436

Human Geograplhy
Bangladesh, and (ii) The western group is
I. The Indo-European Linguistic Family known as Iranian which is used by about
50 million people primarily in south-west
The Indo-European Family of Languages is Asia.
in the world.
most dominant and widespreadsub-families (i) Indicor Indian languages: Theresidents
Tt is constituted by several of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh (Indian sub
including Indic (Indian), Iranian, Armenian,
Germanic, Latin, Hellenic, Albanian, Balto continent) in majority speak an Indic language.
The Indic sub-family of languages includes
Slavic and Celtic languages. These Indo Sanskrit, Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Kashmiri,
European languages have a common ancestry. Assmese, Gujarati, Punjabi, Marathi, Oriya,
This family is derived from a single original and Singhalietc. In India Hindi is the national
dialect (proto-language) spoken by Kurgans, language and it is spoken mainly in Northern
whose homeland was in the Steppes region to India from Haryana and Rajasthan in the west
the north of the Caspian Sea_near the Volga toBihar and Jharkhand in the east. In Pakistan.
River around 4300 B.C. Kurgans had a pastoral
'economy. Many animals including cattle and the principal language is Urdu, while in
horses were domesticated by them but they did Bangladesh the main language is Bengali.
not have highly developed agriculture. They Singhali is the principal language of Sri Lanka.
In fact, India has several hundred languages. It
migrated and conquered the different parts of
Europe, Asia, North America, South America, has eighteen official languages recognized in the
Australia and Africa and spread over a vast Constitution of India. In south India language
territory. The conquered people were forced to of Dravidian group (Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam,
Kannad, Toda etc.) are used.
adopt the language of Kurgans in order to (ii) Iranian Languages: Iranian Languages
survive. Due to geographical and cultural
isolation, languages of the Indo-European include Persian, Kurdish, Pashto (Baluchi) etc.
family became differentied into several sub These languages are written with Arabic
families. Althe Indo-European languages share letters. Persian is spoken in Iran, Pashto in
some common wordswhose genetic origin can Afghanistan and Pakistan and Kurdish in Iran,
be traced to a common linguistic root. In the Iraq and Turkey.
Indo-European languages, the words for same (2) Latin or Romanic Linguistic Family
trees and animals have common roots.

