Language: Unit Ii Human Geography B.A. /B.Sc. II Semester (Section A)

UNIT II
Human Geography
B.A. /B.Sc. II Semester (Section A)
Language
Communication is vital in social intercourse, it may be verbal (sound, dialect or language)
or may be expressed by body language. Language is a cultural form of enduring value: in
fact a culture can hardly survive if it has no language which helps in its cultural
accommodation and historical transmission. For geographers language is a major means by
which cultural diffusion, both spatial and temporal, takes place. “for this reason
geographers often use language as an identification mark for different cultures. Because
language is essential to communication, it strongly influences the sort of political, social
and economic institutions we create. As a result economic and religious systems frequently
follow patterns of language distribution and political borders quite often parallel linguistic
boundaries. In short, human linguistic patterns make a highly varied mosaic whose design
both affect and is affected by many elements of culture and the physical environment.”
Language has no relationship with race. “language characterizes a people and not
necessarily a nation, because the spoken and written language is what determines the unity
of culture.” India’s official language is Hindi but it has as many as 18 scheduled languages
recognized by the Constitution of India. The linguistic diversity in the U.S.A owes to the
cultural diversity ‘of the immigrants who have settled there.
“The physical environment has a pronounced influence on vocabulary. Abstract ideas

always depend for their expression on the state of civilization but concrete words are
related to the necessities and possibilities of the environment”.
In modern times linguistic diffusion has been facilitated by trade, tourism, media and
international organizations. It has helped in the development of “linguistic pluralism”.
Linguistic Culture Areas: Geographers have attempted the delineation of linguistic culture
areas on the basis of speech dialect “as no two words, phrases, or pronunciations have
exactly the same spatial distribution”. By this approach it is possible to map the German
Language Cultural Area or the Spanish Language Cultural Area etc. but difficulties arise
where a dividing line encounters a zone of bilingualism as in Belgaum district of Karnataka
where Marathi and Kannad speakers have spatial mixing or where linguistic pluralism has
resulted by cultural fusion of different nationalistic and ethnic groups.
Linguistic Classification
The linguistic diversity in the world is highly puzzling because the spatial mosaic of
languages is highly complex. The linguistics have attempted to resolve this problem by
classifying the different languages into families “related tongues from a common ancestral
speech”.
1. The Indo-European Family: it is the most dominant in the world. It includes

several sub families like Indian, Iranian, Armenian, Germanic, Italic, Hellenic, Albanian,
Balto-Salvic and Celtic languages. The Indo -European family is derived from single
original dialect (proto-language) spoken by the kurgans whose home land was the
Eurasian steppes around 4,300 B.C. with their migration and conquest in different parts
of the Europe, Asia, Anglo-America, Latin America, Australia and Africa they spread
over a vast territory, so did their language which became differentiated into several
families due to geographical and cultural isolation. They all share words whose generic
origin can be traced to a common linguistic root. The Indian sub family includes
Sanskrit, Hindi, Punjabi, Bengali and other modern Indian Languages. Due to closer
affinity between Indian and Iranian languages they are included in the Indo-Aryan or
Indo-Iranian sub family (Persian-Iranian, Urdu-Pakistan, Hindi-India, and Bengali-
Bangladesh). The Germanic sub Family which is most prominent includes German,
English, Dutch, Danish and Norwegian languages. In the past main Eastern Germanic
language was Gothic. English, the most dominant Germanic language, had its origin
sometimes 1600 years back and is a fusion of three streams. Today it is an international
language and has assimilated thousands of words from other languages.
2. The Latin Family: the main language of latin family are French, Italian, Spanish,
Portuguese, Catalon, and Romanian; they all are called Romance languages as they were
spread by the Roman Empire. French and Spanish languages are the official languages
of the UNO like English. Spanish and Portuguese languages have wider distribution
because of their colonial rule in Latin America (South and Central America). French is
the national language of France, Switzerland, Canad, and several countries of Africa. The
Italian language has predominance in Italy, Sicily, Switzerland and some Islands of the
Mediterranean Sea.
3. The Balto-Slavic Family: it also belongs to Indo-European family and is most

preponderant in Eastern Europe and the Baltic States. The most important Slavic
language is Russian, an official language of the UNO. The other important languages of
this family are Ukranian, Byelorussian, Polish, Czech and Slavic.
4. The Sino-Tibetan Family: it includes Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Malay,
Vietnamese, Burmese etc. Chinese (Mandarin) is the largest spoken language of the
world (874million). It has main branches as Mndarin (spoken by 75% Chinese),
Cantonese, Min, Wu, Yue, and Hakka. Mandarin Chinese originally spoken in north-
eastern China, is the official language of the UNO and is also the national language of
China, Taiwan and Singapore. Min is spoken in china, Taiwan andMalaysia. Japanese
and Korean languages are limited to Japan, Korea and the Pacific Islands. Japanese is
spoken by 125 million people.
5. The Semito-Hamitic Family: the Semi to Hamitic family is completely unrelated

to the Indo- European family. In fact they originated before recorded time and were
closed linked with monotheism as practiced by Judaism, Christianity and Islam . It
include Arabic, Hebrew and a number of other language spoken in North Africa and
middle East. Arabic and Hebrew enjoy special status as they are the languages of Holy
Quran and Bible. Arabic is the seventh largest languages spoken by 172 million people
and is the official language of 20 countries including Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, Jordan,
Syria, UAE, Yeman, Egypt, Morocco and other countries of North Africa. Hebrew is the
national language of Israel where English and Arabic are also spoken.
6. The African Family: it is estimated that there are 1000 and odd languages and
dialects spoken in different countries of Africa. The linguistic pattern of North Africa is
well defined where Arabic is the dominant language among the Berber racial groups.
The dominant Negro-Congo group includes six languages viz.Mande, Gur, Kwa,
Adamawa and Benue-Congo. The Nilo-Saharan group is quite common in North Central
Africa while Khosian language group dominates South-Western Africa. The Swaheli is
the official language of Tanzania and East African countrieslike Kenya and has a well-
developed literature. The Zulu is spoken in Southern Africa and the Bantu began in
tropical Africa and spread south and east. Nigeria the most populous country of Africa
has as many as 200 languages with English, Hansa, Yoruba and Ibo. Eritrea (horn of
Africa) with a population of just 4 million has as many as 9 languages: Atar, Bilen,
Kunama, Nara; Arabic, Tobedawi, Saho, Tigra and Tigrinia. It amply illustrates the
pattern of linguistic Diversity in Africa.
7. Malayo-Polynesian Family: it is also called the Austronesian family. It is widely

spread from Madagascar to Hawaii through Indonesian and the PasificIslands. It was
carried by the navigators from island to island. The linguistic diversity ascribed to this
cultural realm owes to racial diversity as well as linguistic diffusion and blend. There
are several minor variations in the structure of individual languages and dialects and
they are written in different ways. “Arabic characters were often used in Muslim areas
though Roman script has now been opted, whereas adaptations of Indian languages are
used in Myanmar, Thailand, Lao and Kampuchea (Cambodia). Vietnamese was once
written with ideographs similar to those of Chinese, but is now written in Roman script
Linguistic Groups of the World

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UNIT II

“The physical environment has a pronounced influence on vocabulary. Abstract ideas

1. The Indo-European Family: it is the most dominant in the world. It includes

3. The Balto-Slavic Family: it also belongs to Indo-European family and is most

5. The Semito-Hamitic Family: the Semi to Hamitic family is completely unrelated

7. Malayo-Polynesian Family: it is also called the Austronesian family. It is widely

Linguistic Groups of the World

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