languagesexpl

KINDS OF LANGUAGE

People speak many kinds of language. There is the language of different places, and there
is the language of different groups.

Language and Dialect

   A speaker of Arabic and a speaker of Malay have different speech habits and don't understand
one another's speech. A speaker from the Tennessee hills and a speaker from Chicago have
different speech habits too. But they can pretty much understand each other. Arabic and Malay
are called languages. Chicagoese and Tennessee mountainese are called dialects. A dialect is
a variety of a language.
   The line between languages and dialects is not always clear. Dialects are sometimes called
languages, and languages are sometimes called dialects. Northern Italians and Sicilians commonly
do not understand each other's speech. Yet both speak so-called dialects of Italian. Danish
and Norwegian are called different languages. Yet Danes and Norwegians pretty well understand
one another.
   A country's boundaries can be marked on a map. But language boundaries can't at least, not
in the same way. A line between two languages would mean everyone on one side of the line spoke
one language. It would also mean everyone on the other side of the line spoke another language.
But language just doesn't work that way.
   For one thing, some people use two or more languages. French and English are spoken by many
Canadians, especially by those living in Quebec. Quite a few Swiss can speak both German and
French. Many people of Paraguay are fluent in both Spanish and Guarani, an American Indian
language. Quite a number of Israelis understand Hebrew, Yiddish, and a European language, such
as Russian.
   For another thing, languages, have dialects. And often the dialects of one language merge
into the dialects of a neighbor language. Take French and Italian. Anyone going from Paris to
Naples can hear small language differences between each town and the next. At no point can a
sharp line be drawn. Yet the French of Paris and the Italian of Naples are different languages.

The Difference in Dialect

Differences in speech habits are what make dialects. Speakers pronounce words differently.
They use different words for the same thing. And they sometimes put words together in different
ways.
A London cockney will say 'arry for Harry, 'orrible for horrible. Hot dog, frankfurter,
wiener, and red hot are all words for the same thing in the United States. "Goin' git me some"
and "I'm going to get some" are two ways of saying much the same thing. Each way of pronouncing
words, of using words, is right for a particular dialect. No dialect is better or worse than
another only different.

All Kinds of Dialect

   Strictly speaking, no two people have exactly the same dialect. Every speaker pronounces at
least some words a little differently from everyone else.
   Probably no two persons know exactly the same set of words. Everyone puts his words together
in his own ways. And to complicate matters, a person's dialect is always changing.
   Just the same, there are patterns of dialect. People in certain neighborhoods, certain cities,
certain regions speak a lot alike even if there are some differences. Many New Yorkers have a
way of speaking that sets them apart. The speech of most people from the South is distinctive.
American English is distinct from Australian English, which is distinct from English English.
Such dialects, spoken by people of different places, might be called geographical dialects.
   Another type of dialect is the social dialect. Social dialects are spoken by people of
different groups. In many countries, people in high society speak differently from
working-class people. People who work together astronauts, doctors, gangsters often share
special work words, a sort of shop talk. Men's talk is a little different from women's talk.
The language of older people is not the same as that of the young.
   In many places one dialect has more social standing than the others. Often it becomes the
language of government and is taught in the schools. Such a dialect is called a standard
dialect. Take the dialect of Paris. Originally it was one of many dialects spoken in what is
now France. As Paris became more important, so did the Parisian dialect. Now it is the standard
French dialect.
   All people have more than one dialect. A person's dialects depend on where he lives, what
groups he moves with, his education, and so on. For instance, a Tokyo engineer from Kyoto might
use his own Kyoto dialect at home, the standard dialect of Tokyo at work. His speech would
differ in some ways from that of his wife. And it would differ from that of his teen-age son.
With other engineers he would use a kind of engineering shop talk. Such switching from one
dialect to another is common.
   People also have more than one way of using their dialects. There is a relaxed way for
talking with friends, for instance. And there is a formal way for talking with a job
interviewer, say.

