AP Human Geography

DISTRIBUTION OF LANGUAGE FAMILIES: ASIA & AFRICA

Sino-Tibetan languages • form a language family composed of, at least, the Chinese and the Tibeto-Burman languages, including some 250 languages of East Asia, Southeast Asia and parts of South Asia. • second only to the Indo-European languages in terms of the number of native speakers

Sino-Tibetan Language Family Distribution

Sino-Tibetan Language Family Tree

Sino-Tibetan Language Hearth• the Himalayan plateau, where the great rivers of East and Southeast Asia (including the Yellow, Yangtze, Mekong, Brahmaputra, Salween, and Irrawaddy) have their source• Language split into two main groups, Chinese and Tibeto-Burman, around 4000 B.C.• In the first century AD, TB peoples started moving south along the Malay peninsula blending with the Austronesian speakers

Chinese (ST - Sinitic Branch)• Mandarin • Spoken by 75% of Chinese

people• Most spoken language in

world• Official language of People’s

Republic of China and Taiwan• One of the six official

languages of the UN

Chinese (ST - Sinitic Branch)• Nine other branches of Chinese, including Cantonese• Cantonese• simplified or traditional

Chinese• More common in Southeast

Asia, Pacific Islands, and US

Structure of Chinese Language• Very different structure than Indo-European languages• Based on 420 one-syllable words• Far exceeds one-syllable sounds than humans can make• Use each sound to denote more than one thing (ex. Shi may mean lion, corpse, house, poetry, ten, swear, or die depending on what other syllable it’s coupled with)•Written language – thousands of characters• Most characters are ideograms, represent ideas or concepts • Difficult to learn to write • Educated Chinese know around 4,000 characters

Chinese Lesson - Julie

Other Sino-Tibetan Branches• Tibeto-Burman• Burmese – principle language• Spoken in Myanmar (previously called Burma)• 32 million speakers• The oldest attested Tibeto-Burman language is Pai-lang, of the

3rd century, followed by Tibetan and Burmese• Austro-Thai• Thai – principle language• Spoken in Laos, Thailand, parts of Vietnam

Tibetan Alphabet

Afro-Asiatic family •4th largest language family•Has two major divisions—Semitic and Hamitic•Semitic covers the area from Tigris-Euphrates valley westward through most of the north half of Africa to the Atlantic coast•Domain is large but consists of mostly sparsely populated deserts• Arabic is the most widespread Semitic language and has the highest number of native speakers—about 186 million•Hebrew was a “dead” language used only in religious ceremonies• Today Hebrew is the official language of Israel• Amharic a third major Semitic tongues has 20 million speakers in the mountains of East Africa

Arabic• The Arabic alphabet contains 28 letters.• Arabic is written from right to left.• In Arabic short vowels are generally not written.• Arabic letters change their shape according to their position in a word.• Many dialects, mainstreamed by modern media• Added as the sixth official language of the UN in 1973, Security Council in 1982

Afro-Asiatic family • Smaller number of people speak Hamitic languages• Share North and East Africa with Semitic speakers• Spoken by the Berbers of Morocco and Algeria• Spoken by the Tuaregs of the Sahara and Cushites of East

Africa• Originated in Asia but today only spoken in Africa• Expansion of Arabic decreased the area and number of

speakers

Altaic and Uralic Language Families• Altaic• Turkish – most widely spoken by far• Others – languages of Central Asia (Azerbaijani, Uzbek,

Kazakh, Turkmen, etc.)• Uralic• All traceable to a common language, Proto-Uralic, used 7,000

yrs ago in Ural Mountains• Used today in Estonia, Finland, and Hungary (only European

nations not speaking Indo-European languages)

Sub-Saharan African Language Families• Niger-Congo• Nilo-Saharan• Khoisan• Austronesian

Niger-Congo Family• Africa south of the Sahara Desert is dominated by the Niger-Congo family• Spoken by about 200 million people (95%)• Greater part of the Niger-Congo culture region belongs to the

Bantu subgroup• Includes Swahili• The first language of only 800,000 people• Official language of Tanzania• the lingua franca of East Africa• One of few African languages with extensive literature

Nilo-Saharan• 50 million speakers• 10 branches• Over 15 languages with at least one million speakers each (ex. Dinka (South Sudan), Nubian (southern Egypt), Maasai (Kenya)• 17 nations• Dates back to the paleolithic period

Khoisan• two ethnic groups of Southern Africa, who share physical and putative linguistic characteristics distinct from the Bantu majority of the region.• Culturally, the Khoisan are divided into the foraging San and the pastoral Khoi. • Most live isolated in the Kalahari Desert, allowing them to preserve their culture

Clicking• Khoisan languages are best known for their use of click consonants • These are typically written with letters such as ǃ and ǂ. • Clicks are quite versatile as consonants, as they involve two articulations of the tongue which can operate partially independently. • the languages with the greatest numbers of consonants in the world are Khoisan. • The Juǀʼhoan language has 48 click consonants, among nearly as many non-click consonants, vowels, and four tones. • The ǃXóõ and ǂHõã languages are even more complex.

San Bushmen• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c246fZ-7z1w&oq=clicking%20langu&gs_l=youtube..0.5j0.59.1356.0.3998.11.8.0.0.0.0.312.1692.1j2j3j2.8.0.eytns%2Cpt%3D-35%2Cn%3D2%2Cui%3Dt.1.0.0...1ac.1.11.youtube.M6G4zyKAqXc

Austronesian language family•Most remarkable language family in terms of distribution• 386 million speakers• Speakers live mainly on tropical islands• Ranges from Madagascar, through Indonesia and the Pacific Islands, to Hawaii and Easter Island• Longitudinal span is more than half way around the world• Latitudinally, ranges from Hawaii and Taiwan in the north to New Zealand in the south• Largest single language in this family is Indonesian —5O million speakers •Most widespread language is Polynesian• Language of the Philippines - Tagalog