4.3: Languages of the World

Chapter Learning Objectives

1. Explain the concept of language diffusion and how languages spread geographically.
2. Analyze the role of language dominance and power dynamics in shaping language landscapes.
3. Recognize the historical linguistic diversity of the United States, including Native American languages and colonial languages.

Diffusion of Languages

Language, like any other cultural phenomenon, has an inherent spatiality, and all languages have a history of diffusion. As our ancestors moved from place to place, they brought their languages with them. As people have conquered other places, expanded demographically, or converted others to new religions, languages have moved across space. Writing systems that were developed by one person were adapted and used by others. Indo-European, the largest language family, spread across a large expanse of Europe and Asia through a mechanism that is still being debated. Later, European expansion produced much of the current linguistic map by spreading English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Russian far from their native European homelands.

Mechanisms of Language Diffusion \(\PageIndex{1}\)

Several mechanisms contribute to the diffusion of languages:

1. Relocation Diffusion: This occurs when people migrate to new areas, bringing their language with them. The colonization of the Americas by European powers is a prime example of relocation diffusion, as Spanish, English, French, and Portuguese were introduced to the New World.
2. Hierarchical Diffusion: In hierarchical diffusion, language spreads from influential centers to less influential areas. The adoption of a language by a ruling class or elite can lead to its widespread use within a society.
3. Contagious Diffusion: This type of diffusion occurs through direct contact between people. It is often seen in the spread of slang and informal language. The convergence of British and American English is a notable example of contagious diffusion.

The establishment of official languages is often related to the linguistic power differential within countries. Russification and Arabization are just two implementations of processes that use political power to favor one language over another.

When the number of speakers of a language dwindles, a language is considered endangered and may die. Endangered languages can become extinct, and today this is happening at an alarming rate, for multiple reasons; often cited are globalization and the rise of English as a world language. Several TED Talks highlight the work of field linguists (a branch of anthropology) to capture recordings of endangered languages in an effort at preservation (see resource list). Modern technology makes it much easier to document and archive language use. However, those same technological advances bring the outside world into formally isolated areas, inevitably favoring the spread of dominant languages such as Spanish, Chinese, and English.

Classification of Languages

There is no precise figure as to the total number of languages spoken in the world today. Estimates vary between 5,000 and 7,000, and the accurate number depends partly on the arbitrary distinction between languages and dialects. Dialects (variants of the same language) reflect differences along regional and ethnic lines. In the case of English, most native speakers will agree that they are speakers of English even though differences in pronunciation, vocabulary, and sentence structure clearly exist. English speakers from England, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States of America will generally agree that they speak English, and this is also confirmed with the use of a standard written form of the language and a common literary heritage. However, there are many other cases in which speakers will not agree when the question of national identity and mutual intelligibility do not coincide.

The most common situation is when similar spoken language varieties are mutually understandable, but for political and historical reasons, they are regarded as different languages as in the case of Scandinavian languages. While Swedes, Danes, and Norwegians can communicate with each other in most instances, each national group admits to speaking a different language: Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, and Icelandic. There are other cases in which political, ethnic, religious, literary, and other factors force a distinction between similar language varieties: Hindi vs. Urdu, Flemish vs. Dutch, Serbian vs. Croatian, Gallego vs. Portuguese, Xhosa vs Zulu. An opposite situation occurs when spoken language varieties are not mutually understood, but for political, historical or cultural motives, they are regarded as the same language as in the case of Lapp and Chinese dialects.

Languages are usually classified according to membership in a language family (a group of related languages) which share common linguistic features (pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar) and have evolved from a common ancestor (proto-language). This type of linguistic classification is known as the genetic or genealogical approach. Languages can also be classified according to sentence structure (S)ubject+(V)erb+(O) object, S+O+V, V+S+O). This type of classification is known as typological classification and is based on a comparison of the formal similarities (pronunciation, grammar or vocabulary) that exist among languages.