Standard Languages

   Language has no boundaries. Speakers of the same language may live in many countries.
And every country has many languages. But often, one of the languages of a country is chosen
as the standard language. And this is the language taught in the schools and used for
official business.
   In France, for instance, the standard language is French. But not all Frenchmen speak
French. There are German speakers in Alsace-Lorraine, Breton speakers in Brittany, Basque
speakers in the Pyrenees mountains. And in southern France the Provencal dialects are so
different from standard French that they can be considered a separate language. The
standard language is used for easier communication. It is also used to unite the people
of a country.
   Often a standard language does make communication easier. French is taught in all the
schools of France. So most Frenchmen can get through to each other. A Basque speaker can
use French to talk to a Breton speaker, for instance. A standard language can also help
give speakers of different languages a feeling of oneness. An example is Modern Hebrew,
the standard language of Israel.
   The trouble is, a standard language doesn't always work the way it's supposed to. There
are no first-class or second-class languages. But because a standard language is the
official language, it often has a higher social standing. And nonstandard languages are
often considered less important, even looked down on.
   In such instances, nonstandard speakers learn the standard language only if they have
to. And even then they resent it. The resentment may take the form of not learning it well
just enough to get by. Or they may simply refuse to learn it at all.
   Some countries have more than one standard language. Belgium uses French and Flemish.
Canada uses French and English. Switzerland has three standard languages. India has no less
than 14 standard languages. But often even such countries have language problems.
   Problems arise because one language is or seems to be more favored than another. In
Belgium, Flemish speakers have protested the favored position of French. In India, many
have protested the favored position of Hindi. Problems also arise because most people in
most places use only one language. So unless all a country's languages are taught in the
schools, which usually isn't practical, most people can't understand speakers of another
language.
   In some countries, an outside language is sometimes chosen as a standard language.
Take Ghana. Its people speak perhaps 50 or more languages. So English was adopted as an
official language. And it was used for teaching in the schools.

Second Languages

   Most people speak only their first language the language learned in the home. But many
also learn a second language. There are several kinds of second languages. One kind is the
language of the other speaker. When a Basque speaker uses French to talk to a French
speaker, for instance, he is using the other speaker's language.
   But sometimes speakers of different languages don't use the language of the other
speaker. They use a third language. Such a language is sometimes called a lingua franca.
A speaker of Telugu from southern India and a speaker of Hindi from northern India may
talk to each other in English. Then English is being used as a lingua franca. A Ukrainian
speaker and a Yakut speaker from Siberia may use Russian as their common language. In
that case, Russian is their lingua franca.
   Another kind of second language is a pidgin language. Pidgins are often used for brief
contacts between people between two traders, say. A pidgin is a sort of hybrid of both
the speakers' languages. But the vocabulary is greatly reduced. And the way words fit
together is greatly simplified.
   The first known Pidgin English was used by English speakers and American Indians. One
justice of the peace wrote to an Indian policeman, "You, you big constable, quick you
catch um Jeremiah Offscow, strong you hold um, safe you bring um afore me." To illustrate
further, Russonorsk was a pidgin of Russian and Norwegian. It was used by Russian and
Norwegian fishermen for about a hundred years before World War I. A pidgin of Dutch and
Malay, known as Bazaar Malay, was used in the Dutch East Indies. Bahasa Indonesia, the
official language of Indonesia, is based on Bazaar Malay.
   Sometimes a pidgin becomes the first language of a group of speakers. Then it is a
creole language. In the Caribbean, African slaves from the same tribe were often separated.
This was done to reduce the danger of revolt. So the slaves on a plantation had no common
language. They could only talk to each other in a pidgin of their owner's language such
as Pidgin French or Pidgin Spanish. In time the slaves married and had children. The
children learned the pidgin as their only language. At that point, their language was a
creole language.
   Gullah is a creole language. It is spoken on and near the Sea Islands off Georgia.
Louisiana Creole is a French-based language. Another French-based creole is Haitian
Creole, the language of Haiti. Speakers of Louisiana Creole and Haitian Creole commonly
understand each other. Jamaican Creole is an English-based language of Jamaica.
So-called Hawaiian Pidgin English is actually a creole language. It is the speech of a
large number of people brought up in the Hawaiian Islands.

