The Tower of Babel by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1563)
"No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality. the worlds in which different cultures live are distinct worlds, not merely the same world with different labels attached."
Edward Sapir, linguist
A world of languages
Languages can be living, dead, become extinct or move from place to place.A living language or modern language is in a continuous state of change. This change can be over the course of several hundred years. For example, the English Chaucer used is very different from the English Shakespeare used, which in turns is not the same as modern-day English. Language can mutate in a shorter time span, from one generation to the next. Vocabulary, expressions and idioms can alter in their frequency of use, become obsolete, develop and modernise or be added to the language. The same language can also change through geography. Modern English spoken in Britain, North America and Australia has different vocabulary and grammar usage.
If two groups of people speaking the same language are separated, in time they will develop different accents and vocabulary will change, but they will still understand each other. When this happens a dialect is created. Within a nation there can be many dilects.
A dead language is one that is no longer learned as a native language. Some dead languages have survived in the written form. Examples of well known dead languages are Ancient Greek, Latin and Sanskrit.
Thorought human history the language of powerful groups have spread, while the languages of smaller cultures have become extinct. The rate of language disappearance has accelerated dramatically in recent years and today many "smaller" languages are in real danger of completely disappearing.
Through conquest and invasion and due to migration, languages can move from place to place or be transported from one country to another. For example, English to North America, French to Canada, Spanish and Portuguese to South America and Arabic to Northern Africa.
As of 2010, the population of the world stands at 6.9 billion and is expected to reach 9 billion by the year 2050. Within this world population, there are about 6,900 distinct languages currently spoken. All of these languages are grouped into language families. This means that they are related languages originating from a common ancestor. For example, Hungarian, Finnish and Mordvin (Siberia) all come from the Uralic family.
However, despite there being so many languages on this Earth, about half of the world´s population speak one of the following eight languages only: Mandarin Chinese, English, Hindi, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Bengali and Portuguese.
Source: "Eye Witness", by Adriana Redaelli and Daniela Invernizzi, (p. 12)
Indo-European
About half of the world´s population speak languages coming from a common origin. Sir William Jones, a British linguist, made this important hypothesis about two centuries ago. While he was studying Sanskrit, the ancient language of India, he noticed that it had many affinities with ancient Greek and Latin. Jones concluded that these three languages came from a common source, a language which no longer exists, Scholars call this language Indo-European. Recent theories locate the origins of the Indo-European language more than 6,000 years ago in western Asia.
(Source: "EYEWITNESS, Culture in a Changing World," by Adriana Redaelli and Daniela Invernizzi)
COMPULSORY TASK!
- You can see the first written alphabet in Syria.
- Living languages never change.
- A dead language is one that has completely disappeared.
- Today peoplespeak about 6 billion languages.
- 50% of the world´s population speaks one of 8 languages.
- Sir William Jones lived in London.
- Greek and Dutch both originate from Indo-European.
- Indo-European is a language spoken in western Asia.
ACTIVITY 2: Watch the following video and find out how educator Claire Bowern traces the language from the present day back to its ancient roots, showing how English has evolved through generations of speakers.
Take down notes of what you consider to be relevant. Have you learnt anything new? If so, what exactly?
Make sure you keep a record of this activity in your
See you in class!
grace
Well done girls! Thanks for your contribution to the post! I am still waiting for the rest of the class.....
ResponderEliminargrace
Hello teacher! I have now learnt a lot of things that I had no idea about, but those which most have called my attention are the old ancestors of the English language and the large number of distinct languages currently spoken around the world.
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ResponderEliminarI did not uno there were 6900 distinct languages.
ResponderEliminarWhat i knew was that through conquest and invasion, languages can move from place to place or be transported from one country to another.What i have now learnt is how a dialect is created.
ResponderEliminarWhat I have now learnt that English came from others old language such as ancient greek, latín, Sanskirt, French and others.
ResponderEliminarPeople around the world speark English but they have diferente vocabulary and grammar usage. However they can understand each other in a conversation.
A language is in a continuos state of change because the world is changing too.
This vídeo is very interesting for me because I have never heard about the origin of English.
I didn't know about the PF --> P & SK --> SH shift.