Language families around the world reflect centuries of geographic movement and interaction among different groups of people. The Indo-European family of languages, for example, represents nearly half of the world’s population. The language family dominates nearly all of Europe, and significant areas of Asia, including Russia and India, North and South America, Caribbean islands, Australia, New Zealand, and parts of South Africa. The Indo-European family of languages consists of various language branches (a collection of languages within a family with a common ancestral language) and numerous language subgroups (a collection of languages within a branch that share a common origin in the relatively recent past and exhibit many similarities in vocabulary and grammar.

Indo-European Language Branches and Language Subgroups \(\PageIndex{1}\)

1. Germanic Branch Western Germanic Group (Dutch, German, Frisian, English);
   Northern Germanic Group (Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Faeroese)
2. Romance Branch: French, Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan, Provençal, Romansh, Italian, Romanian
3. Slavic Branch: West Slavic Group (Polish, Slovak, Czech, Sorbian);
   Eastern Slavic Group (Russian, Ukrainian, Belorussian);
   Southern Slavic Group (Slovene, Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian, Bulgarian)
4. Celtic Branch: Britannic Group (Breton, Welsh);
   Gaulish Group (Irish Gaelic, Scots Gaelic)
5. Baltic-Slavonic Branch: Latvian, Lithuanian
6. Hellenic Branch: Greek
7. Thracian-Illyrian Branch: Albanian
8. Armenian Branch: Armenian
9. Iranian Branch: Kurdish, Persian, Baluchi, Pashto, Tadzhik
10. Indo-Iranian (Indic) Branch: Northwestern Group (Panjabi, Sindhi, Pahari, Dardic);
    Eastern Group (Assamese, Bengali, Oriya);
    Midland Group (Rajasthani, Hindi/Urdu, Bihari);
    West and Southwestern Group (Gujarati, Marathi, Konda, Maldivian, Sinhalese)

Other languages spoken in Europe, but not belonging to the Indo-European family are subsumed in these other families: Finno-Ugric (Estonian, Hungarian, Karelian, Saami, Altaic (Turkish, Azerbaijani, Uzbek), and Basque. Some of the language branches listed above are represented by only one principal language (Albanian, Armenian, Basque, Greek), while others are spoken by diverse groups in some geographic regions (Northern and Western Germanic languages, Western and Eastern Slavic languages, Midland and Southwestern Indian languages).

Major Language Families of the World by Geographic Region \(\PageIndex{1}\)

1. Europe: Caucasian Family
   Abkhaz-Adyghe Group (Circassian, Adyghe, Abkhaz) Nakho-Dagestanian Group (Avar, Kuri, Dargwa) Kartvelian Group (Kartvelian, Georgian, Zan, Mingrelian)
2. Africa: Afro-Asiatic Family (Arabic, Hebrew, Tigrinya, Amharic) Niger-Congo Family (Benue-Congo, Adamawa, Kwa) Nilo-Saharan Family (Chari-Nile, Nilo-Hamitic, Nara) Khoisan Family (Sandawe, Hatsa)
3. Asia: Sino-Tibetan Family (Chinese, Tibetan, Burmese)
   Tai Family (Laotian, Shan, Yuan)
   Austro-Asiatic Family (Vietnamese, Indonesian, Dayak, Malayo-Polynesian) Japanese (an example of an isolated language)
4. Pacific: Austronesian Family (Malagasy, Malay, Javanese, Palauan, Fijian) Indo-Pacific Family (Tagalog, Maori, Tongan, Samoan)
5. Americas: Eskimo-Aleut Family (Eskimo-Aleut, Greenlandic Eskimo)
   Athabaskan Family (Navaho. Apache)
   Algonquian Family (Arapaho, Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Cree, Mohican, Choctaw) Macro-Siouan Family (Cherokee, Dakota, Mohawk, Pawnee)
   Aztec-Tanoan Family (Comanche, Hopi, Pima-Papago, Nahuatl, Tarahumara) Mayan Family (Maya, Mam, Quekchi, Quiche)
   Oto-Manguean Family (Otomi, Mixtec, Zapotec)
   Macro-Chibchan Family (Guaymi, Cuna, Waica, Epera)
   Andean-Equatorial Family (Guahibo, Aymara, Quechua, Guarani)