Interlanguages

   The Old Testament tells of a time when there was one world language. It tells of how
Nimrod ruined it all by building a tower to reach Heaven, and how the Lord made the
workmen speak different languages. So the Tower of Babel was never finished.
   The idea of a world language, or interlanguage, is very old. Hundreds have been
invented. But few have received much attention. The first one to become well known was
Volapuk. It was introduced by a Bavarian clergyman, Johann Martin Schleyer, in 1880.
Schleyer based his language mostly on German and English, with many words also from
languages like Latin French, Italian, Spanish, and so on. The name Volapuk meant
"world speech."
   Volapuk was popular in Europe for a while, but it didn't last. For one thing, some
of its sounds were difficult for non-German speakers. The u sound in Volapuk is an
example. For another thing, the way its words fit together was complicated. Volapuk
went out of use shortly after the invention of another and simpler interlanguage, Esperanto.
   Esperanto is probably the best known interlanguage. It was introduced in 1887 by a
Polish doctor, L.L. Zamenhof. The name Esperanto is based on a word for "hope." Zamenhof
felt that language was at the root of problems between people. He believed a world
language would bring peace and understanding.
   Esperanto is based mostly on languages like French, Italian, and Spanish, with a number
of words also from German and Greek. Both the sounds and the mechanics of the language
are fairly simple for most Europeans. Esperanto is used in many countries. Schools teach
it, and books are published in Esperanto.
   The trouble with world languages is that they're not. Mostly they are made for
speakers of English, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese , Italian, and a number of
related languages. A speaker of Northern Chinese, for instance, would have as much trouble
with Esperanto as with French or German. The same is true of a speaker of Eskimo or a
speaker of Tamil, a language of southern India. Esperanto ignores the sounds and mechanics
and meanings of most of the world's languages.
   Another problem with world languages has to do with language change. Suppose Esperanto,
say, were adopted as a world language. It would soon be spoken in many different dialects.
For one thing, people have different speech habits. For another thing, language is always
changing. Dialects of people far apart would become more and more different. This would
be especially true of people in remote places, people having little or no contact with
speakers of other dialects. It would probably also be especially true of people who felt
that Esperanto was not "their" language, that it represented the languages of other
people. Given time enough, resistance or resentment enough, and separation enough, speakers
of different dialects would no longer be able to understand one another. And a new
interlanguage would have to be invented all over again.

Related Language

Languages have dialects. And some of those dialects grow so far apart that they
become languages. And the new languages separate into dialects. And some of those
become languages. Such related languages are called a language family.

Indo-European. The family to which English belongs is the Indo-European family. It consists
of many groups of languages. The Germanic, or Teutonic, group includes the Scandinavian
languages Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, and Icelandic. German is commonly divided into High
German and Low German. High German includes the dialects of southern Germany, the dialects
of Austria, and the German dialects of Switzerland. Dutch, Flemish (spoken in Belgium),
and the dialects of northern Germany make up Low German. Afrikaans, an offshoot of Dutch,
is spoken in South Africa. English, which is also a Germanic language, is closely related
to Dutch. But even closer to English is Frisian, spoken mostly in the northern Netherlands.
Yiddish, a language of the Jewish people, is for the most part a High German of the
Middle Ages.
   The Romance group descended from Latin. After the Roman Empire fell apart, the Latin
dialects of the different regions grew farther and farther apart. Best known of the
Romance languages are French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and Romanian. Provencal, a name
for the dialects of southern France, is sometimes considered a separate language. Catalan
is spoken mostly in eastern Spain. Romansh is spoken in Switzerland.
   The Balto-Slavic group consists of the Baltic languages and the Slavic languages.
Lithuanian and Latvian (or Lettish) are Baltic languages. The Slavic languages include Russian,
spoken in Russia; Ukrainian, spoken in Ukraine; and Byelorussian (or White Russian), spoken
in Belarus. Czech and Slovak, spoken in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, are closely
related. Indeed they might be called varieties of the same language. Serbo-Croatian is
one language written in two alphabets Croatian in Roman letters, Serbian in the Cyrillic
alphabet. It is spoken chiefly in Serbia. Other well-known Slavic languages include Polish
and Bulgarian. (See also Writing.)
   The Celtic group of languages, once spoken over a large territory, today is used only in
the British Isles and northwestern France. The number of speakers is small. Irish Gaelic
and Scottish Gaelic are Celtic languages. Welsh, spoken in Wales, and Breton, a language of
Brittany in northwestern France, form another branch of Celtic.
   The Indo-Iranian group consists of Indic languages and Iranian languages. Persian
(or Farsi) is an Iranian language. So are Pashto (or Pushtu), spoken in Afghanistan and
Pakistan; and Kurdish, spoken in Kurdistan. Baluchi, spoken mostly in Pakistan and Iran,
also is an Iranian language. Sanskrit is an Indic language. It is the oldest living
Indo-European language, now used chiefly as the sacred language of Hinduism. Hindi, the
leading language of northern India, and Urdu, the national language of Pakistan, are also
Indic languages. Both Hindi and Urdu are varieties of the same language. But Urdu has more
Persian and Arabic words and is written with a different alphabet. Other Indic languages
include Bengali, Panjabi, Gujarati, Marathi, Rajasthani, Bihari, Kashmiri, Oriya, Sindhi,
Assamese, and Nepali. Sinhalese, spoken in Sri Lanka, is also an Indic language. And so is
the language of the Gypsies, Romany.
   Greek belongs in a separate group. The same is true of Armenian and of Albanian. An
Indo-European language called Tocharian was once spoken in what is now Xinjiang, China.
The language of the Hittites, a people of Anatolia mentioned in the Bible, was also
Indo-European.

