SOCIOLINGUISTICS
UNIT 10
TRƯƠNG VĂN ÁNH
TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC SÀI GÒN
UNIT 10: LANGUAGE AND GEOGRAPHY
I. INTRODUCTION
In the world there are about 7,000 languages distributed in about 200 countries and territories that have various linguistic forms. In each country, there are many languages used by major and minor ethnic groups with certain historical influences. For example, Vietnam has 54 races speaking the same number of languages. It is interesting that in Australia Aborigines who were from Africa still retain their Africanness till date. Each country has many languages, dialects and sociolects. All these issues will be studied in this unit.





II. GENERAL OVERVIEW
It is generally agreed that the world’s 7 billion people currently use about 7,000 languages. Different countries have different numbers of languages. The numbers of languages are surprisingly unequal. Half of the world population makes use of ten main languages: Chinese, Hindi, Spanish, English, Bengali, Arabic, Russian, Portuguese, Japanese and German. The number of population speaks these ten languages is 1,3 million, 363 million, 352 million, 352 million, 200 million, 196 million, 180 million, 170 million, 130 million







and 110 million, respectively. Among them, the most population use English as their second and foreign language. On average, each language is spoken by about 10,000 people.
In any place which has geographic features to keep groups of people separate from each there is the greatest linguistic diversity. The island of Papua New Guinea with towering mountains and dense jungles creating isolated pockets of various tribes has about 1,000 different languages spoken by million people. This is the area of greatest linguistic variation. About 200,000 people live in the islands of Vanuatu in the Pacific Ocean, but




they speak 109 even different languages. (In comparison to about 100 million Vietnamese people speak about 54 languages). The northeast African country of Chad, spreading to the Sahara desert, has 127 languages spoken by 7.4 million inhabitants. It is believed that these people are isolated by extreme geographic and climatic features, so they have retained their linguistic and cultural diversity. In general, they have not been affected by the nation’s political system, state-sponsored education, and mass communications. Nigeria is a West African country which has over 400 languages spoken by a population of about






140 million people. Besides, the country has also 1000 different dialects in many parts.
In the world languages are divided into three categories by status: healthy, endangered, and extinct. A healthy language is one that is currently being used by many people and learned by children as a native language. Healthy languages are generally used everywhere – at home, in school, at work, and in other private and public settings. Endangered languages are not learned by children as a native language. Extinct languages are not used by any people any more.



III. LANGUAGE GEOGRAPHY/LANGUAGE AND GEOGRAPHY
The geographic distribution of language or its constituent components is studied in language geography. The language geography is divided into two main fields of study: the “geography of languages”, which relates to the distribution through history and space of languages, and “linguistic geography”, which refers to regional linguistic variations within languages. Linguists have suggested various other terms and sub-disciplines, including a division within the




examination of linguistic geography separating the studies of change over time and space; ‘geo-linguistics’, a study within the geography of language concerned with the analysis of the distribution patterns and spatial structures of languages in contact, but none have gained much attention nowadays.
The effect of ‘language contact’ has appeared in many researches when the languages or dialects of peoples have interacted. This geographical extension of language groups has come from the overlaying of languages upon existing speech regions. It is not the replacement of a language




by another one. In the Norman Conquest of England, Old French was the language of the aristocracy, but in the middle age English was the language of the majority of the population in England.
Linguists manage linguistic geography, as a field, rather than geographers. The focus of the former is on “elements of language, and their geographical or social variation”, while the focus of the latter is on regions with climate, people and land. In Trudgill’s view, linguistic geography deals with the spatial distribution of linguistic phenomena. Nowadays linguists pay more




attention to explanation rather than description of the patterns of linguistic variation. In the studies linguists emphasize the social use of language and change in dialect within languages in regard to social class or occupation. When mentioning such variations, lexicographer Robert Burchfield places the emphasis on the perpetual discussion and disagreement. For example, he states that the more complicated the society become, the more variations English vocabulary has to express all the changes. Linguists have drawn geographically linguistic maps in order to show the variations of languages in different



places in a country or in the world. One example is Joseph Wright`s The Linguistic Atlas of England (1978).



IV. LANGUAGE AND GEOGRAPHY IN VIETNAM
Vietnam has a complex linguistic geography. There are three main regions and 64 cities and provinces in Vietnam. There are only a few provinces and cities with one language, and there are many dialects.
Most of the population is Kinh, the main group. There are three main accents of Kinh’s Vietnamese: northern, central and southern. Chinese Vietnamese are fewer than Kinh Vietnamese. Khmer Vietnamese holds the third position among 54 ethnic groups.

Although most people learn and speak Vietnamese at school, people are encouraged to use other languages such as Chinese, Khmer, Champa, Ede, H’Mong, Thai, etc. The authorities motivate ethnic minorities to learn and use their mother tongues to make the languages in Vietnam more colorful and abundant.



V. CONCLUSION
The geography decides on the accents of people in a region. It is determined that people of a region speak a language with their regional accent. For example, in Vietnam most of people speak Vietnamese; however, people in the north speak Vietnamese with their northern accent; people in the central speak it with their central accent; and people in the south speak it with their southern accent.
When people want to be friendly with a particular social group, they express their






alignment with that group in that they are “talking like” other members of that group. However, it is not natural unless they can live with these members for a long time. It is interesting that a child of a southern couple who grows up in the north speaks Vietnamese with northern accent as if he/she were a northerner. It is similar that most of children of northern parents who was born and grow up in the south speak Vietnamese with southern accent. It is advisable that people should not discriminate other members when they speak the same language with different accents.







VI. SUMMARY
People in different regions of a country may speak different languages which are their mother tongues. Besides, people speak the same language may use different dialects which exist in their local places.
It is particular that the same language may be spoken with various accents and sounds. For example, people in the north mispronounce consonants l with n (lai – nai), d with gi (dung – giung); people in the south mispronounce consonants r with g (ro – go), v with d (va – da), ng with qu (ngoai –quai), h with qu (hoa – qua).






It may be said that geography affects the language used in a region. We should obtain general idea when we consider a language in a particular context so that different people with different languages, dialects or accents can live under the same roof to cooperate with each other.
VII. EXERCISES
1. What is the relationship between linguistics and geography?
2. Give some complex linguistic forms in the world.
3. How do geographical boundaries influence linguistic choices in Vietnam?
4. What are some changes in linguistic choices among Vietnamese people due to historical experiences?


5. Should we play a joke on someone that speaks the same language with different accents?
6. What affects people’s accent?






Good luck!