Language

Language represents an abstract ability of a community of speakers (Lippuner & Werlen, 2009). So it is a
medium through which people communicate with each other. Regarding Werlen (2009, p. 6), language
is used as central medium for action and meaning transfer. Geography is concerned with the study of
language as the medium through which intersubjective meaning is communicated, and in the power
relations intrinsic to such meaning (Gregory et al., 2009). Language makes it possible for people to have
interactions, by acting, understanding and reacting. One person acts by starting a conversation. For an-
other person to react on this, he needs to understand the meaning of what was said. So, understanding
is a very important aspect of language.

Language and geography

Language has played an important role in the development of human geography theory, which is
reflected in different branches of study, such as language geography (language mapping) which is rooted
in anthropogeography and linguistic geography (researching geographical roots in regional dialects), but
also in studying the intersubjective meaning (and the power relations within that meaning) that is
communicated through language.

In thematically ordering these examples, it may be possible to distinguish two important themes of
study concerning (distribution of) language and social usage of language. Central in the first of these
main themes (rooted in traditions of cultural geography and also addressing the previous examples of
language- and linguistic geography) is the study of "language distributions, upon spatial and social
variations in linguistic form and in the origins of and changes in place names" (Gregory et al., 2011, p.
411). The second theme focusses on "the connections between language, social power and identityand
the practice of geography" (Gregory et al., 2011, idem) and is characteristic of cultural politics,
Postcolonialism and "contemporary interests in unequal power relations and in language as a political
agency" (Gregory et al., 2011, idem). This way of thinking about language among geographers is highly
influenced by the changes in twentieth-century philosophy and social theory during the linguistic turn
(Gregory et al., 2011, idem).

The meaning of language within Structuralism

Ferdinand de Saussure discovered that language was actually a structure. Language is a whole social
linguistic system into which an individual is born. A master system of differences between sign that
regulates sign production above and beyond linguistics alone (Smith, 2009, p. 30). At the moment that
people start to use and practice language it becomes a 'la parole'. This is French for speech. It describes
the language as a process and how it is being practiced by speakers (Smith, 2009).

http://geography.ruhosting.nl/geography/index.php?title=Language
Language Development and Geography
Elizabeth Borneman 2015- Human Geography

The evolution of language is a puzzle that has intrigued and confounded linguists for years. The path
languages take as they grow and evolve around the world brings new insights into the history of the
human race and can answer some very important questions about how we evolved. New linguistics
research has just come out which explores the relationship between location and language
development, shedding light onto some previously unexplored territory.

Researchers around the world are pooling their resources and knowledge to find out how climate affects
language development. They are looking into how climate, such as rainforests or deserts, affect what
languages are spoken there and what those languages sound like. For instance, languages that develop
in hot, humid locations are more likely to utilize consonants less, while languages that exist in a more
temperate, flat landscape may be more consonant-heavy.

English is a language that is full of consonants and high frequency noises. These noises are less likely to
be heard in places that have a lot of trees or are mountainous and windy. In these areas sounds bounce
off the mountains and trees or will be carried away by the wind, so what the other person hears can be
very different from what was actually said.

Vowels like “e” or “a” are more easily heard in dense rainforests or through rocky hills. Additionally, in
hot climates vowels are better understood because warm air can disrupt some consonants and higher
frequency sounds. The linguists’ theories, therefore, ride on the idea that language is developing in
certain climates to make it easier to understand and communicate with one another by the people who
live there.

The researchers are basing this line of inquiry into human language development on similar studies that
have been conducted on birds. Scientists have researched the way different species of birds sing in
different climates and found that birds living in rain forests sing songs with fewer audible consonants
than their counterparts in more flat or open places.

This linguistic theory hasn’t been entirely validated, however. Other influences for language
development include the close relationship between people groups who speak the same (or similar)
languages and the geographical path language has taken around the world over thousands of years. For
instance, the Hawaiian language developed in a hot and lush climate, as did the Maori language in New
Zealand; both these languages are also related to an older Eastern Polynesian language.

Nature certainly has a major effect on language development in humans, but the extent of this influence
is still yet to be discovered in its entirety. Linguists will continue to work on the origin and evolution of
the world’s languages as they relate to people groups, geography, and climate.

https://www.geographyrealm.com/language-development-and-geography/
How Geography Affects Language
BY STEPH KOYFMAN, 2020

From the mountains high to the valleys low, the way we speak has something to show.

Language geography is a field of study that examines the way languages are distributed across the globe,
forming linguistic countries and nation-states of their own. Political borders are what frequently
determine language borders, but there are also a host of other cultural, economic, and yes, geographical
considerations.

One need only look at the mysterious whistled languages of various mountain- and forest-dwelling
societies to see this at work. Whistled languages are a way of getting around the limitations of an
environment that makes human contact difficult. Whistles don’t echo like shouts do, and they can travel
over long distances without getting distorted (and without requiring quite as much exertion from the
speaker). Of course, the advent of cell phone technology — and globalization in general — has created
less of an incentive for younger members of these societies to learn these whistled languages, but this is
a strong example of the way human language is sometimes shaped by the literal lay of the land.