Uralic. The Uralic family has two main groups: Finno-Ugric and Samoyed. Of the Finno-Ugric
group, the best known Ugric language is Hungarian (or Magyar). Finnish, Estonian, and
Lapp are the best known Finnic languages. Lapp, the language of the Lapps, is spoken mostly
in Norway, Sweden, and Finland. Two other Finnic languages, Mordvin and Cheremis, are
spoken in Russia. The Samoyed group of languages is spoken in Siberia.

Altaic. The Altaic family is commonly divided into three main groups: Turkic, Mongolian,
and Manchu-Tungus (or Manchurian). Turkish is the best-known Turkic language. Other Turkic
languages include Azerbaijani, spoken in Azerbaijan; Uzbek, spoken in Uzbekistan; Kazakh,
spoken in Kazakhstan; Tatar, spoken in Russia; Kyrgyz, spoken in Kyrgyzstan; and Turkoman
(or Turkmenian), spoken in Turkmenistan. Azerbaijani is also spoken in Iran. Another
Turkic language, spoken mostly in what is now Xinjiang, China, is Uygur. Yakut, spoken
in Siberia, is also a Turkic language. The Mongolian group of languages is spoken in
Mongolia and China. The Manchu-Tungus group of languages is spoken in Manchuria and Siberia.

Sino-Tibetan. The Sino-Tibetan family has many groups of languages. Of these, the best
known is the group called Chinese. Chinese has about half a dozen main dialects, so-called.
But they are, for practical purposes, separate languages. They are very different in sounds
and vocabulary mostly. And the speakers of one dialect cannot understand the speakers of
another. Northern Chinese (or Mandarin) is considered the standard language of China. Other
Chinese languages include Wu, Min (or Fukienese), Hakka, and Cantonese (or Yue). Most
Chinese in Taiwan speak Min. Cantonese is used by most of the Chinese speakers in the
United States.
Tibetan and Burmese also belong to the Sino-Tibetan family. Sometimes they are considered
one group, sometimes two. Another group includes Thai and Lao. Thai is spoken in Thailand
mostly, Lao mostly in Laos. The Miao-Yao languages are sometimes considered Sino-Tibetan.
They are spoken by tribespeople in southwest China, northern Myanmar, and Indochina.

Austronesian. The Austronesian, or Malayo-Polynesian, family is spoken from Madagascar, off
the coast of Africa, to Hawaii. One of its best-known languages is Malay. The standard
languages of Malaysia and Indonesia are varieties of Malay. Tagalog, Visayan, and Ilocano,
all spoken in the Philippines, also belong to this family. So does Malagasy, a language
spoken on the island of Madagascar.
Maori, spoken in New Zealand, is an Austronesian language. And related languages are
spoken in many of the South Sea Islands. These include Fiji in the Fiji Islands, Samoan
in the Samoan Islands, Tahitian in the Society Islands, and Hawaiian in the Hawaiian Islands.