Language Contact

The number of language families distributed around the world is sizable. The linguistic situation of specific member groups of the language family might be influenced by diverse, interacting factors: settlement history (migration, conquest, colonialism, territorial agreements), ways of living (farming, fishing, hunting, trading), and demographic strength and vitality of the speaker groups. Some languages might converge (many local varieties becoming one main language), while others might diverge (one principal language evolves into many other speech varieties). When different linguistic groups come into contact, a pidgin-type of language may be the result. A pidgin is a composite language with a simplified grammatical system and a limited vocabulary, typically borrowed from the linguistic groups involved in trade and commerce activities.

Tok Pisin is an example of a pidgin spoken in Papua New Guinea and derived mainly from English. A pidgin may become a creole language when the size of the vocabulary increases, grammatical structures become more complex and children learn it as their native language or mother tongue. There are cases in which one existing language gains the status of a lingua franca. A lingua franca may not necessarily be the mother tongue of any one speaker group, but it serves as the medium of communication and commerce among diverse language groups. Swahili, for instance, serves as a lingua franca for much of East Africa, where individuals speak other local and regional languages.

With increased globalization and interdependence among nations, English is rapidly acquiring the status of lingua franca for much of the world. In Europe, Africa India and other geographic regions, English serves as a lingua franca across many national-state boundaries. The linguistic consequence results in countless numbers of speaker groups who must become bilingual (the ability to use two languages with varying degrees of fluency) to participate more fully in society.

Some continents have more spoken languages than others. Asia leads with an estimated 2,300 languages, followed by Africa with 2,138. In the Pacific area, there are about 1,300 languages spoken and in North and South America about 1,064 languages have been identified. Europe, even with its many nation-states, is at the bottom of the list with about 286 languages.

Ten Languages of the World with Most Speakers

Ten Languages of the World with Most Speakers

1. Chinese: Nearly 1.2 billion speakers (China, Taiwan and Singapore)
2. Spanish: 406 million speakers (Spain, Latin America, Southwestern United States)
3. English: 335 million speakers (British Isles, United States, Canada, Caribbean, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Philippines, former British colonies in Asia and Africa)
4. Hindi: 206 million speakers (Northern India, Pakistan)
5. Arabic: 223 million speakers (Middle East, North Africa).
6. Portuguese: 202 million speakers (Portugal, Brazil, southern Africa)
7. Bangali: 193 million speakers (Bangladesh, eastern India)
8. Russian: 162 million speakers (Russia, Kazakhstan, part of Ukraine, other former Soviet Republics)
9. Japanese: 122 million speakers (Japan)
10. Javanese: 84 million speakers (Indonesia)

Language Spread and Language Loss

Of the top 20 languages of the world, all these languages have their origin in South or East Asia or in Europe. There is not one from the Americas, Oceania, or Africa. The absence of a major world language in these regions seems to be precisely where most of the linguistic diversity is concentrated.

• English, French and Spanish are among the world’s most widespread languages due to the imperial history of the home countries from where they originated.
• Two-thirds (66%) of the world’s population speak 12 of the major languages around the globe
• About 3 percent of the world’s population accounts for 96 percent of all the languages spoken today. Of the current living languages in the world, about 2,000 have less than 1,000 native speakers.
• Nearly half of the world’s spoken languages will disappear by the end of this century. Linguistic extinction (language death) will affect some countries and regions more than others.
• In the United States, many endangered languages are spoken by Native American groups who reside in reservations. Many languages will be lost in Amazon rain forest, sub-Saharan Africa, Oceania, aboriginal Australia and Southeast Asia.
• English is used as an official language in at least 35 countries, including a number of countries in Africa (Botswana, Kenya, Namibia, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda among others), Asia (India, Pakistan, Philippines), Pacific Region (Fiji, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, New Zealand), Caribbean (Puerto Rico, Belize, Guyana, Jamaica), Ireland and Canada.
• English is not by law (de jure) the official language in the United Kingdom, United States, and Australia. English does enjoy the status of “national language” in these countries due to its power and prestige in institutions and society.
• English does not have the highest number of native speakers, but it
  is the world’s most commonly studied language. More people learn English than French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, German and Chinese combined.⁶

