Language

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Language

• Language is like luggage, people carry it with
  them when they move from place to place

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Language Stats

• How many languages do you speak?
• Dutch schools require learning at least 2 foreign
  languages
• Only 30 of American high school students
  graduate with 3 or more years of a foreign
  language
• 17 have never taken a foreign language
• There are an estimated 7,299 languages spoken
  worldwide

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Language

• System of communication through speech, a
  collection of sounds that a group of people
  understands to have the same meaning.
• Some languages have a literary tradition, system
  of written communication
• Official Language language officially used by
  the government for laws, reports and public
  objects such as road signs, money and stamps

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English Speaking Countries
Fig. 5-1 English is the official language in 42
countries, including some in which it is not the
most widely spoken language. It is also used and
understood in many others.
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Origin and Diffusion of English

• English has been diffused mostly through English
  colonialism
• English is a Germanic language, influenced by
  years of invasions
• Celtic people pushed north
• German invasion
• Norman invasion

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Old and Middle English Dialects
Fig. 5-3 The main dialect regions of Old English
before the Norman invasion persisted to some
extent in the Middle English dialects through the
1400s.
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Invasions of England5th11th centuries
Fig. 5-2 The groups that brought what became
English to England included Jutes, Angles,
Saxons, and Vikings. The Normans later brought
French vocabulary to English.
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Dialects

• A dialect is a regional variation of a language
  distinguished by distinctive vocabulary, spelling
  and pronunciation
• Generally, speakers of one dialect can understand
  speakers of another
• Dialects reflect distinctive features of the
  environment in which groups live

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Differences between British and American English

• Vocabulary and Spelling
• Check/cheque
• Catalog/catalogue
• Color/colour
• Theater/theatre
• Pronunciation

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Dialects in the United States

• US dialects originated because of the difference
  between original settlers
• Isogloss a boundary that separates regions in
  which different language usages predominate
• Different dialects might use different words
• Soda/pop/coke

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Dialects in the Eastern U.S.
Fig. 5-4 Hans Kurath divided the eastern U.S.
into three dialect regions, whose distribution is
similar to that of house types (Fig. 4-9).
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Minor Dialects Today