Human Geo Chapter 5 (key issue 3)

Spelling (American and British English)

- American spelling diverged from the British standard because of a strong national feeling in the United States for an independent identity. - Noah Webster, the created of the first American dictionary, either ignored or was unaware of recently created rules grammar and spelling developed in England. Webster argued that spelling and grammar reforms would help establish a national language, reduce cultural dependence on England, and inspire national pride.

Catalan-Valencian-balear (dialects become languages)

- Catalan was once regarded as a dialect of Spanish, but linguists now agree that it is a separate Romance language. - like other Romance languages, Catalan can be traced to Vulgar Latin, and it developed as a separate language after the collapse of the Roman Empire. - Catalan is the official language of Andorra, a tiny country of 79,000 inhabitants situated in the Pyrenees mountains between Spain and France. Catalan is also spoken by 5 million people in eastern Spain and is the official language of Spain's highly autonomous Catalonia province, centered on the city of Barcelona. - with the status of Catalan settled as a separate language, linguists are identifying its principal dialects. Linguists agree that Balear is a dialect of Catalan that is spoken in the Balearic Islands, which include Ibiza and Majorca. Most controversial is the status of Valencian, which is spoken mostly in and around the city of Valencia. Most linguists consider Valencian a dialect of catalan. However, many in Valencia, including the Valencian language institute, consider Valencian a separate language, because it contains words derived from people who lived in the region before the Roman conquest.

Dialects in the United Kingdom

- English varies by regions within individual countries. In both the United States and England. Northerners sound different from southerners. - English originated with 3 invading groups from Northern Europe who settled in different parts of Britain: the angles in the north, the jutes in the southeast, and the saxons in the southwest. The language each spoke was the basis of distinct regional dialects of old English. - Received Pronunciation was the dialect used by upper class residents in the capital city of London and the 2 important university cities of Cambridge and oxford. The diffusion of the upper class London and university dialects was encouraged by the introduction of the printing press to England in 1476. - grammar books and dictionaries printed in the 18th century established rules for spelling and grammar that were based on the London dialect. These frequently arbitrary rules were then taught in schools throughout the country. - despite the current dominance of Received Pronunciation, strong regional differences persist in English dialects spoken in the U.K., especially in rural areas. They can be grouped into three main ones: northern, midland, and southern. - the boundaries between English dialects have been moving. The changes reflect patterns of migration. The emergence of a subdialect in London reflects migration of people from other countries into the capital city, and the northern expansion of the southeastern subdialect reflects the outmigration of londoners.

Canada: bilingual autonomy (multilingual places)

- French and English are the official languages of Canada. - French speakers comprise 1/4 of the country's population and are clustered in quebec, where they account for more than 3/4 of the province's speakers. Colonized by the French in the 17th century, Quebec was captured by the British in 1763, and in 1867 it became one of the provinces in the confederation of Canada. - until the late 20th century, Quebec was one of Canada's poorest and least developed provinces. It's economic and political activities were dominated by an English speaking minority, and the province suffered from cultural isolation and lack of French speaking leaders. - to promote French language cultural values, the Parti Quebecois-one of the province's leading political parties-advocates sovereignty, but voters have thus far not supported it. - confrontation has been replaced in Quebec by increased cooperation between French and English speakers. The neighborhoods of Montreal, quebec's largest city, have become more linguistically mixed, and 1/3 of Quebec's native English speakers have married French speakers in recent years.

Nigeria: spatial compromise (multilingual places)

- Nigeria has 529 distinct languages, according to ethnologue, but only 3 (Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba) are used by more than 10% of the country's population and only 4 others by between 1 and 10% of the population. - further splitting the country, the north is predominantly Muslim, and the south is predominantly Christian. Groups living in different regions of Nigeria have often battled. - the southern Igbo attempted to secede from Nigeria during the 1960s, and northerners have repeatedly claimed that the Yoruba discriminate against them. - to reduce these regional tensions, the government has moved the capital from Lagos in the Yoruba dominated southwest to Abuja in the center of the country, where none of the three major languages or two major religions predominates.