Language Variations

Languages differ in a number of ways. Not all languages, for example, have a written form. Those that do use a variety of writing systems. Russian uses the Cyrillic alphabet, while Hindi uses Devanagari. Modern Korean offers a rare example of a successfully invented written language, Hangeul (see sidebar). Chinese has a particularly ancient and rich written language, with many thousands of pictographic characters. Because of the complexity and variety of Chinese characters, there is a simplified equivalent called Pinyin, which enables Chinese characters to be referenced using the Latin alphabet. This is of particular usefulness in electronic communication. The arrival of touch-enabled smartphones has been of great benefit to languages with alternative writing systems such as Chinese or Arabic (Godwin-Jones, 2017d). Smartphones and word processors can now support writing systems that write right to left such as Hebrew.

Sample text in Korean (Hangeul)

모든 인간은 태어날 때부터 자유로우며 그 존엄과 권리에 있어 동등하다. 인간은 천부척으로 이성과 양싱을 부여받았으며 서로 형첸개의 청신으로 헹동하여야 한다.

Translation

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Dialects of English in the United States

At the time of the American Revolution, three principal dialects of English were spoken. These varieties of English corresponded to differences among the original settlers who populated the East Coast.

Northern English

These settlements in this area were established and populated almost entirely by English settlers. Nearly two-thirds of the colonists in New England were Puritans from East Anglia in southwestern England. The region consists of the following states: Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Vermont, New York, and New Jersey.

Southern English

About half of the speakers came from southeast England. Some of them came from diverse social class backgrounds, including deported prisoners, indentured servants, and political and religious persecuted groups. The following states comprise the region: Virginia, Delaware, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.

Midlands English

The settlers of this region included immigrants from diverse backgrounds. Those who settled in Pennsylvania were predominantly Quakers from northern England. Some individuals from Scotland and Ireland also settled in Pennsylvania as well as in New Jersey and Delaware. Immigrants from Germany, Holland and Sweden also migrated to this region and learned their English from local English-speaking settlers. This region is formed by the following areas/states: Upper Ohio Valley, Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, and western areas North and South Carolina.

Dialects of American English have continued to evolve over time and place. Regional differences in pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar do not suggest that a type of linguistic convergence is underway, resulting in some type of “national dialect” of American English. Even with the homogenizing influences of radio, television, the internet, and social media, many distinctive varieties of English can be identified. Robert Delaney (2000) has outlined a dialect map for the United States which features at least 24 distinctive dialects of English. Dialect boundaries are established using diverse criteria: language features (differences in pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar) settlement history, ethnic diversity, educational levels, and languages in contact (Spanish/English in the American Southwest). The dialect map does not represent the English varieties spoken in Alaska or Hawaii. However, it does include some urban and social (ethnolinguistic) dialects. General Northern English, is spoken by nearly two-thirds of the country.

Multilingualism in the United States

Language diversity existed in what is now the United States long before the arrival of the Europeans.

It is estimated that there were between 500 and 1,000 Native American languages spoken around the fifteenth century and that there was widespread language contact and bilingualism among the Indian nations. With the arrival of the Europeans, seven colonial languages established themselves in different regions of the territory:

• English along the Eastern seaboard, Atlantic coast
• Spanish in the South from Florida to California
• French in Louisiana and northern Maine
• German in Pennsylvania
• Dutch in New York (New Amsterdam)
• Swedish in Delaware
• Russian in Alaska

Dutch, Swedish and Russian survived only for a short period, but the other four languages continue to be spoken to the present day. In the 1920’s, six major minority languages were spoken in significant numbers partly to due to massive immigration and territorial histories. The “big six” minority languages of the 1940s include German, Italian, Polish, Yiddish, Spanish and French. Of the six minority languages, only Spanish and French have shown any gains over time, Spanish because of continued immigration and French because of increased “language consciousness” among individuals from Louisiana and Franco-Americans in the Northeast.