(1) Indo-Iranian Linguistic Family The Latin linguistic group of languages

Italic
is also known as Romance or
Indo-Iranian linguistic family is an languages. The Latin language includes
important sub-family of lndo-European family. Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian,
It includes more th¡n one hundred individual Provencal, Catalan and Romanian. These
languages spoken by over 800 million people. It languageswere spread by the Roman Empire
the
is divided into two major groups: (i) The eastern before Christ, so they are also called
group called Indic or Indian which includes Romance languages. "The rise in importance
speakers mainly in India, Pakistan and of the city of Rome was paralled by a
Table 22.2
Distribution
Major Languages of the World and their
Number of Areas where spoken
Languages
speakers (million)
other countries
1. Chinese 1,000 China, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia and
Zealand, South
2 English 460 U.K., Anglo-America, Australia, New
spread of the Latin language. As the Roman of the speakers of Spanish and Portuguese live
armies occupied the greater parts of Europe and outside of Europe mainly in Latin America
Asia Minor, they brought the Latin Language (South and Central America and Mexico). The
with them.The languages spoken by the natives official language of the most countries of Latin
were extinguished or suppressed in favour of America is Spanish except Brazil where official
the conquerors." (Hussain, M., 2009, 199-200). language is Portuguese. The concerntration of
The regions of Latin languages are separated Latin languages in Europe is in its South
from each other by high mountains, which
serve as a strong barrier for the communica
Western part such as Spain (Spanish), Portugal
tion between people living in two such (Portuguese), France (French), Italy (lItalian) and
Romania (Romanian). French has also been
regions.
The Latin languages particularly Spanish adopted as a national language in Switzerland,
Canada and several countries of Africa, Italian
and Portuguese has well spread in South
America, Central America and Mexico because language has its major concentration in Italy.
of the colonial activities of south European Sicily, Switzerland and some Islands in the
Mediterranean Sea.
peoples using Latin languages. Over 80 per cent
 440
Human Geography
(3) TheGermanic Lingulstlc Family (4) The Balto-Slavlc Linguistic Famlly
The Germanic linguistic family is the most The languages of this linguistic family are
important branch of the Indo-European most predominant in Eastern Europe and the
linguistic family. It includes German, English, Baltic States. Up to seventh century A.D. the
Dutch, Danish and Norwegian languages. The Slavic languages were particularly identical but
Germanic family has three major branches, i.e. differences arised due to separation of the Slavic
North Germanic, East Germanic and West tribes. Slavic languages are divided into east.
Germanic. west and south branches. The most important
The Scandinavian languages (Danish, Slavic language is Russian which bellongs to
Swedish, lcelandic and Faroese) are included in the Eatern Slavic languages. Russian is spoken
the group of the North Germanic languages. In by nearly 190 million people including about
the past the main Eastern Germanic language 80per cent population of the Russia. It is one of
was Gothic, but it is now extinct. The
languages
of this group are no longer spoken in daily use
the five official languages of the United Nations.
Other two Eastern Slavic languages are
by any one in the World. In past Gothic was
used to be spoken in Ukraine (Crimea). The West Ukrainian and Byelorussian (White Russian).
The West Slavic language include Polish,
Germanic branch of the Indo-European family Czech and Slavic. The constituents of South
of languages includes German, English, Old Slavic languages are Bulgarian, Serbo-Croatian,
Saxon, Anglo-Saxon, Dutch, Yiddish and Flenish Slovene and Macedonian. The differences
languages. among the different Slavic languages are
English, a member of West Germanic relatively small.
family of languages is the most important and
most widely used language of the modern (5) Celtic Linguistic Family
World. English had its origin
1600 years back. English is asometimes-about
fusion of three It is a minor family of languages,
streams of the Angles, Jutes and Saxons. Prior which are
spoken in Ireland, Wales and Scotland. "Prior
to it the main larnguage of Britain was Celtic
which was later relegated to Scotland and to the invasion of British Isles by
Angles and
Wales. Germanic tribes of Saxon tribes, Celtic was the main language of
crossed the English ChannelAnglo-Saxons
had
in the middle of the people, but later on they were pushed to the
the fifth century arnd extended their rule on the remote areas of Scotland and Wales (Husain, M.
Lsland of Britain. England was invaded by three 2009). Celtic languages include Irish, Welsh,
tribes namely Angles, Jutes and Saxons. Among Scot, Gaelic, and Breton etc.
them Angles were more powerful and
influencial and the name England is derived (6) Hellenic Linguistic Family
from the Angles. Being a Germanic language, it
shares many structural similarities with other Greek is the most important language of
Germanic languages. Thus, England is the place Hellenic family.
of origin of English. Today English is an
international language and has II. The Sino-Tibetan Linguistic Family
many thousands of words from otherassimilated
languages
of the world.
The Sino-Tibetan family of
English has spread throughout the world languages
incudes Chinese, Japanese, Korean and
through the establishment of English colonies Burmese
in North America, Australia, New Zealand, languages. There are five major languages
Africa and Asia. At present, English is most spoken in China, namely, Mandarin,
important language of International Cantonese, Min, Wu and Hakka. Mandarin is
communication. the largest spoken language of the world. It is
 spoken by about 1000
Language 441

