Languages and Landscapes

The standard for a blog on languages may be to discuss a different tongue for each post and discover where that language really began and how it spread. That's geography isn't it? Well, I am also going to discuss how languages may actually be shaped by geography and how the location of a language can actually influence the way it sounds.

Research has shown that the landscape of where the language is spoken really matters. Each tongue may sound different depending on the altitude or terrain of the land. This is as there is a varying amount of air in different areas which then effects the ability to speak.   


Due to a recent study of 567 languages it has been shown that the height above sea level of where the language is spoken actually affects it. Languages spoken at high altitudes are filled with sounds that include more ejective consonants. The air here is much thinner. Words are made with a burst of air as the sound is forced out.  Also, there is lower air pressure at higher altitudes which makes it automatically easier for these sounds to be made. 

Mountainous places high above sea level such as areas of  North and South America,  Africa and Eurasia all speak languages with ejective sounds.   

This recent discovery has opened up a whole new spectrum for linguists. Now that it is seen that the geography of a place affects the sound of its language researches now have another way to interpret the evolution of languages.  

Sources

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/anthropology-in-
practice/files/2013/06/journal.pone_.0065275.g0011.png

http://media.tumblr.com/23e72051b92b8f015daca650be524221/tumblr_inline_mokt6d2Xkx1qz4rgp.jpg

http://news.discovery.com/human/are-languages-shaped-by-geograpy-

http://www.usu.edu/markdamen/1320hist&civ/slides/07ie/IElanguagesmap.jpg

Indo-European Languages

Just like living things, families come in languages and groups. You could say that there are different breeds and species of languages. An example of one of these families is the large family of Indo-European languages. All the languages in this group are connected in some way. 

There are approximately 439 Indo-European languages.  People all across the Middle East, Central Asia, Europe and South Asia communicate in these tongues. 

To put this in context here is a list of just some Indo-European languages. 

English
French
Spanish
Italian
Hindi
German 
Urdu
Dutch 
Ukrainian

Indo-European languages are split into different groups with Germanic, Baltic, Celtic, Slavic,  Indo-Iranian and Romance languages all included.

The origin of Indo-European languages has recently been traced back to about 15,000 years ago which is when the end last ice age began to emerge. Hunter gatherers spread out from southern Europe to populate the North, East and West. Yet before this theory was put forward, Indo-European languages had been traced back to about 8,000 or 9,000 years ago. Around this time a reconstructed form of Indo-European known as Proto-European became evident as it began to be spoken.

This proto-language most likely originated around the Black Sea and was spoken in Turkey and also Iraq which was then referred to as Mesopotamia. However Armenia is also a location which is in the running for the origin and there is much dispute over the real birth place of the language. 

The original Indo-Europeans migrated outwards from the Middle East some time many years ago. As they moved apart and spread , the language began to evolve slightly. The sounds of words altered and so did the vocabulary as tribes drifted apart. This is how one language split to become the abundance of dialects that are spoken today.

So, if all of these languages are in one big family then how exactly are they related to one another? Well, research carried out by Professor Mark Pagel suggests that there are 23 common words in almost all 439 languages. For example, the words "we", "I" and "mother" are all similar to each other. Some verbs also resemble their linguistic cousins. 

Take a look at the word "I" for example. It looks similar in each of these languages. 

English	German	Italian	Spanish
I	Ich	Oi	Yo

We need to imagine that once, long ago, a large amount of people on earth all spoke one common language that no longer exists in the same form as it once did. Now, just like mankind, everything has evolved so much that this is hard to envision. I hope that this information has enhanced your knowledge and that perhaps a clearer picture has been painted.

Sources

http://www.usu.edu/markdamen/1320hist&civ/slides/07ie/IElanguagesmap.jpg
http://www.slmc.uottawa.ca/content_images/2xx007e.gif
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-European_languages
http://encyclopedia.kids.net.au/page/in/Indo-European_languages
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo-European_language
http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/general/IE.html
http://www.dw.de/indo-european-languages-came-from-a-common-root-about-15000-years-ago/a-16796900

Back to the Beginning of Time

I have so many questions - where did all of the world’s languages really begin? Who were the first to ever speak like we do today? Why can’t all of us humans speak one universal language? The list is endless. 

