Reading Guide Chapter 5: Languages

Key Issue 2 Where Did English & Related Languages Originate & Diffuse?
Pages 154-163
1. Using the reading on page 154, complete the following chart about the Germanic Language Branch.

Germanic Branch

West Germanic Group North Germanic Group

↧
↧ swedish, danish, norwegian, icelandic

english,
german, dutch

2. Indo-Iranian Branch: Make 2 bullet charts from the reading.

Indic Group (Eastern) Iranian Group (Western)

• persian in iran
• 1.2 billion residents in india are diversified through language • • pashto in eastern afghanistan and western
461 languages, 29 spoken by at least 1 million • official language of pakistan
india is hindi • 22 scheduled languages [15 indo-european] [4 • kurdish in western iran, northern iraq, and
dravidian] [2 sino-tibetan] [1 austro-asiatic] • hindi is written in eastern turkey
devnagari • urdu is similar to hindi but written with arabic *written in arabic
alphabet

3. How did Russian become the most important and widely spoken East Slavic language?
increased with the soviet union's rise to power
• forced people to learn russian as a way of fostering cultural unity among the diversity
4. What is the most important West Slavic language?
polish

5. Describe the controversy surrounding the South Slavic Serbo-Croatian language(s).

the name now offends bosnians and croatians because it recalls when they were once in a country dominated
by serbs
6. Explain the origin and diffusion of the Romance languages.
• comes from the 'romans" language
• importance of rome brought a diffusion of its latin language
• roman armies occupying the mediterranean sea area brought it

7. Why have Romance branch languages achieved worldwide importance?

colonial activities of their european speakers
ex. portuguese is spoken in brazil

8. What is a Proto-Indo-European language? Why is its existence difficult (impossible) to prove?

a single ancestor of a language of an entire family *difficult to prove because the origin of language predates written
history, though some languages share similar words

9. Contrast the Nomadic Warrior Theory and the Sedentary Warrior Theory of the common ancestor of Indo-European languages.

“Kurgan” Theory Renfrew Hypothesis

• the kurgans may have infiltrated into eastern
europe beginning around 4000 bc and into central
europe and southwest asia beginning 2500 bc
*the first proto-indo-european speakers were the
kurgans
• argues the first people lived 2000 years before kurgans
*indo-european diffused to europe and south asia with
agricultural practices rather than military conquest

10. What three European people originally came together to form the English people and English language?
angles, jutes, saxons

11. Where did these people come from?

angles from southern denmark
jutes from northern denmark
saxons from northwest germany

12. What two subsequent invasions added additional words to the evolving English language? Describe them.
• vikings' efforts to conquer the islands
• normans from normandy when common folk kept speaking english despite french being the official language
13. When and why did English diffuse to North America?
17th centurry, english colonies established

14. Fill out the chart with notes from how new languages are being created through mixing English with other languages.

Franglais Spanglish Denglish

spanish and english german [deutsch] and english

french and english
• french is an official language in
29 countries
• served as a lingua franca for
international diplomats
• 34 million hispanics in the usa • ex telephone company uses
• new useful words invented in cityverbindungen instead of
acculturation traditional word

15. What is the most important language of international communication in the modern world?
english

16. Why is it important for people in smaller countries to learn English?

to participate more fully in the global economy and culture
17. Why is the inability to speak other languages a handicap for Americans?
• a source of resentment among people elsewhere in the world
• hinders in international business

18. Explain how the emergence of the Internet has further strengthened the dominance of English despite the fact that a decreasing
percentage of Internet users are English speakers.

more than one half of all internet content is in english, making the knowledge of english essential for internet
users around the world

19. Why may Chinese become the next lingua franca?

an english message of 140 symbols can be written in chinese using 70; more convenient

20. Does the United States have an official language?

no
21. Read the Debate It! On page 163. Summarize the conflicting arguments on whether or not English should be the official
language of the United States.

Make English the Official U.S. Language Do Not Make English the Official U.S. Language

• 58 countries and 28 us states already make english
official
• requiring use of english is a symbol of national unity
• knowledge of english is essential for survival in the
united states
• providing serivces to non-english speakers is
expensive
• law is unnecessary bc english is already the
primary language
• the government should not interfere with people's
language rights
• advocating english-only speakers attacks
immigrants from non-english-speaking countries