Classification of Human Languages
Why to classify languages?
- How many different languages exist?
- How old are the languages?
- Is there a common ancestor of all the languages?
- How do languages evolve?
Three main types of language classification:
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Areal classification
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Different languages spoken in the same area tend to present common characteristics (Why?).
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Ex.: use of French words in English.
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Typological classification
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Common features of languages used in the classification.
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Ex.: tonal languages such as Chinese and Vietnamese, versus flatten languages such as Japanese.
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Are similar languages necessarily related?
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Genetic classification
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Languages share ancestors.
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Ex.: Romance languages descend from Latin: Catalan, French, Italian, Portuguese, Rumanian, Spanish
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Ex.: English <- Western German <- Proto-Germanic <- Balto-Slavo-Germanic <- Proto-Indo-European
Universal versus Specific:
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Which properties are present in every language?
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Which properties are specific of languages?
Typological classification: word building:
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Isolating/root/analytic languages:
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There are no endings - words are not inflected
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All grammatical relationships are shown through the use of word order and/or independent grammatical units (particles, words).
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E.x.: Mandarin: Wo(I) mai(buy) juzi(orange) chi(eat)
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Agglutinating languages (Lat. agglutinare `to glue together')
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Word is built up out of a long linear sequence.
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Often a single morpheme constitutes a sentence.
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E.g. in Swahili: mimi ni -na -ku -penda wewe . me I PRESENT you love you
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Inflectional/fusion languages:
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Grammatical relationships are expressed by changing the internal structure of the words through inflections
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Suffixes typically express several grammatical meanings.
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E.g. in Polish: szloch-am (-am = 1sg, pres. or cont. tense, active, indicative) 'I am sobbing'
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Many Indo-European and Semitic languages belong to this group.
Typological classification: subject/object/verb order:
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SVO: He killed the dragon.
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60% of languages.
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Ex.: English, Vietnamese, and Portuguese.
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SOV: He the dragon killed.
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15% of languages.
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Ex.: Japanese, Korean, Georgian, Cherokee.
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VSO: Killed he the dragon.
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15% of languages:
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Ex.: Welsh and Hawaiian.
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VOS: Killed the dragon he.
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Less than 10% of languages.
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Ex.: Malagasy.
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OVS: A dragon killed he.
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Ex.: Hixkaryana (Amazonian Language).
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OSV: A dragon he killed.
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Ex.: Apurina (Amazonia Language).
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Ordering is not absolute.
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Ex.: OSV: what fools these mortals be (Shakespeare).
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What is the favored ordering of master Yoda (Star Wars)
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“A sign you shall see”.
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“Your father he is”.
Genetic Classification:
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Most languages share common ancestors.
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E.x.: English and German; Portuguese and Rumanian; Mandarin and Cantonese.
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Genetic markers: characteristics shared by related languages that hardly would happen by chance.
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Chance of independent occurrence must be close to zero (Why?).
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Likelihood of diffusion must be low (Why?).
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Cognate words:
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Words that share a common origin.
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Ex.: night (English), Nacht (German), noc (Czech), nox (Latin), and nakti (Sanskrit)
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But, take care: two (English), tu (Korean); dog (Mbabaram).
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False cognates: habere (Latin)/haben(German). Do you know any other false cognate?
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Glottochronology:
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Permit to determine the age of a language.
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Same principle as dating based on decay of Carbon 14.
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Languages lose words. One out of five at each one thousand years.
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List of universal words (cognates). Can you guess some of these words?
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Languages more close related share more cognates.
Family of related languages:
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Currently, between 6000 and 7000 languages grouped in 300 Stocks.
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Stock: a set of languages that share a common origin.
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Ex.: Indo-European, Kartvelian, Basque.
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Stocks can be represented by trees. How the previous stocks look like?
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Examples of families of languages:
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Niger-Congo, Austronesian, Trans-New Guine, Indo-European, Sino-Tibetan, Afro-Asiatic(includes semitic languages), Australian, Nilo-Saharan, Oto-Manguean, Austro-Asiatic, Sepik-Ramu, Tai-Kadai, Tupi, Dravidian, Mayan.
Applications of Language Classification
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The age of languages:
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Age of the genus Homo: 1,800,000. Most conservative estimate for the Homo Sapiens: 100,000 -> Maximum age of languages.
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Number of stocks grows approximately 50% every 6000 years. There are 300 stocks. How to estimate the age of languages? How to explain discrepancies?
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Language reconstruction:
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Internal reconstruction: only one language as source of data.
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External reconstruction: relationships between genetically related languages.
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Ex.: word for father in Latin.
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Descendents of Latin: Italian (padre), Catalan (pare), French (Pere).
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Weakening: t may have changed into d
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Metathesis: er may have changed into re;
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Vowel reduction: a in the first syllable my have changed into e.
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Possible forms: pater, peter, p?ter, etc
How to explain the diversity of languages?
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Small, isolated populations: New Guine, Central Africa, and South America before the arrival of Europeans.
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Social stratification: vulgar Latin: Romance languages.
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Contact between different cultures:
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Pidgin: language created spontaneously to facilitate communication between peoples from different cultures. Caribbean pidgin (slaves from different tribes), Portuguese traders.
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Creole: language that originated from a pidgin. Ex.: Macanese is a Portuguese Creole spoken in Macau. Chinese and Malay substrate.
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Example: the evolution of the Portuguese language.
Examples of Classification:
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Russian <- East Slavic <- Slavic <- Indo-European
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Sister languages: Belarusian, Ukrainian, Rusyn
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Franch <- Oil <- Gallo-Rhaetian <- Gallo-Romance <- Italic Romance <- Indo-European
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Sister languages: Lombard, Piedmontese, Ligurian, Franco-Provencal
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Mandarin <- Chinese <- Sino-Tibetan
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Sister languages: Wu, Xiang, Gan, Hakka, Cantonese, Min.
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