Occitan (dialects become languages)

- Occitan is spoken by about 2 million people in southern France and adjacent countries. - the name derives from the French region of Aquitaine, which in French has a similiar pronunciation to Occitan. - the French government has established bilingual elementary and high schools called calandretas in the Occitan region. These schools teach both French and Occitan, according to a curriculum established by the national ministry of education. - still, many people living in southern France want to see more efforts by the government of France to encourage the use of Occitan.

Belgium (barely speaking)

- a large boundary sharply divides the country of Belgium into two regions. Southern Belgians (walloons) speak French, whereas northern Belgians (flemings) speak Flemish, a dialect of the Germanic language Dutch. - antagonism between the flemings and walloons is aggravated by economic and political differences. Historically, the walloons dominated belgium's economy and politics, and French was the official state language. But in recent years Flanders has been much more prosperous than wallonia, and the Flemish speaking northerners do not wish to see their taxes spent in the poorer south. - in response to pressure from Flemish speakers, Belgium has been divided into two autonomous regions, Flanders and wallonia. Each elects an assembly that controls cultural affairs, public health, road construction, and urban development in its region. - but for many in Flanders, regional autonomy is not enough. They want to see Belgium divided into two independent countries.

Distinguishing dialects and languages

- distinguishing between dialects and distinct languages is a good example of global-local tensions. - migration, increased interaction, and other globalization processes have resulted in strengthening of standard languages and suppression of dialects. - On the other hand, desire for more local cultural identity has resulted in the emergence of distinct languages that were once considered dialects.

pronounciation (American and British English)

- from the time of their arrival in North America, colonists began to pronounce words differently from the British. Such divergence is normal, for interaction between the two groups was largely confined to exchange of letter and other printed matter rather than direct speech. - Americans pronounce unaccented syllables with more clarity than do British English speakers. The words secretary and necessary have 4 syllables in American English but only 3 in British (secret'ry and necess'ry). - surprisingly, pronunciation has changed more in England than in the U.S. A single dialect of southern English did not emerge as the British national standard until the late 18th century, after the American colonies had declared independence and were politically as well as physically isolated from England. - thus people in the u.s. do not speak "proper" English because when the colonists left England, "proper" English was not what it is today. Furthermore, few colonists were drawn from the English upper classes.

Moldovan (dialects become languages)

- generally classified as a dialect of Romanian, Moldovan is the official language of Moldova. Moldovan is written, like Russian, in Cyrillic letters, a legacy of Moldova being a part of the Soviet Union, whereas Romanian is written in Roman letters.

Standardized languages

- governments have long promoted the designation of a single dialect as the official or standard language in order to promote cultural unity. For example, the standard form of French derives from francien, which was once a dialect of the ile-de-France region of the country. - Francien became the standard form of French because the region included Paris, which became the capital and largest city of France. - Francien French became the country's official language in the 16th century, and local dialects tended to disappear as a result of the capitals longtime dominance over French political, economic, social life. - to unify Spanish, the members of the Spanish royal academy meet every week in a mansion in Madrid to clarify rules for the vocabulary, spelling, and pronunciation of the Spanish language around the world. The academy's official dictionary, published in 1992, has added hundreds of Spanish words that originated either in the regional dialects of Spain or the Indian languages of Latin America. - several Portuguese speaking countries agreed in 1994 to standardize the way their common language is written. - the standardization of Spanish and Portuguese is a reflection of the level of interaction that is possible in the modern world between groups of people who live tens of thousands of km apart. Books and television programs produced in one country diffuse rapidly to other countries where the same language is used.

Multilingual places

- multiple languages coexist in some countries, with varying degrees of success. - one cultural group living in a region of the country may speak one language, while a group elsewhere in the country uses another language. - in other countries, speakers of various languages intermingle. Some countries have devised strategies to promote peaceful coexistence among speakers of different languages, whereas others gave challenges among the cultural groups.