Well, I suppose the answers to this infinite stream of questions really lie in the lives of those who lived long ago. The Neanderthals, who lived around half a million years ago, were a species of human with some traits similar to our own. They would have been one of the first to ever communicate in any way which remotely resembles speech today. They could communicate through a series of grunts and noises but lacked the brains to develop their skills. The Neanderthals spread throughout Eurasia but eventually died out due to over dominance by the Homo-Sapiens from Africa.

The Homo-Sapiens, who we are descended from, also communicated verbally. They arrived around the same time as the Neanderthals but came from Africa. They were more intelligent than the Neanderthals and therefore had advantage over them. They ended up dominating as they spread from Africa to Europe but did some interbreeding with the Neanderthals. The human race expanded from there. So really, how we talk today comes from the first ever humans. As the evolution of the human race progressed, our languages did the same.  

Sources 

http://anthro.palomar.edu/homo2/mod_homo_4.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XT2GFvH3lNI

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2334637/Why-Homo-sapiens-won-battle-human-survival-Neanderthals-larger-eyes-brain-power-make-decisions.html

The "Parent" Language

As we know, the Roman Empire had a huge impact on the world and the way we operate today. The Romans are the owners of an abundance of brilliant inventions such as roads, central heating, aqueducts, concrete, newspapers and even shopping centres. The Empire gave birth to many ingenious minds who seemed to live far before their time. The Romans were a thriving Empire whom we have much to thank for today.

The Roman Empire spread to all corners of the world. It centred on Italy but its boundaries reached as far as British waters, to Asia and even the tip of Africa. The Empire ruled the world and lasted for over a thousand years leaving behind a tremendous legacy. 

Yet it's culture and people could not have prospered as they did without a way of communicating.  So, what language did this fascinating civilisation speak? Well as many of you know already, the Romans conversed in Latin.  Latin originated in the Italian peninsula and was originally spoken in Latium. The language is now no longer spoken and is considered a dead language. Yet strong traces and hints of Latin can be found in the majority of tongues spoken today and that is why some refer to it as the "Parent" language. 



Romance languages are tongues that are based on Latin. They include French, Romanian, Portuguese, Italian and Spanish yet other dialects have strong hints of the ancient speech.

English has many words within it that strongly relate to Latin. Old English or Anglo Saxon borrowed many Latin words either directly from Latin or through French. Over the years they words been integrated into the English language and that is why Latin, even with such an ancient background, has such an obvious, clear connection with modern English. 

Vulgar Latin was Latin spoken by the common people of Rome. It was not the glorified, polished language used in their literature by any great politicians or poets. It is a language of "the crowd" as this is what vulgar means in Latin. This dialect d would have been scrawled all over the towns in graffiti and was spoken by the soldiers and the common people. Much like today in English there are slang words that would never be written but are spoken amongst the ordinary people. 

Latin is said to be a "dead" language because no one nation speaks it today. Why did it fizzle out after so many glorious years? It just seemed to change or either be replaced.For example, Latin was the language of the church; mass was held in Latin  and the bible was written in Latin. Yet after the Reformation this came to an end as so many ordinary people had no knowledge of the language. Today many Catholic priests still speak Latin but it is going into decline. Many people conversed in Latin throughout the Middle Ages but it was gradually replaced by French and other local languages. Rather than saying that Latin died out and became extinct I think it is more effective to say that it simply evolved an changed to become the different languages that we speak today. 




