The Geography

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• The Geography
• of Languages and Religions

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Language Religion

• Two most important forces that bond and define
  human cultures
• Each originated in a distinct hearth
• Two most important of all types of cultural
  regions

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Defining Language

• Language - Pronunciation and combination of words
  used to communicate within a group of people
• Important cultural index each language has a
  unique way of dealing with facts, ideas, and
  concepts.
• Structures individual perception of world

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Language Regions

• Dialects
• Minor variations within a language
• Standard language
• Following formal rule of diction and grammar
• Official language
• Particular language for any given country
• Lingua franca - Current language of international
  discourse (English)

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Linguistic Geography

• The study of different dialects across space
• Speech community sounds are localized only
  among a group of people who speak together
• Isoglosses boundary lines around places where
  speakers use linguistic features in the same way
• Parallel physical landscape features
• Geographical dialect continuum chain of
  dialects or languages spoken across an area

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Worlds Major Languages

• 7,299 distinct languages (ethnologue)
• 50 of world population speak one of 12 major
  languages listed
• Mandarin Chinese is largest with 885 million
• English is the primary language of 350 million
  and is the official language of about 50 countries

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Language Development

• Protolanguage
• Common ancestor to any group of todays languages
• Language family
• Languages related by descent from a common
  protolanguage
• Cognate a word that clearly looks like or
  sounds like another word which it is related to
• Etymology- the study of word origins and history

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Indo-European Language Family

• Identified by Sir William Jones, 1786
• Proto-Indo-European
• Common ancestor of many modern languages
• Grimms Law rules to describe regular shifts in
  sounds that occurred when various Indo-European
  languages diverged
• Set forth by Jacob Grimm of the Brothers Grimm

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Geography of Writing

• Orthography - system of writing
• Independent inventions of writing
• Sumerians Mesopotamia before (3000 B.C.)
• Olmec Central America (650 B.C.)
• Alphabets system of letters which represent
  sounds
• Roman modern western European languages
  Kazakhstan
• Cyrillic Greek alphabet augmented by Saint
  Cyril
• Arabic language of the Koran (uniting force)
• Non-alphabetic each character represents a word
  or concept
• Chinese, Japanese, Korean

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Toponymy- The study of place names

• Consists of
• Natural features (Oak Bay)
• Origins/values of inhabitants (British Colombia)
• Belief structures, religions (Islamabad place
  of Islam)
• Current or past heroes (St. Petersburg)

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Linguistic Differentiation

• National languages
• Iceland and Japan exclusive to the country
• Nation building
• Philological nationalism mother tongues have
  given rise to nationalism
• Postcolonial societies
• Imposed official languages by colonial ruler
• Not spoken by locals

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Multiple Language States

• Polyglot states
• Having multiple official languages
• United States
• English always lingua franca
• Three major dialects in 13 colonies
• Non-English languages creole, french, spanish

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Language Vocab.

• British Received Pronunciation (BRP) standard
  form of British speech used by upper class
  Britons
• Creole 159 mix of colonizers language and
  indigenous language of people being colonized
• Ebonics African American dialect heavily
  influenced by Western African languages
• Extinct language 168 once in use, even in the
  recent past
• Franglais combination of French and English
• Ideograms written character that usually
  represents a concept rather than a pronunciation
• Isolated language a language that is not
  related to any other

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Language Vocab. Cont

• Language Branch a collection of language
  related to a common ancestral language that
  existed several thousands of years ago
• Language group a collection of languages within
  a branch that share a common origin, i.e. West
  Germanic
• Literary Tradition 146
• Pidgin Language includes grammar rules of
  lingua franca and some elements of a native
  language
• Spanglish combination of Spanish and English
  (Cubonics) bacuncliner
• Vulgar Latin non standard literary Latin spread
  by Roman Soldiers

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Worlds Major Religions

• Systems of beliefs guiding behavior
• Orthopraxy
• Ethic and pscyhological based belief systems
• (Shintoism, Taoism, Confucianism)
• Orthodoxy
• Philosophical and theological based belief system
• Fundamentalism strict adherence to traditional
  beliefs
• Secularism lifestyle or policy that purposely
  ignores or excludes religious considerations