Appalachian English

- natives of Appalachian communities, such as in rural West Virginia, also have a distinctive dialect, pronouncing hollow as "holler" and creek as "crick," for example. - distinctive grammatical practices include the use of the double negative as in Ebonics and adding "a" in front of verbs ending in "ing," such as a-sitting. - an Appalachian dialect is a source of regional identity but has long been regarded by other Americans as a sign of poor education and an instance to obtaining employment in other regions of the U.S. - some Appalachian residents are "bidialect": they speak standard English outside Appalachia and slip back into their regional dialect at home.

Italy's languages (dialects become languages)

- several languages in Italy that have been traditionally considered dialects of Italian are now viewed by ethnologue as sufficiently different to merit classification as languages distinct from Italian. These include: Lombard, napoletano-calebrese, Piemontese, Sicilian, and Venetian. These languages do not have official national status but are recognized by regional governments within Italy.

African American English

- some African Americans speak a dialect of English heavily influenced by the group's distinctive heritage of forced migration from Africa during the 18th century to be slaves in the southern colonies. - African American slates preserved a distinctive dialect in part to communicate in a code not understood by their white masters. Black dialect words such as gumbo and jazz have long side diffused into the standard English language. - in the 20th century, many African Americans migrated from the south to the large cities in the northeast and Midwest. Living in racially segregated neighborhoods within northern cities and attending segregated schools, many African Americans preserved their distinctive dialect. That dialect has been termed African American vernacular English (AAVE). - the American speech, language and hearing association classifies AAVE as a distinct dialect, with recognized vocabulary, grammar, and word meaning. - use of AAVE is controversial within the African American community. On one hand, some regard it as substandard, a measure of poor education, and an obstacle to success in the U.S. Others see AAVE as a means for preserving a distinctive element of African American culture and an effective way to teach African Americans who otherwise perform poorly in school.

American and British English

- the English language was brought to the North American continent by colonists from England who settled along the Atlantic coast beginning in the 17th century. Therefore, the earliest colonists were most responsible for the dominant language patterns that exist today in the English speaking part of the Western Hemisphere. - U.S. English differs from the English of England in 3 significant ways: vocabulary, spelling, and pronunciation

Distribution of U.S. dialects

- the U.S. has 4 major dialect regions: north, midland, south and west. - the most comprehensive classification of dialects in the U.S. was made by Hans kurath in 1949. - the 3 eastern dialect regions can also be divided into several subdialects. The regional dialects display some familiar differences in pronunciation. For example: - the south dialect includes making such words as half and mine into two syllables. - the north dialect is well known for dropping the r sound, so that heart and lark are pronounced hot and lock. - the current distribution of U.S. dialects can be traced to differences in the origin of the English colonists along the east coast: north, south, midland. - the English dialect spoken by the first colonists, who arrived in the 17th century, determined the future speech patterns for their communities because later immigrants adopted the language used in their new homes when they arrived. The language may have been modified somewhat by the new arrivals, but the distinctive elements brought over by the original settlers continued to dominate. - the diffusion of particular English dialects across the U.S. is a result of the westward movement of colonists from the 3 east coast dialect regions. - the north and south accents sound unusual to the majority of Americans because the standard pronunciation throughout the American west comes from the midland rather than the north and south regions. This pattern occurred because most western settlers came from the midland. - many words that were once regionally distinctive are now national in distribution. Mass media, especially TV, influence the adoption of the same words throughout the country. - Nonetheless, regional dialect differences persist in the U.S.

Switzerland: institutionalized diversity (multilingual places)

- the boundary between the romance and Germanic branches runs through the middle of Belgium and Switzerland. Belgium has had more difficulty than Switzerland in reconciling the interests of the different language speakers. - Switzerland has 4 official languages. These 4 languages predominate in different parts of the country. Swiss voters made Romansh and official language in a 1938 referendum, despite the small percentage of people who use the language. - the Swiss, relatively tolerant of citizens who speak other languages, have institutionalized cultural diversity by creating a form of government that places considerable power in small communities. The key is a long tradition of decentralized government, in which local authorities hold most of the power, and decisions are frequently made by voter referenda.

