural influence

– not because they are genetically related