Congo-Kordofanian. The Congo-Kordofanian family has two main groups: the Niger-Congo and
the Kordofanian. The Kordofanian languages are spoken in the Sudan. The Niger-Congo languages
are spoken over a great part of central and southern Africa.
Well-known languages of the Niger-Congo group include Ibo, Yoruba, and Efik, spoken in
Nigeria. Fulani (or Fula) is spoken mostly in Nigeria and Guinea; Mandingo mostly in Mali,
Cote d'Ivoire, and Guinea. Twi has many speakers in Ghana. Mossi, Wolof, Ewe, and Tiv also
are Niger-Congo languages.
The numerous Bantu languages are only one branch of one division of the Niger-Congo
group. A few better-known Bantu languages are Swahili, Rwanda and Rundi, Sotho and Tswana,
Ganda, Kongo, Kikuyu, Xhosa, Zulu, Swazi, and Shona.

Afroasiatic. The Afroasiatic family is divided into four main groups. The best known is
Semitic. Arabic, with its many dialects, is the most widely used Semitic language. It is
spoken in many countries of the Near East and North Africa. Modern Hebrew, the standard
language of Israel, is also a Semitic language. So is Amharic, the standard language of
Ethiopia.
The other groups of Afroasiatic are Berber, Cushitic, and Chadic. The Berber languages
are spoken in North Africa. The Cushitic languages are spoken over a wide area in East
Africa. Somali is the best known Cushitic language. Hausa, the best known Chadic language,
is widely spoken in West Africa.

Other Families. The Dravidian family of languages is spoken mostly in southern India. They
include Telugu, Tamil, Kanarese (or Kannada), and Malaya-lam. Tamil is also spoken in
Sri Lanka. Brahui, a Dravidian language, is used in Pakistan and Iran.
   The Munda family consists of a few languages in central India. The Mon-Khmer family is
spoken in Southeast Asia. Its best-known language is Cambodian, or Khmer, spoken in
Cambodia. Most Mon speakers live in Myanmar and Thailand.
   Among the better-known languages of the Nilo-Saharan family are Kanuri, Dinka, Luo, and
Masai. Kanuri is spoken in Nigeria and Niger, Dinka and Luo in Kenya, Masai in Tanzania.
The Khoisan family of languages is spoken mostly in South Africa by the Khoikhoi and San
peoples. These languages, including Nama and !Khung, use special click sounds. Some of
these sounds have spread to nearby Bantu languages like Zulu, Sotho, and Xhosa.
   Japanese seems to be the only member of a family. The same is true of Korean. And the
same is true of Vietnamese. Basque is spoken mostly in the Pyrenees mountains region of
France and Spain. It has no ties with any other language. Another language without ties
is Burushaski. It is spoken in and around Hunza, in the Karakoram mountains of Kashmir.
Andamanese, spoken by a handful of people in the Andaman Islands, has no known relatives.
Neither has Ainu, once the language of a non-Japanese people of northern Japan. The Ainu
people survive, but only a few words of their language are still used in communication
today.
   About 25 or so languages spoken in the Caucasus Mountains have no known relatives. Some
of them seem to be related, but the language picture there as a whole is not clear. Among
the better known of these languages are Circassian and Georgian. How the languages spoken
in Australia are related also is not known. The same is true of most languages of Papua
New Guinea. Sometimes they are divided into two groups, a northern group and a southern.
   A few languages of Siberia do not belong to families elsewhere. These are sometimes
called Paleosiberian languages. Some of these are related. But it is not certain that all
are.
   Probably the most numerous group, the Chukchi group, includes Chukchi and Koryak.
The American Indian languages in North and South America are sometimes called Amerindian
languages.
   Like the Paleosiberian languages, they are not clearly understood. Some Amerindian
languages are related Eskimo and Aleut, for instance. And most seem to fit into families
such as Iroquoian, Siouan, etc. But many do not.

This article was contributed by Harold B. Allen, Professor Emeritus of English and
Linguistics, University of Minnesota.