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Judaism

• 14 million adherents
• Monotheistic
• Pentateuch
• First five books of the Old Testament
• Sects
• Orthodox - fundamentalist
• Conservative, Reform
• Israel
• Homeland for Jewish people
• Created 1948
• Conflict between Israel and Palestine

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Christianity

• Emerged from Judaism
• Coptic Church
• Founded in Alexandria in A.D. 41
• Official religion of Roman Empire
• Facilitated geographical spread
• Dark Ages church was the focal point for
  medieval people
• Protestant Reformation Martin Luther
• Significant growth in Africa, Asia and Latin
  America

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Islam

• Muhammad (570 -632)
• Allah one god
• Cognate of eloh
• Five Pillars of Islam
• Belief in one God
• Five daily prayers
• Charity generous alums
• Fasting during Ramadan
• Pilgrimage to Mecca (hajj)
• Sects
• Sunni leader is chosen (85)
• Shiite leader is descendant of Muhammad (15)

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Hinduism Sikhism

• Hinduism - Most ancient religious tradition in
  Asia
• Vedas Hindu sacred texts
• Reincarnation, Karma
• Castes
• Brahman, priestly
• Kshatriya, warrior
• Vaisya, tradesman and farmer
• Sudra, servant and laborer
• Untouchables
• Sikhism
• Offshoot of Hinduism
• Guru Nanak combined teaching of Hinduism and
  Islam

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Buddhism

• Buddha Enlightened One (Siddhartha- Hindu
  prince)
• Four Noble Truths
• Life involves suffering
• Cause of suffering is desire
• Elimination of desire ends suffering
• Right thinking and behavior eliminate desire
• 8 Fold Path can Nirvana
• Diffused from India East/SE Asia, Tibet, Nepal

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Other Religions

• Eastern Religions
• Confucianism based on The Analects (governed
  Chinas political and moral culture for 2,000
  years)
• Taoism 3rd Century, Tao-te Ching (Live in
  harmony w/ nature)
• Shinto native to Japan, recognized emperor as
  divine
• Animism and Shamanism
• Animism
• Belief in ubiquity of spirits or spiritual
  forces, hierachies of divinities
• Shamanism
• Shaman is a medium who goes into hupnotic
  trances communes with the sprit world

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Religion Politics

• Freedom of religion most countries guarantee
  this and observe a form of secularism (political
  boundaries stabalize religious affiliations) (see
  map pg 305)
• Theocracy
• Church rules directly (Iran)
• Separation of church and state
• Islamic is inherently political
• United States several states established as
  theocracies
• Treaty between US and Tripoli 1797 U.S. gov is
  not based on Christian religion
• Terrorism Fundamentalism (failure of education
  (pg 303), bombing Abortion clinics

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Social Impact of Religion

• Gender roles
• Womens rights
• Diet
• Vegetarians
• Pork, beef cultural taboos, cows, pigs wars and
  witches
• Alcohol
• Ethics and morals
• Schools and institutions

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Economic Impact

• Burial practices
• Protestantism and capitalism
• Catholic Church and capitalism
• Confucianism verses individualism

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Religion and Environment

• Burial practices
• Origin of the world
• Relationship with nature
• Exploitive approach
• Adaptive approach

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Religion Vocab. Cont

• Animism Believe that inanimate objects have
  spirits
• Autonomous Religion self sufficient and
  interaction among communities is confined to
  little more than loose cooperation
• Branch a large and fundamental division within
  a religion
• Caste The class or distinct hereditary order
  into which a Hindu is assigned according to
  religious law
• Cosmogony Set of beliefs concerning the origin
  of the universe
• Denomination is a division of a branch that
  unites a number of local congregations in a
  single legal and administrative body
• Ethnic Religion Relatively concentrated spatial
  distribution whose characteristics of the
  physical characteristics of the particular
  location

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Religion Vocab. Cont

• Fundamentalism - strict adherence to basic
  principles of a religion
• Ghetto city neighborhood where Jews were forced
  to live
• Hierarchical Religion well defined geographic
  structure that organizes territory into local
  administrative units
• Missionary individuals who help to transmit a
  universalizing religion
• Pagan follower of a polytheistic religion
  countryside
• Sect small group that has broken away from a
  denomination
• Universalizing Religion attempt to be global
  and appeal to all people wherever they live
• Liberation Theology the idea that the Catholic
  church should work to liberate oppressed people
  through political activistm