The Drift Of Things

To understand the mechanics of language geography, you first have to understand how linguistic drift
works. Similar to the way genes are imperfectly replicated and passed down, languages transform
gradually as they’re passed down to subsequent generations or geographical regions. Before national
languages were mandated by the state, the natural geographic spread of languages often looked more
like a gradient of dialects that were most like the dialects that were geographically closest to them.

While geographical proximity plays a role in how likely it is that you’re able to understand your
neighbors, certain topographical features — especially mountains, large bodies of water, deserts or
untamed forests — can play a dramatic role in closing down the channel of mutual intelligibility between
neighboring communities or states. A dangerous mountain range was more than enough to prohibit (or
severely limit) contact between various groups of speakers, and with enough geographical isolation,
languages could diverge so much as to be barely recognizable to one another.

The Basque language is a prime example of this. Basque, or Euskara, has long stumped linguists due to
its apparent lack of relation to any other living language. Mostly left alone over thousands of years,
Basque was able to develop in a linguistic vacuum thanks to geographical constraints like the
surrounding mountain ranges.

Meanwhile, areas that are broad and flat (think: plains) are called linguistic spread zones — areas with
high linguistic diversity where waves of speaker groups overlap with each other (and often replace each
other). These include areas like the Eurasian steppe, the American Great Plains and sub-Saharan Africa.
Language Geography: The Highs And Lows

Geography doesn’t only affect language in broad lateral sweeps. Altitude also has a marked effect on the
types of sounds humans tend to produce, and this, in turn, changes how languages sound.

A 2013 study published in the journal PLoS ONE found a striking correlation between languages spoken
at high altitudes and ejective consonants, meaning sounds produced with emphatic bursts of air. Rather
than using the lungs, these voiceless phonemes are produced by the closing of the vocal cords. As
Scientific American describes them, “it’s almost as though you’re trying to make the sound of a
consonant while holding your breath.”

Study author Caleb Everett analyzed 567 languages based on where they were spoken; 92 of them
contained ejective consonants. The majority of these ejective consonant languages were spoken in or
near the world’s most high-altitude regions, including the North American Cordillera, the Andes
Mountains and the Ethiopian highlands. The main exception to this was the Tibetan plateau, where
spoken languages didn’t contain ejectives. These correlations were remarkably consistent, however,
considering they held true across entirely different language families.

His theory? That these sounds are easier to produce up high because at an altitude where there’s
already less air pressure, it makes sense to communicate with compressed sounds that are easier to
produce with the thinner air.

Additionally, ejective phonemes require us to emit less water vapor when they’re uttered compared to
other kinds of sounds. Losing too much water vapor at high altitudes can lead to dehydration and
altitude sickness, so this linguistic feature may also be a biological adaptation that helps people survive
in these climates.

https://www.babbel.com/en/magazine/language-geography

GEOGRAPHY OF WORLD LANGUAGES

Dialects

There are various dialects within any language, and English in the United States is no exception. A dialect
is a regional variation of a language, such as English, distinguished by distinctive vocabulary, spelling,
and pronunciation. In the United States, there is a dialect difference between southern, northern, and
western states. We can all understand each other, but the way we say things may sound accented or
“weird” to others. There is also a dialect difference between American English and English spoken in
Britain, as well as other parts of the British Commonwealth.

Origins and Diffusions of Language

All modern languages originate from an ancient language. The origin of every language may never be
known because many ancient languages existed and changed before the written record. Root words
within languages are the best evidence that we have to indicate that languages originated from pre-
written history. The possible geographic origin of ancient languages is quite impressive. For example,
several languages have similar root words for winter and snow, but not for the ocean. This indicates that
the original language originated in an interior location away from the ocean. It was not until people
speaking this language migrated toward the ocean that the word ocean was added to the lexicon (a
catalog of a language’s words).

There are many layers within the Indo-European language family, but we will focus on the specifics.
Though they sound very different, German and English, come from the same Germanic branch of the
Indo-European language group. The Germanic branch is divided into High German and Low German.
Most Germans speak High German, whereas English, Danish, and Flemish are considered subgroups of
Low German. The Romance branch originated 2,000 years ago and is derived from Latin. Today, the
Romance languages are Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Italian. The Balto-Slavic branch uses to be
considered one broad language called Slavic in the 7th Century, but subdivided into a variety of smaller
groups over time. Today the Balto-Slavic branch is composed of the following groups: East Slavic, West,
Slavic, South Slavic, and Baltic. The Indo-European language branch spoken by most people around the
world is Indo-Iranian with over 100 individual languages.

The origin of Indo-European languages has long been a topic of debate among scholars and scientists. In
2012, a team of evolutionary biologists at the University of Auckland led by Dr. Quentin Atkinson
released a study that found all modern IE languages could be traced back to a single root: Anatolian —
the language of Anatolia, now modern-day Turkey.

