Unveiling Language Inequality: The Diversity of World Languages

1. Languages of the World

2. Language inequality • 5.6 percent of languages (398 languages)are spoken as L1 by 94.36845 percent of the world’s population. • 48.5 percent of the world’s population speaks 8 languages. • Chinese > Spanish> English > Arabic>Hindi > Portuguese > Bengali > Russian • 24.8 percent of languages are spoken by less than 1000 people. (Ethnologue)

3. Language inequality • Only about 1/3 of languages are written. • Some languages are described better than others. • Some languages supersede others. • NB: The same is true for other levels; cf. the dialect inequality.

4. Language inequality The theories of Language rely on specific languages: Their conclusions are based on languages … which are more accessible, which are described better, which are more understandable, which are most prominent, which are still alive. • Are these conclusions fully justified?

5. How many languages are there in the world? • Genetic grouping • Areal grouping • Typological grouping • About 7 thousand. Grouping languages together

6. Some important notions • Isogloss – the geographical boundary of a linguistic feature, or a feature itself discussed in the context of its geographical distribution. • Convergence – the process whereby lects get more common features, usually as a result of language contact. • Metatypy – change in morphosyntactic type and grammatical organisation which a language undergoes as a result of its speakers’ bilingualism in another language • Divergence – the process whereby lects diverge from each other.

7. Genetic grouping Family tree model • The languages are grouped together if they have a common ancestor. • NB: Terminology problem • family, branch, group, sub-… • macro-family, stock, phylum

8. Genetic grouping • Subgrouping… • on the basis of shared innovations – innovation-based method • Problems: residual groups, whose members do not share any common features differentiating them from other groups, potential rise of the same innovation in unrelated groups. • on the basis of common “basic vocabulary” – distance-based method • “basic vocabulary” – the list of the most stable words which are (believed to be) less likely to be replaced with noncognate words • grouping together on the basis of larger similarities in basic vocabulary

9. Genetic grouping • The tree model works better in the case of more isolated lects. • However, quite often innovations show more complex distribution. Lects: A B C D Innovations: a,b a,b,c b,c c

10. Genetic grouping Wave model • originally, an alternative to the Tree Model, yet is often used to complement the latter • Innovations spread from central or focal areas to other areas (transitional areas). • (Central areas are not arbitrary.) • Different innovations may have different central areas.

11. Genetic grouping Wave Model Innovations: a,ba,b,cb,c c

12. Areal grouping • Linguistic area – at a first approximation, the geographical context of a language

13. From languages to areas • Similarities between geographically close languages which can be explained neither by genetic relations nor by typological laws. • Possible explanations: • common substrate language; • language contact

14. What determines contact influence? • the duration of the contact • the size of the contacting populations • the economic domination of one group by another group • the cultural domination and influence • religious influence • ... • Normally, the language contact is asymmetric and is related to the domination of one language by another language.

15. What is borrowed? • Everything, but… • Unmarked features are borrowed more easily than marked features. • The phenomena which are more integrated in morphosyntax are borrowed less easily than the phenomena which are less integrated in morphosyntax. • Typologically more appropriate structures are borrowed more easily (alternatively, borrowed structures may be reanalysed as typologically appropriate).

16. From languages to areas • Language area / Sprachbund (after Н.С. Трубецкой) - a group of languages characterized by a considerable number of common features resulted from language contact. • Balkan linguistic area (Bulgarian, Serbo-Croatian?, Makedonian, Greek, Albanian, Romanian, Turkish?): postposed article, poor morphological system, the lack of infinitive, future tense based on an auxiliary / particle originally meaning ‘will, want’,evidentiality, objects doubled with pronominal clitics, WHERE(ESS) = WHERE(LAT), etc.

17. Some problems for sprachbunds: • Language contacts may be different • Languages which are closely related genetically may also show contact-induced common features, which are, however, hardly distinguishable from shared innovations. • Isoglosses may cover different languages even within a single linguistic area. • The boundaries of a linguistic area may be not that clear-cut. • Contacts are not always based on geography.

18. From areas to languages • Languages of the world are distributed unevenly. 2008

19. From areas to languages • Geographical zones differ in their language density. • Language density:the number of languages per n speakers or n km2. • Geographical zones differ in their genetic density. • Genetic density: the number of different language groups per n speakers or n km2. • What determines the linguistic characteristics of a geographical zone? – J. Nichols

20. From areas to languages • Language density correlates, for example: • with the landscape Natural barriers increase language density (mountains, islands). Their absence decreases language density (steppe, coastal areas). • with the latitude and climate Language density increases closer to the equator. • with the lifestyle Nomadism decreases language density. Fishery increases language density. • with marriage constraints Endogamy increases language density

21. От ареала к языкам