Language geography

A map of the language divisions within the Byzantine Empire during the reign of Justinian I
  Greek
  Greek and native
  Latin
  Latin and native
  Aramaic
  Coptic
  Caucasian and Armenian
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Language geography is the branch of human geography that studies the geographic distribution of language(s) or its constituent elements. Linguistic geography can also refer to studies of how people talk about the landscape. For example, toponymy is the study of place names.[1] Landscape ethnoecology, also known as ethnophysiography, is the study of landscape ontologies and how they are expressed in language.[2]

There are two principal fields of study within the geography of language:

  1. geography of languages, which deals with the distribution through history and space of languages,[3] and/or is concerned with 'the analysis of the distribution patterns and spatial structures of languages in contact'.[4]
  2. geolinguistics being, when used as a sub-discipline of geography, the study of the 'political, economic and cultural processes that affect the status and distribution of languages'.[5] When perceived as a sub-discipline of linguistics that incorporates contact linguistics, one definition appearing has been 'the study of languages and dialects in contact and in conflict with various societal, economic, ideological, political and other contemporary trends with regard to a particular geographic location and on a planetary scale'.[6]

Various other terms and subdisciplines have been suggested, but none gained much currency,[7] including:

  • linguistic geography,[8] which deals with regional linguistic variations within languages,[9][10][11][12][7] also called dialect geography, which some consider a subdivision of geolinguistics[5]
  • a division within the examination of linguistic geography separating the studies of change over time and space;[13]

Many studies in what is now called contact linguistics have researched the effect of language contact,[14] as the languages or dialects (varieties) of peoples have interacted.[7] This territorial expansion of language groups has usually resulted in the overlaying of languages upon existing speech areas, rather than the replacement of one language by another. For example, after the Norman Conquest of England, Old French became the language of the aristocracy but Middle English remained the language of a majority of the population.[15]

  1. ^ Kadmon, Naftali (2000). Toponymy : the lore, laws, and language of geographical names (1st ed.). New York: Vantage Press. ISBN 0533135311.
  2. ^ Johnson, Leslie Main; Hunn, Eugene S., eds. (2012). Landscape Ethnoecology: Concepts of Biotic and Physical Space. New York: Berghahn Books.
  3. ^ Delgado de Carvalho, C.M. (1962). The geography of languages. In Wagner, P.L.; Mikesell, M.W. Readings in cultural geography. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 75–93.
  4. ^ Williams, C.H. (1980). "Language contact and language change in Wales, 1901–1971: a study in historical geolinguistics". Welsh History Review 10, 207–238.
  5. ^ a b Gunnemark, Erik (1991). "What is geolinguistics ?". Geolinguistics, Journal of the American Society of Geolinguistics. 17. American Society of Geolinguistics: 12. ISSN 0190-4671.
  6. ^ "International Conference on multilingual perspectives in geolinguistics, April 11, 2015".
  7. ^ a b c Withers, Charles W.J. [1981] (1993). Johnson, R.J. The Dictionary of Human Geography, Gregory, Derek; Smith, David M., Second edition, Oxford: Blackwell, 252–3.
  8. ^ Dell'Aquila, V. (1997). Mapping the languages of Europe in Herberts K., Laurén C., Laurén U, Strömann S. (Eds.): "Flerspråkighetens dimensioner. Individ, familj och samhälle", Vaasan Yliopiston Julkaisuja: Vaasa/Vasa, 103–131.
  9. ^ Pei, M. (1966). Glossary of linguistic terminology. New York: John Wiley.
  10. ^ Trudgill, P. (1974). Linguistic change and diffusion: description and explanation in sociolinguistic dialect geography. Language in Society 3:2, 215–46.
  11. ^ Trudgill, P. (1983). On dialect: social and geographical perspectives. Oxford: Basil Blackwell; New York: New York University Press.
  12. ^ Trudgill, P. (1975). Linguistic geography and geographical linguistics. Progress in Geography 7, 227–52
  13. ^ Iordan, I.; Orr, J. (1970). An introduction to romance linguistics. Oxford: Basil Blackwell; Berkeley: University of California Press.
  14. ^ Weinrich, U. (1974). Languages in contact. The Hague: Mouton.
  15. ^ Burchfield, Robert [1985] (2003). The English Language, New York: Oxford University Press, 14.