Key Issue 3:

Where Are Other Language Families Distributed?

Classification of Languages
Indo-European Sino-Tibetan Afro-Asiatic Austronesian Dravidian Altaic Niger-Congo Japanese Other

Distribution of Language Families: Sino-Tibetan Family

China & Southeast Asia Sinitic Branch: Mandarin, Cantonese, Wu, Min, & Hakka
Structure of the Chinese language Script: ideograms

Austro-Thai Branch Tibeto-Burman Branch

Chinese Characters Over Time

Other East & Southeast Asian Language Families

Japanese Chinese culture diffused to Japan Script: 3 forms Korean Not written with ideograms Script: Hankul

Afro-Asiatic Language Family

North Africa & Southwestern Asia Arabic & Hebrew Bible & Quran

Altaic Language Family

Turkey & Mongolia Turkish most widely used Dissolution of the Soviet Union

Uralic Language Family

Estonia, Finland, Hungary Proto-Uralic First used 7,000 years ago by people living in the Ural Mountains

African Language Families

No one knows exactly how many languages are spoken in Africa Only 8 (of at least 1,000) are spoken by more than 10 million people Most lack a written tradition

Languages Spoken in Africa

Niger-Congo Language Family

More than 95% of people in sub-Saharan Africa speak languages in this family, which includes 6 branches. Benue-Congo Branch: Swahili

Nilo-Saharan Language Family

North-central Africa 6 branches The total number of speakers of each individual language is extremely small

Khoisan Language Family

Southwest Africa Clicking sounds Hottentotnamed by the white settlers

Nigeria: Conflict Among Speakers of Different Languages

Nigeria has 493 distinct languages! Only 3 are widespread Groups living in different regions have often battled

Languages in Nigeria

Austronesian Language Family

Mostly in Indonesia 6% of the worlds people speak an Austronesian language Javanese Indonesian (lingua franca!) Malay Madagascar (Malagasy)

Language Families in Africa

So
Where are other language families distributed?