throughout million people

the world but mainly and
by the English is also spoken. Most of the Old
of eastern China.
Nearly 75 percent Chinesepeople Testament was written in
Mandarin in their daily activities. Mandarin used
is become extinct as a languageHebrew.
in daily
Hebrew
the official language of United in the 4h Century D.A. activity
but it is being revived
four languages of China Nations. Other after the creation of Israel in 1948
and Hakka) are of relatively(Cantonese, Min, Wu 2009). (Hussein, M.,
of less importance.
Tibeto-Burman is another branch of the IV. The African
Sino-Tibetan family, which is used mainly in Linguistic Family
southeast Asia. Burmese (Myanmnari) and Thai There are a large number of languages,
are two main languages of this generally with small and very small
and Korean are the other family. Japanese sizes in
Africa. The proper classification of languages
which are limited to Japan,important languages,
Korea
and the Pacific of Africa into families, however, could not be
Islands. Japanese is spoken by about made. It is estimated that about 1000 distinct
people. Moreover, Japanese and125Korean million languages and dialects are spoken in different
languages are substantially influenced by the parts of Africa. Outof these about 40 languages
Chinese language. are spoken by more than one million people.
The linguistic picture of North Africa is
III. The Afro-Asiatic Linguistic Family relatively clear and well defined where Arabic
is widely used. The Niger-Congo (Negro
The Afro-Asiatic family of languages is also Congo) is the dominant linguistic family of the
known as the Semito-Hametic family. It is south of Sahara which includes six branches,
different and is not related to the Indo-European namely, Mande, Gur, Kwa, Adamava and
family. Actually Semito-Hametic languages Benue-Congo. The Swahili, amember of Benue
originated before recorded time and were Congo group is the official language of
closely linked with the religious faith as Tanzania, Kenya and some other East African
practiced by Judaism, Christianity and Islam. countries and has a well-developed literature.
It includes a number of languages spoken in The Swahili was originally developed by the
North Africa and Middle East (South-West Arab traders so it has Arabic influence.
Asia). Among them Arabic and Hebrew are The Nilo-Saharan languages are quite
most important.Arabic is the language of Holy common in North Central Africa just north of
Quran while Bible (Old Testament) is written the Niger-Congo region. The Khoisan, abranch
in Hebrew. Thus, Arabic and Hebrew enjoy of Click family dominants in the countries of
special status. South-West Africa which includes Hottentot
Arabic is the sixth largest language of the and Sandawe languages. The Bantu language
world spoken by 200 million people. It is the originated in tropical Africa and later spread
official language of 20 countries including Saudi southward and eastward. The Zulu language
Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Jordan, Syria, Yemen, is spokern in southern part of Africa. Nigeria,
United Arab Emirates in Asia and Morocco the most populous country of Africa has more
then 200 languages, the most widely used
Chad, Egypt and other countries in North
Africa. language is Hausa. Other significarnt languages
Yoruba
of Nigeria are English (official language),
Hebrew is a native language, spoken by and Ibo. Thus one may find the pattern
of
about three million people, mainly in Israel. It
where Arabic linguistic diversity in Africa.
is the national language of Israel
 442 Human Geography
V. Ural-Altai Linguistic Family local languages are used by primitive people
in the Islands in Pacific Ocean, which may
The languages of this linguistic family are groued into three broad categories accordingly
found in Eurasia from Ural to Mongolia through to location-Melanesian, Micronesian and
Altai Mountain. It includes four sub-linguistic Polynesian.
families, namely, (i) Finno-Ugric (i) Turkic, (ii)
Mongolic, and (iv) Tunguzic. VI. Palaeo-Asiatic Linguistic Family
() Finno-Ugric group of languages
includes Cheremish, Permian, Palaeo-A siatic linguistic family is
Finnish, Lappish, and Hungarian constituted by two sub-tamilies, namely.
etc. Yukaghir and Chukchean. Languages of these
(i) Turkic linguistic family includes families are very old and are spoken by tribal
Altai, Kirghiz, Kazakh, Uzbek, people living in arctic region of Eurasia.
Turkic, Tasmanian, and Yukaghir languages include Tundra and
Azerbaijanian etc. Koliama while Chukche an languages are
(ii) Mongolic languages including Chukchi, Koryak, Ainu, Kamachadal,
Mongol, Dogar, Buryat etc. are Gilyak etc.
spoken in Mongolia and its 4. MAJOR LANGUAGES OF INDIA
adjacent areas.
(iv) Tunguzic languages are spoken
in Manchuria and its adjacent India has a rich linguistic heritage and has
areas. Manchuk and Tunguz are the heterogeneous ethnic and social groups, which
main languages of this linguistic have their own languages and dialects.
According to Census of India 1961, there were
family. 187 languages spoken by various sections of
VI. Dravidian, Malayo-Polynesian Indian society. Of these each of 93 languages
Linguistic Family were spoken by over 10 thousand persons. 23
major languages were spoken by about 97 per
This linguistic family is constituted cent population of the country. Eighteen
by five sub-families of languages, namely, languages excluding English are mentioned in
Dravidian, Malayan, Melanesian, Micronesian the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India
and Polynesian. Dravidian is the group of as follows: 1.Kashmiri, 2. Purjabi, 3. Hindi,
ancient languages of South India including 4. Urdu, 5. Bengali, 6. Assamese, 7. Gujarati,
Telgu, Tami, Malayalam, Kannad, Kota, Toda, 8. Marathi, 9. Kannada, 10. Tamil, 11. Telgu,
etc. These languages are spoken in Andhra 12. Malayalam, 13. Sindhi, 14. Sanskrit,
Pradesh (Telugu), Tamil Nadu (Tamil), Kerala 15. Oriya, 16. Nepali, 17. Konkani, and 18.
(Malayalam) and Karnataka (Kannad) States. Manipuri.
Malayan is the main native language of. Indian languages belong mainly to four
Malayasia, In the islands situated in Pacific linguistic families viz. 1. Austric (Nishad),
Ocean seveval hundered native languages are 2. Dravidian (Dravida),3. Sino-Tibetan (Kirata)
spoken locally. Similarly many original and (4) Indo-Aryan (Arya). The chronological
Australian languages are used by native people evolution of these linguistic families is closely
or aboriginals in Australia but English related to the racial history of Indian
dominates this continent. Several hundred sub-continent.
 150 W 120° 90° 60° 30° 0 30° 60° 90° 120° 180°E
150°

75°
N 75
N

North; America
Africa
60 60
Canadá Britain

Europe

China
28o
30° 30°
India

Africa

South
America

Australia?
30° 30°
Cradle land of English

Main areas of English 300 600 9000

language
Flow route and direction Kilometres H60
60° S

150 W 120° 90° 60° 30° 0 30° 60° 90° 120° 150° 180°E

68
Fig. 22.3: Origin and Dispersal of EnglishLanguage