The 2015 Census data for the United States reveals valuable geographic information regarding the top 10 states with extensive language diversity.

• California: 45 percent of the inhabitants speak a language other than English at home; the major languages include Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Arabic, Armenian, and Tagalog.
• Texas: 35 percent of the residents speak a language other than English at home; Spanish is widely used among bilinguals; Chinese, German, and Vietnamese are also spoken.
• New Mexico: 34 percent of the state’s population speak another language; most speak Spanish but a fair number speak Navajo and other Native American languages.
• New York: 31 percent of the residents speak a second language; Chinese, Italian, Russian, Spanish, and Yiddish; some of these languages can be found within the same city block.
• New Jersey: 31 percent of the state’s residents speak a second language in addition to English; some of the languages spoken include Chinese, Gujarati, Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian.
• Nevada: 30 percent of the population is bilingual; Chinese, German, and Tagalog are used along with Spanish, the predominant second language of the Southwest.
• Florida: 29 percent of the residents speak a second language, including French (Haitian Creole), German, and Italian.
• Arizona: 27 percent of the residents claim to be bilingual; most speak Spanish as in New Mexico while others use Native American languages.
• Hawaii: 26 percent of the population claims to be bilingual; Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Tagalog are spoken along with Hawaiian, the state’s second official language.
• Illinois and Massachusetts: 23 percent of their respective populations speak a second language at home; residents of Illinois speak Chinese, German, Spanish, and Polish, especially in Chicago; residents of Massachusetts speak Spanish, Haitian Creole, Chinese, Portuguese, Vietnamese, and French.

Multilingual Diversity in the U.S.

Data from the 2015 American Community Survey ranks the top ten languages spoken in U.S. homes other than English. The data highlight the size of the speaker population, bilingual proficiency (fluency in the home language and English), and degree of English proficiency (LEP, limited English proficiency).

Top Ten Language Spoken in U.S. Homes Other Than English

1. Spanish: 64 million
2. Chinese: 40 million (includes Mandarin and Cantonese)
3. Tagalog: 3.3 million
4. Vietnamese: 1.7 million
5. French: 1.3 million (includes Haitian and Cajun varieties)
6. Arabic: 1.2 million
7. Korean: 1.1 million
8. German: 933,000
9. French Creole: 863,000

While a record number of persons speak a language at home other than English, a substantial figure within each immigrant group claimed an elevated command of English. Overall, some 60 percent of the speaker groups using a second language at home were also highly fluent in English. Limited fluency in English among young children ranged from a high of 55.7 percent in the Tagalog speaker group to a low of 14.9 percent in the German group which included Pennsylvania Dutch users.¹⁰

Most immigrant language groups have tended to follow an intergenerational language shift in the United States. This first generation is basically monolingual, speaking the native language of the group. The second generation is bilingual, speaking both the home language and English. By the third generation, the cultural group is essentially monolingual, speaking only English in most communicative situations.

More recently, some immigrant groups, particularly those with advanced training and degrees in professional fields (technology, health sciences and business), come to the United States with a high degree of fluency in English. At the same time, the variety of English these persons speak is usually marked by the country of origin (India, Philippines, Singapore among others). With globalization “new Englishes” have emerged (Indian English, Filipino English, Nigerian English) which challenge the notion of a Standard English variety (British or American) for use around the world.

Attributions

Adapted from:

Child Growth and Development by Paris, Ricardo, Raymond & Johnson. Provided by LibreTexts. License: CC-BY

Introduction to Human Geography by David Dorel & Joseph Henderson. Provided by LibreTexts. License: CC-BY

Language and culture in context: A primer in intercultural communication by Robert Godwin-Jones. Provided by LibreTexts. License: CC-BY-NC