EXERCISES OF UNIT 10

1. What is the relationship between linguistics and geography?

The geography decides on the accents of people in a region. It is determined that people of a
region speak a language with their regional accent. For example, in Vietnam most people speak
Vietnamese; however, people in the north speak Vietnamese with 95 their northern accent; people in the
central speak it with their central accent; and people in the south speak it with their southern accent.

2. Give some complex linguistic forms in the world.

In any place which has geographic features to keep groups of people separate from each other,
there is the greatest linguistic diversity. The island of Papua New Guinea with towering mountains and
dense jungles creating isolated pockets of various tribes has about 1,000 different languages spoken by
million people. This is the area of greatest linguistic variation. About 200,000 people live in the islands of
Vanuatu in the Pacific Ocean, but they speak 109 even different languages. (In comparison to about 100
million Vietnamese people speak about 54 languages). The northeast African country of Chad, spreading
to the Sahara desert, has 127 languages spoken by 7.4 million inhabitants. It is believed that these people
are isolated by extreme geographic and climatic features, so they have retained their linguistic and
cultural diversity. In general, they have not been affected by the nation’s political system, state-sponsored
education, and mass communications. Nigeria is a West African country which has over 400 languages
spoken by a population of about 140 million people. Besides, the country has also 1000 different dialects
in many parts.

3. How do geographical boundaries influence linguistic choices in

Vietnam?
Vietnam has complex linguistic geography. There are three main regions and 64 cities and
provinces in Vietnam. There are only a few provinces and cities with one language, and there are many
dialects.
Most of the population is Kinh, the main group. There are three main accents of Kinh’s
Vietnamese: northern, central and southern. Chinese Vietnamese are fewer than Kinh Vietnamese. Khmer
Vietnamese holds the third position among 54 ethnic groups.

4. What are some changes in linguistic choices among Vietnamese

people due to historical experiences?
Formerly in the feudalism, Vietnamese people use Vietnamese and Chinese. In the French
colonialism, they used French officially. Nowadays, although most people learn and speak Vietnamese at
school, people are encouraged to use other languages such as Chinese, Khmer, Champa, Ede, H’Mong,
Thai, etc. The authorities motivate 96 ethnic minorities to learn and use their mother tongues to make the
languages in Vietnam more colorful and abundant.

5. Should we play a joke on someone that speaks the same language

with different accents?
 We should not play a joke on someone that speaks the same language with different accents.

6. What affects people’s accents?

It may be said that geography affects the language used in a region. We should obtain a
general idea when we consider a language in a particular context so that different people with
different languages, dialects or accents can live under the same roof to cooperate with each other.