ResponderEliminarA great video!Almost everything was new to me.For example I would have never guessed that Hindi,Persian and Celtic were distant relatives of English or the conection between English and Swedish and English and Latin.
ResponderEliminarI did not know about the borrowings from Old Norse or the implement of the evolution of grammatical structure; just as I’ve learned of the existence of Proto-Indo-European.
ResponderEliminarThis summer I was watching Vikings, a series on History channel. In it I could notice words from the old norse that were not yet used by the Anglo-Saxons as skinn (skin), angr (anger), illr (ill). The series showed how to Ragnar Lothbrok, the main character, learned the old English to be able to communicate with the king of Wessex.
ResponderEliminarWhat an interesting video! I would have never imagined that English had been evolved through thousands of years until being like we know it nowadays. Another thing that really surprised me was the language families and how every language has similarities with each other languages, or how English changed from a place to another and from a century to another.
ResponderEliminarAll this make me think about how languages and cultures are connected and reminds me of a video where two girls from diffrent countries with distinct languages compare some words and find that they are extremely similar...
If you want to watch it, here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOe4mkzBdCs
ResponderEliminarI only knew that languages travel and how the English language arrived to England, but the rest of the video I didn´t know, so it was all news for me. It was very interesting and tought me lot of things about languages, the creation of the dialect and how a language evolvs and change in time! Thanks!!
ResponderEliminarI had no idea about the origin of the languages. It is wonderful how they can change through the timé and the events in the past and present events are changing future history
ResponderEliminarA great video! I didn't know where did the english came from. It's
ResponderEliminarreally interesting how the language was changing during the years!
The video is interesting for me because I didn't know where the English come from.although many people speak English in many part of the world , because it is popular languages and for other reason.VEry few know the origin of the English language and its importance through the video I could understand its origin and how it was developing and changing for years and how English shares many words with other language
ResponderEliminarI've learnt a lot of new things with this educative video that I didn't really know it about English language. How where English come from. I surprised how English was changing for the years due to the different invasions that it had suffered around the centuries. I learnt that English is a mixed of distinct languages such as ancient Greek, Latin, Sanskirt, French and others languages which many of these languages can be found it in some English words. This video was very interesting for me because I have never read or heard about the origin of English. Every day English surprise me more and more. I don't think that such as language and culture is connected each other and how languages are under a process of changing all the time which it is fantastic because not only are we learning a language but also we are learning about its origins and culture. I am really learning manu thing about this amazing language.
ResponderEliminarA most interesting video on a topic of which I knew nothing. So, answering to 'Have you learnt anything new?... Yes, EVERYTHING was new to me :)
ResponderEliminarI could have imagined that the vikings made their contribution to the English language, but I never thought the French did.
Although it's just a glimpse, I hope we will be studying this more deeply during the course.
Hello everybody! I think there is a lot of things to learn about the history of languages and their origin. The video is really interesting, it has a lot of information. I Think that is amazing the way in which languages are connected one to other. Another incredible thing that really impressed me when I was seeing the video was the fact that all the people around the world are speaking with the same words but with different dialects. Isn't it completely crazy?
ResponderEliminarReally interesting video!! There was a lot of things I didn't know, so I enjoyed it.
ResponderEliminarIt's quite interesting to find out how English was influenced by languages that are spoken and written in a very different way from it. It really amazed me how we all in this world are connected in some way.
ResponderEliminarThis video left me such a great knowledge!
There was a los of information in the video. i really liked it, beacuse i learnt a lot of tihngs about the english language. it,s really interesting to discover how the idiom have so many ancient roots.
ResponderEliminarI like the video ... it is interesting ... it's amazing how each language is connected to other language
ResponderEliminar- I’ve never imagined where the English come from, It’s impossible to know where the words come exactly. So, in this video I’ve learnt how the “English” have been changing over the centuries.
ResponderEliminarISFD 41
really intsresting video on history of English, I didnt know most of the information shown so this will be very useful, I didnt know about the group called indo-european languages.
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ResponderEliminarReally the video information is very interesting! In fact, although we had already seen in class some aspects that appear here, most of the details that he detailed I didn´t know them. A mong all systematic similarities between related words in different Indo- European branches.
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ResponderEliminarenglish language course ireland
When you know how start the history of language, you can see cleartly all and more that one language.
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