Chapter 9 The Diffusion of Languages

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Chapter 9 - The Diffusion of Languages

• Tracing Linguistic Diversification
• The Language Tree
• Theories of Language Diffusion
• Diffusion to the Pacific and the Americas
• Influence on Individual Languages

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Tracing Linguistic Diversification

• Hints from Analysis of Sound Shift
• - Milk - lacte (Latin) - latta (Italian) - leche
  (Spanish) and lait (French)
• - Eight - octo (Latin) - otto - ocho -huit
• Such backward reconstruction,called deep
  reconstruction, is crucial to linguistic
  research
• William Jones - discovered the resemblance
  between Sanskrit (ancient Indian language) and
  Greek and Latin in 18th century
• Jacob Grimm, 19th century, suggested that related
  languages have similar consonants which would
  change over time in a predictable way(Softening
  of consonants)

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Proto Indo-European Language

• Ancestral language
• The predecessor of Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit
• Link Romance language and other languages
  together
• To prove its existence
• 1) reconstruction
• 2) Locate the hearths
• 3) Diffusion routes must be traced
• 4) knowledge of the ways of life

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Divergence - August Schleicher

• Language divergence -languages differentiated
  over time and space
• 19th century, suggested by August Schleicher,
  Language - dialects - isolated dialects -
  discrete languages, for example - Spanish and
  Portuguese an now is Quebecois French
• languages spread by relocation diffusion, but
  sometimes cause long- isolated languages,
  difficult for reconstruction
• Replacement
• Invasion of major language causes the replacement
  process which make the reconstruction of small
  branch of the language complicate.
• Language Island - Hungarian, Finnish, Estonia and
  Basque survive (fig 8-3)

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Theories of Language Diffusion

• Conquest Theory
• from Black Sea (proposed homeland, today Ukraine
  and Russia) spread westward using horse and wheel
  and trading, sound shift represents a long period
  of westward divergence, beginning the diffusion
  and differentiation of Latin, Germanic and
  Slavonic languages
• Celtic group was pushed to the west of the Europe
  by newer language
• Agriculture Theory
• After more archeological records revealed, Luca
  Cavalli-Sforza and Robert Ammerman proposed that
  agriculture not conquest diffused the P-I-E
  languages. Proposed homeland - Anatolia (Turkey),
  between 7 and 9000 years ago.

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Agriculture Theory

• 1n 1984, Thomas Gamkrelidze and Victor Ivanov
  (who reconstructed most of Proto-Indo-European
  Language), proposed the source area Anatolia in
  modern Turkey
• Vocabulary - mountain streams, valleys, rapids,
  lakes, mountain trees, and other high-relief
  landforms

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Support for the Agr. Theory

• Analyses of protein (gene)-shows the evidence of
  the distance decay from southern Turkey
  -Balkans-west and northern Europe. Farming
  spread into Europe.
• Every generation (25yrs) Ag.frontier moved 11
  miles. In 1500yrs, European frontiers would have
  been completely penetrated by farmers (Ammerman
  and Cavallo-Sforza)

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Drawback of the Ag. theory

• Anatolian region not a good place for farming and
  no archeological evidence to support the culture
  hearth
• Some prefer the dispersal hypothesis (fig 9-2)
  and fig9-3

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The search for a superfamily

• Colin Renfrew - 3 Agr. Hearths
• 1) Anatolia -Indo-European
• 2) Western arc of Fertile Crescent - languages of
  Africa and Arabia
• 3) Eastern arc of Fertile Crescent - Iran,
  Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, later replaced
  by Indo-European

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The Renfrew Model
3 Agri. hearths 1) Anatolian -gt Europe
Indo-Europ 2) Western arc of the Fertile Crescent
-gt N Africa and Arabia 3) Eastern arc of the
Fertile Crescent -gt Iran, Irag, Afghanistan,
Pakistan and India, later replaced by Indo-Eur
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Russian Scholars-Vladislav Illich-Svitych and
Aharon Dologopolsky

• Nostratic - pre-Proto-Indo-European reconstructed
  by them independently
• No domesticated plants or animals in Nostratic -
  hunter-gatherers,not farmers- dogwolf means
  domestication of wolves
• About 14,000 years ago, dog bones were found -
  Nostratic may have been used.

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Nostratic

• Could be the ancestral language of
  1)Proto-Indo-European (Indo-European)
  2)Kartvelian language (southern Caucasus), 3)
  Uralic-Altaic (Hungarian, Finnish, Turkish and
  Mongolian) 4) Dravidian and 5) Afro-Asiatic
  (Arabic)
• But, we still dont know what gave rise to
  Nostratic.

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Pacific Diffusion

• Papuan from New Guinea,extended east- and
  westward
• Austronesian began in coastal China - Taiwan
  (6000yrs ago)
• Puzzles- 1)Why took so long from East Asia to
  islands off the Asias coast
• 2) Complexity due to invasion of other languages
  or isolation?
• 3) No Nostratic model for the languages of the
  Asian mainland reconstructed

Taiwan
Philippines
Malayo-Polynesian (Madagascar, Melaniesia Micrones
ia and Fiji)
Polynesian (Maori in New Zealand)
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Figure 9-6
Austronesian - reached Taiwan 6000 yrs ago (words
for rice, field, farm, water buffalo, plow and
canoe)

• New Zealand - 1000 years ago
• Australia - 50,000 to 60,000 years ago
• New Guinea - even earlier

Bellwoods Pacific-realm model shows the stages
in the expansion of Austronesian languages
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Diffusion in the Americas

• Native Americans, no more than 40 millions before
  the European invasion, came from Asia via Bering
  land bridge around 12,000 to 13,000 yrs ago (long
  believed)
• The Languages were supposed to be simple without
  other languages presence, but there are as many
  as 200 American Indian Languages now.
• Divergence occurred within short period of time
  after crossing Bering Land Bridge.
• The Greenberg Hypothesis-three indigenous
  American Languages -1)Oldest and largest
  -Amerind, 2) Na-Dene-Canada, Alaska and Apache
  and Navajo and 3) Eskimo-Aleut

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Greenberg Hypothesis

• If Amerind Languages are the same family, the
  divergence must have occurred during a period of
  more than 12000 yrs.
• Support and Controversies
• No proper reconstruction procedures involved
• He compared similar-sounding words in
  contemporary languages not sound-shifts.
• Supportive archeological data, first wave of
  migration may have happened 40,000 B.P.
• Dental data- supported three wave of migration
• Majority of linguists still doubt the 3-wave and
  3-family hypothesis.
• But, the controversy will be resolved from
  Genetic and Archeological research, eventually.

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Guatemala

• 15 30 N and 90 15 W
• Area - slightly smaller than Tennessee
• Pop - 12.6 million
• - 1.89 /1000 migrants
• Roman Catholic, Protestant, indigenous Mayan
  beliefs
• Languages - Spanish 60, Amerindian 40
• Literacy - 50, 75 below poverty line

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Individual Languages

• Remain in contact with each other-gtkeep the
  languages alive
• Three components influences worlds language
  mosaic

Writing-makes languages stabilized
Technology-interaction between people
Political Org - Limit access/scope

• Middle Ages - invention of
• printing press and rise of
• nation-state are important
• factors to the modern
• languages. Such as..
• Printings of Luther Bible in
• German and King James Bible
• in English set the standard
• forms of languages for
• Germany and English

• Chinese/Latin-dispersed languages
• over continents through Pol. org.
• Languages diverged after
• Roman Empire fell

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