North (distribution of U.S. dialects)

- the current distribution of U.S. dialects can be traced to differences in the origin of the English colonists along the east coast: north, south, midland 1. North: 2/3 of the New England colonists were puritans from east Anglia in southeastern England, and only a few came from the north of England. The characteristic dropping of the r sound is shared with speakers from the south of England.

South (distribution of U.S. dialects)

- the current distribution of U.S. dialects can be traced to differences in the origin of the English colonists along the east coast: north, south, midland 2. South: about 1/2 came from southeastern England, although they represented a diversity of social class backgrounds, including deported prisoners, indentured servants, and political and religious refugees.

Midland (distribution of U.S. dialects)

- the current distribution of U.S. dialects can be traced to differences in the origin of the English colonists along the east coast: north, south, midland 3. Midland: these immigrants were more diverse. The early settlers of Pennsylvania were predominantly quakers from the north of England. Scots and Irish also went to Pennsylvania, as well as to New Jersey and Delaware. The idle Atlantic colonies also attracted many Germans, Dutch, and Swedish immigrants who learned their English from the English speaking settlers in the area.

Isogloss

- the distribution of dialects is documented through the study of particular words. - every word that is not used nationally has some geographic extent within the country and therefore has boundaries. ** such a word-usage boundary, known as an isogloss, can be constructed for each word. - isoglosses are determined by collecting data directly from people, particularly natives of rural areas. People are shown pictures to identify or are given sentences to complete with a particular word. - although every word has a unique isogloss, boundary lines of different words coalesce in some locations to form boundaries.

Vocabulary (American and British English)

- the vocabulary of U.S. English differs from the English of England largely because settlers in America encountered many new objects and experiences.

English dialects

- when speakers of a language migrate to other locations, various dialects of that language may develop. This was the case with the migration of English speakers to North America several hundred years ago. - because of its large number of speakers and widespread distribution, English has an especially large number of dialects and subdialects.

Galician (dialects become languages)

- whether Galician, which is spoken in northwestern Spain and northeastern Portugal, is a dialect of Portuguese or a distinct language is debated among speakers of Galician. - the academy of Galician language considers it a separate language and a symbol of cultural independence. The Galician association of the language prefers to consider it a dialect because as a separate language, it would be relegated to a minor and obscure status, whereas a dialect of Portuguese, it can he influence one of the world's most widely used languages.

Creole

A creole, or creolized language, is a language that results from the mixing of a colonizer's language with the indigenous language of the people being dominated. - a creolized language forms when the colonized group adopts the language of the dominant group but makes some changes, such as simplifying grammar and adding words from the former language. - examples include French creole in Haiti, Papiamento (creolized Spanish) in Netherlands Antilles (West Indies), and Portuguese creole in the Cape Verde islands off the African coast. - these creole languages spoken in former colonies are classified as separate lanaguges because they differs substantially from the original introduced by European colonizers.

Dialect

A regional variety of a language distinguished by vocabulary, spelling, and pronunciation. - generally speakers of one dialect can understand speakers of another dialect.

Standard language

In a language with multiple dialects, one dialect may be recognized as the standard language, which is a dialect that is well established and widely recognized as the most acceptable for government, business, education, and mass communication.

Received Pronunciation (RP) (England)

In the case of England, the standard language is known as received pronunciation. It is well known around the world as the dialect commonly used by politicians, broadcasters, and actors.

Subdialect

Is a subdivision of a dialect. - two subdialects of the same dialect share relatively few differences, primarily in pronunciation and a small amount of vocabulary. - geographers are especially interested in differences in dialects and subdialects because they reflect distinctive features of the environments in which group live.

Ebonics

Since 1996, the term ebonics, a combination of ebony and phonics, has sometimes been used as a synonym for AAVE. - among the distinctive elements of Ebonics are the use of double negatives, such as "I ain't going there no more" and such sentences as "she be at home" instead of "she is usually at home."