Sources



http://www.history.com/news/history-lists/10-innovations-that-built-ancient-rome


http://www.brighthubeducation.com/learning-translating-latin/17702-brief-history-of-latin-language/


http://gods-word-first.org/Images/roman-empire-map.gif


https://www.google.ie/search?


http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/rmhttp/schools/primaryhistory/images/romans/technology/r_pont_du_gard.jpg


http://www.brighthubeducation.com/learning-translating-latin/17702-brief-history-of-latin-language/


http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/romancelanguage/a/050611-Romance-Languages.htm


http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lcbdpfUVCi1qb2977.jpg


https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080807111313AAMGf73

Weekly Language Lesson with Serena

Language Lessons with Serena (ft. Sarah)

I have decided to do a short, quick and easy language tutorial on my blog every so often.

This week, we will be learning some German as my last post discussed the geography of this language  and I speak it myself.  Let’s just keep it simple with some common German greetings and farewells.

GREETINGS
Hallo	Hello
Guten Morgen	Good Morning
Guten Tag	Good Afternoon
Guten Abend	Good Evening
Wie geht es dir?	How are you? (Informal)

FAREWELLS
Auf Wiedersehen!	Goodbye!
SchÖnes Wochenende!	Have a good weekend!
Ciao!	Bye!
Tschüss!	See you!
Guten Nacht	Goodnight

German

Hallo!

Wilkommen zu meinem Internet-Tagebüch!

               

Since I learn German in school I thought I would begin with discussing this language as I have a particular fascination in it. 

German is the language that I most enjoy learning in school because unlike Irish, it seems to really interest me and I find myself eager to learn everything about it whether that be its history, its geography or its grammatical rules. 

German is spoken natively by approximately 100 million people around the world and is the most spoken language in the European Union. In the past, German used to exist in many different dialects and variations and was not as formally structured as it is today. Yet in the modern world there are still different types of the language as it is spoken officially in seven countries. These countries are Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, the German speaking parts of Switzerland, Belgium, Luxembourg and also Northern Italy (south Tyrol). People dispersed all over the world also speak German so the language really exists everywhere.

                          European German speaking countries

We know that languages are humans' way of communicating with each other and have changed as we have changed. German was originally a West Germanic language and then evolved to become what it is today. It is one of the oldest languages in Europe and has a long and turbulent history. It was originally spoken by a group of Germanic tribes but grew to become much larger as it went through many stages of development such as pronunciations altering so the tongue even began to sound different. 

Interestingly German didn't take the form that it has today until the 16th Century when Martin Luther, the well-known German friar, played a big role in world events. Martin Luther encouraged and caused the reformation of the church which resulted in the Protestant religion. So what on earth did this have to do with the language of his people? Well, from the years 1521 to 1522 Luther was kept safe in Wartburg castle. While there he translated the bible from Latin, which is the traditional language of the Catholic Church, into vernacular German. Vernacular language is the language of the common people and this meant that those who didn't have the opportunity to educate themselves in Latin could now read the bible. 


In my next post there will be a small language lesson so if you were interested in today's update then stay tuned for the opportunity to learn some small, simple snippets of German! 

Sources

http://www.germanconnects.ie/where-is-german-spoken

http://www.pimsleurapproach.com/resources/german/articles/guide-to-word-origins/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther#At_Wartburg_Castle

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/87/Knowledge_of_German_EU_map.svg/2000px-Knowledge_of_German_EU_map.svg.png

http://a2.files.biography.com/image/upload/c_fill,dpr_1.0,g_face,h_300,q_80,w_300/MTE1ODA0OTcxNzA3MjM3OTAx.jpg

http://blog.apiabroad.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/shutterstock_96950510.jpg



http://hd.wallpaperswide.com/thumbs/grunge_flag_of_germany_state-t2.jpg

Introduction

Hello!

My name is Serena and welcome to my blog on the Geography of Languages. I thoroughly enjoy learning Irish, English and German in school and am intrigued by the thousands of languages all around the world.

I am eager to research where different tongues originated from, how they spread and how they have changed over time. I want to show you the abundance of interesting facts there are to know about today's languages. Enjoy!