Distribution of Language Families

The next question that must be asked is why languages are diffused where they are diffused? Social
scientists, specifically linguistics and archaeologists, disagree on this issue because some believe that
languages are diffused by war and conquest, whereas others believe diffusion occurs by
peaceful/symbiotic means such as food and trade. For example, English is spoken by over 2 billion
people and is the dominant language in 55 countries. Much of this diffusion has to do with British
imperialism. The primary purpose of British imperialism was to appropriate as much foreign territory as
possible to use as sources of raw materials. Imperialism involves diffusion of language through both
conquest and trade.

The linguistic structure of the Sino-Tibetan language family is very complex and different from the Indo-
European language family. Unlike European languages, the Sino-Tibetan language is based on hundreds
of one-syllable spoken words. The other distinctive characteristic of this language is the way it is written.
Rather than letters used in the Indo-European language, the Chinese language is written using
thousands of characters called ideograms, which represent ideas or concepts rather than sounds. Sino-
Tibetan language family exists mainly in China—the most populous nation in the world—and is over
4,000 years old. Of the over 1 billion Chinese citizens, 75 percent speak Mandarin, making it the most
common language used in the world.

There are a large variety of other language families in Eastern and Southeast Asian. There is
Austronesian in Indonesia, Austro-Asiatic that includes Vietnamese, Tai Kadai that is spoken in Thailand
and surrounding countries, Korean and Japanese. In Southwest Asia (also called the Middle East), there
are three dominant language families. The Afro-Asiatic languages are spoken by over 200 million people
in several countries in the form of Arabic and are the written language of the Muslim holy book called
the Quran. Hebrew is another Afro-Asiatic language and is the language of the Torah and Talmud (Jewish
sacred texts)

The largest group of the Altaic language family is Turkish. The Turkish language used to be written with
Arabic letters, but in 1928 the Turkish government required the use of the Roman alphabet in order to
adapt the nation’s cultural and economic communications to those in line with their Western-European
counterparts. Finally, the Uralic language family originated 7,000 years ago, near the Ural mountains in
Siberia. All European countries speak Indo-European languages except Estonia, Finland, and Hungary,
which speak Uralic instead.

The countries that make up Africa have a wealthy and sophisticated family of languages. Africa has
thousands of languages that have resulted from 5,000 years of isolation between the various tribes. Just
like species that evolve differently over thousands of years of isolation, Africa’s languages have evolved
into various tongues. However, there are three major African language families to focus on. The Niger-
Congo language family is spoken by 95 percent of the people in sub-Saharan Africa. Within the Niger-
Congo language is Swahili, which is the official language of only 800,00 people, but a secondary language
is spoken by over 30 million Africans. Only a few million people in Africa speak languages from the Nilo-
Saharan language family. The Khoisan language family is spoken by even fewer, but is distinctive
because of the “clicking sounds” when spoken.

In a world dominated by communication, globalization, science, and the Internet, English has grown to
be the dominant global language. Today English is considered a lingua franca (a language mutually
understood and commonly used in trade by people who have different native languages). It is now
believed that 500 million people speak English as a second language. There are other lingua fraca such
as Swahili in Eastern Africa and Russian in nations that were once a part of the Soviet Union.

Pidgins and Creoles

Pidgins, also called contact languages, which develop out of contact between at least two groups of
people who do not share a common language. A pidgin language is a usually a mixture of two or more
languages, contains simplified grammar and vocabulary in, and is used for linguistic communication
between groups, usually for trading purposes, who speak different languages. Pidgins are not
first/native languages and are always learned as a second language. Many pidgins developed during the
European colonization of Asia, Africa, and other areas of the world during the seventeenth to nineteenth
centuries.

Creole languages are stable languages that develop from pidgins. Different from pidgins, creole
languages are primary languages that are nativized by children. Additionally, creoles have their formal
grammar and vocabulary. The grammar of a creole language often has grammatical features that differ
from those of both parent languages. However, the vocabulary of a creole is primarily taken from the
language of the dominant contact group.

Endangered Languages and Preserving Language Diversity

An isolated language is one that is unrelated to any other language. Thus it cannot be connected to any
language family. These remote languages, and many others, are experiencing a mass extinction and are
quickly disappearing off the planet. It is believed that nearly 500 languages are in danger of being lost
forever. Think about the language you speak, the knowledge and understanding acquired and
discovered through that language. What would happen to all that knowledge if your language suddenly
disappeared? Would all of it be transferred to another language or would major components be lost to
time and be rewritten by history? What would happen to your culture if your language was lost to time?
Ultimately, is it possible that the Information Age is causing a Dis-information Age as thousands of
languages are near extinction? Click here to view an Esri story map on Endangered Languages.

Consider the impact of language on culture, particularly religion. Most religions have some form of
written or literary tradition or history, which allows for information to be transferred to future
generations. However, some religions are only transferred verbally, and when that culture disappears
(which is happening at a frightening rate), so does all of the knowledge and history of that culture.
https://humangeography.pressbooks.com/chapter/geography-of-languages/