语言学Lecture2 What Is English.ppt

Lecture Two: What Is English Wang Xiang * * Can you find something interesting in the following two groups of words? English: German: Spanish: madre padre amigo Italian: madre padre amico Historical linguists hypothesize that these cognate sets in modern English and modern German are descendants of a common ancestor. a sisterhood relationship mother mutter father vater friend freund brother bruder finger finger man mann sing singen I ich habere cantare venire tu tres duo unus mater pater Latin avoir habre avere have chanter cantar cantare sing venir venir venire come tu tu tu thou trois tres tre three deux dos due two un uno uno one mere madre madre mother pere padre padre father French Spanish Italian English Language families(语系) Related languages belong to a “family”. These families of languages were descendents of another smaller group of “parental languages”. Now about thirty language families have been documented. A list of the top ten families with wide recognition as phylogenetic (系统的) units: in terms of numbers of native speakers and with their core geographic areas. 1. Indo-European languages (Europe, Southwest to South Asia, America, Oceania) 2. Sino-Tibetan languages (East Asia, Southeast Asia and parts of South Asia) 3. Niger-Congo languages (Sub-Saharan Africa) 4. Afro-Asiatic languages (North Africa to Horn of Africa, Southwest Asia) 希伯来语、 阿拉伯语等，古埃及语 5. Austronesian languages (南岛) Dravidian languages (southern India and northern Sri Lanka) 达罗毗荼语系:泰米尔语、特拉古语、马拉亚兰语和卡纳拉语 Altaic languages (northeast Asia through Central Asia to Anatolia(Turkey) and eastern Europe) 阿尔泰语系(包括土耳其语、维吾尔语、蒙古语、满语等语言) 8. Austro-Asiatic languages (Southeast Asia and eastern India) 南亚语系 9. Tai-Kadai languages (Southeast Asia) 壮侗语系 10. Japonic languages (Japan) In terms of the number of individual speakers and individual languages, four language families are considered to be the most important. The Sino-Tibetan Family The Austronesi