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A Mosaic of Languages

Languages are either living and changing over time, dead but surviving in written form, or becoming extinct. A world of over 6,900 languages are grouped into families that originated from a common ancestor, though about half the global population speaks just eight languages, including Mandarin Chinese, English, Hindi, and Spanish. Linguists have determined that many European and Asian languages like Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin originated from a single ancient language called Proto-Indo-European traced back over 6,000 years to Western Asia.

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558 views3 pages

A Mosaic of Languages

Languages are either living and changing over time, dead but surviving in written form, or becoming extinct. A world of over 6,900 languages are grouped into families that originated from a common ancestor, though about half the global population speaks just eight languages, including Mandarin Chinese, English, Hindi, and Spanish. Linguists have determined that many European and Asian languages like Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin originated from a single ancient language called Proto-Indo-European traced back over 6,000 years to Western Asia.

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zoe
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A MOSAIC OF LANGUAGES

The Tower of Babel by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1563)


    
  "No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as
representing the same social reality. the worlds in which different cultures live
are distinct worlds, not merely the same world with different labels attached."
Edward Sapir, linguist

 A world of languages
Languages can be living, dead, become extinct or move from place to place.

A living language or modern language is in a continuous state of change. This


change can be over the course of several hundred years. For example, the
English Chaucer used is very different from the English Shakespeare used,
which in turns is not the same as modern-day English. Language can mutate in
a shorter time span, from one generation to the next. Vocabulary, expressions
and idioms can alter in their frequency of use, become obsolete, develop and
modernise or be added to the language. The same language can also change
through geography. Modern English spoken in Britain, North America and
Australia has different vocabulary and grammar usage.

If two groups of people speaking the same language are separated, in time they
will develop different accents and vocabulary will change, but they will still
understand each other. When this happens a dialect is created. Within a nation
there can be many dilects.

A dead language is one that is no longer learned as a native language. Some


dead languages have survived in the written form. Examples of well known
dead languages are Ancient Greek, Latin and Sanskrit.
Throughout human history the language of powerful groups have spread, while
the languages of smaller cultures have become extinct. The rate of language
disappearance has accelerated dramatically in recent years and today many
"smaller" languages are in real danger of completely disappearing.

Through conquest and invasion and due to migration, languages can move
from place to place or be transported from one country to another. For example,
English to North America, French to Canada, Spanish and Portuguese to South
America and Arabic to Northern Africa.

As of 2010, the population of the world stands at 6.9 billion and is expected to
reach 9 billion by the year 2050. Within this world population, there are about
6,900 distinct languages currently spoken. All of these languages are grouped
into language families. This means that they are related languages originating
from a common ancestor. For example, Hungarian, Finnish and Mordvin
(Siberia) all come from the Uralic family.

However, despite there being so many languages on this Earth, about half of
the world´s population speak one of the following eight languages only:
Mandarin Chinese, English, Hindi, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Bengali and
Portuguese.
Source: "Eye Witness", by Adriana Redaelli and Daniela Invernizzi, (p. 12)

Indo-European
About half of the world´s population speak languages coming from a common
origin. Sir William Jones, a British linguist, made this important hypothesis
about two centuries ago. While he was studying Sanskrit, the ancient language
of India, he noticed that it had many affinities with ancient Greek and Latin.
Jones concluded that these three languages came from a common source, a
language which no longer exists, Scholars call this language Indo-European.
Recent theories locate the origins of the Indo-European language more than
6,000 years ago in western Asia.
(Source: "EYEWITNESS, Culture in a Changing World," by  Adriana Redaelli and Daniela Invernizzi)

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