Transcript Document

Chapter 5
Language and Religion:
Mosaics of Culture
Language & Religion
• Mentifacts:
– the central, enduring elements of a culture
expressing it’s values, & beliefs, including
language, religion, folklore, artistic
tradition
– components of the ideological subsystem of
culture that help shape the belief system of
a society and transmit to succeeding
generations
– dynamic, in constant evolution
Language
• Is the means of transmission of
culture and the medium through
which its beliefs and standards are
expressed
Language….
• the most important medium to
transfer culture
» Can determine perceptions, attitudes,
understanding, responses of a society
• an organized system of spoken
words by which people
communicate with each other with
mutual comprehension
Language numbers
• Prehistoric times: 10,000 to 15,000
tongues
» Cultural divergence
• 7,000 or so remaining: 20 to 50%, no
longer being learned/ dead
• 2100 A.D.: estimate is 600 approx.
current languages in existence
• Today: greater than ½ world’s
population speak only 8 languages
World distribution of living languages, 2004
- of perhaps 6800 languages still spoken today
Asia: 33%
Africa: 30%
Pacific area: 19%
Americas: 15%
Europe: 3%
Estimated 1-2
languages lost
each week
Language diversity
• Gradations between languages
• Chinese, Mandarin, Cantonese, Hakka,
& others sound differently, but all use
kanji characters
• European languages: Spanish, Italian,
French, Romanian
• Arabic: a number of related but distinct
tongues
• Sub-Saharan languages: 1500+
languages & language variants
Languages spoken
• Highest numbers in millions:
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Mandarin (China): 1076
English: 551
Hindi/Urdu (India, Pakistan): 498
Spanish: 427
Russian: 267
Bengali (Bangladesh, India): 215
Portuguese: 195
Malay-Indonesian: 176
Japanese:132
French: 131
German: 128
Language families
• A group of languages descended from a
single, earlier tongue (classification by sounds)
• Estimated: 30 to 100 language families
worldwide
– Romance languages
• Latin in the Roman Empire, collapse = cultural
divergence
• Emergence of several different, but related
languages
• Protolanguage (ancestor)
– For romance languages: Latin
Indo-European Family
• Largest family
– Spoken by ½
world
• 8700-10,000
years old
• From Agri-Rev.
& near the
Caspian Sea
Genetic classification
• Classification of languages by
origin & historical relationship
• Germanic languages:
– English
– German
– Dutch
– Scandinavian
Language distribution
• Can include a large area, yet only
yield a small number of speakers
– Example: Amerindian
language families
• 3 families
• Close relationship with
Asian languages
• Corresponding with
waves of migration
World language families
Language spread
• Spatial diffusion process
• 1. Relocation of massive
population (dispersion
of speakers)
Bantu of Africa
Language spread
• 2. Adoption (acquisition of
speakers) results from:
– 1. Conquest
– 2. Religious conversions
– 3. Superiority of culture
• Adoption becomes a necessity:
– Medium of commerce, law,
civilization, personal prestige
Spatial diffusion occurs:
• Relocation diffusion (transported by
cultural dominance)
• The to expansion diffusion & acculturation
• Example: hierarchical diffusion
– India – English prestigious
– Africa – English use more impressive than
Swahili
• Barriers to diffusion:
» Cultural – Greeks
» Physical - mountains, Pyrenees & Basque
Language change
• Separate language formation:
– 1. Migration
– 2. Segregation
– 3. Isolation
Language change
• Change within a language:
– 1. Syntax
– 2. Borrowed
– 3. Discover/colonization/technology
Dominance of English
• Indo-European / offspring of proto-Germanic
• 5th – 6th centuries:
– migration of Danish, North German Frisian,
Jutes, Angeles, and Saxons
– many dialects, West Saxon dominated (Standard
Old English)
• 1066: Norman Conquest
– in 11th century French dominated nobility
• 1204: tie with France severed
• 15th –
– Middle English (French enriched)
16th centuries: Early Modern English
Worldwide diffusion
Since 1600s:
7 million English speakers increased to 375 million
Today:
1.5 billion speakers
375 native
375 second language
750 with reasonable
ability
International English
Speech communities
• Standard language
– Accepted community norms of:
• 1. Syntax
• 2. Vocabulary
• 3. Pronunciation
• Plus dialects & dialect of
dominance
• Reflecting areal, social, professional
differences
Dialects –
speech variants
– 1. Vocabulary
– 2. Pronunciation
– 3. Rhythm
– 4. Speed
• * Social dialects
• Denote social class/education level
• Usually follows standard language
• * Vernacular
• Non-standard language
• Dialect native to locale, or social group
Speech regions & dialect diffusion in the United States
Pidgin
• An amalgamation of languages
• Pidgin is not a mother tongue of any of
its speakers
• A creation of essentially a new language
• mixture of dominate languages
• main languages broken down
• “baby talk”
• Past 400 years = 100+ new languages
Creole
• Created when pidgin becomes the
first language of speakers who lost
native tongue
• Examples:
• Swahili: Bantu dialects
• Afrikaans: pidginized Dutch + African
• Haitian Creole: pidginized French +
African
Lingua franca
• Established language used
habitually for communication by
people whose native tongues are
mutually incomprehensible
• Examples:
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Swahili
English
Hindi in India
Mandarin in China
Official language
• A designated single language for
governments, school, universities,
courts
• Nigeria: 350 different
languages, English is
official
Languages on the landscape
• Toponyms – place names
• 1. Historical
– chester (Latin castra) = camp} Winchester
– ing, ham (Anglo Saxon) = family, people,
hamlet} Birmingham
– burg (Latin for town)
– Arabs: Cairo= victorious, Sudan = land of
blacks, Sahara = wasteland
Toponyms continued
• 2. Borrowed from:
– Heroes: Columbus, Ohio, Lincoln, Ill
– Previous locations: Moscow, Idaho, Dublin,
Calif
– Distortions: Breukelyn = Brooklyn
– Tribal names: maha = Omaha, kansa =
Kansas
• 3. Names consisting of 2 parts:
– Generic – classifying
– Specific – modifying or particular
» Twin Falls, Hudson River, Bunker Hill,
Long Island
Religion -
cultural rally point
• A personal or institutionalized
system of worship and of faith in
the sacred & divine
Impacts on culture
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Formalized views
Economic patterns
Political structures
Religious landscapes
Scared places of landscape
Religions –
cultural innovations
• Can be unique to single cultural
group
• Can be related to nearby or distant
groups
How to classify
• Two distinctions
– 1. Monotheism
– 2. Polytheism
• Three categories:
– 1. Universalizing
– 2. Ethnic
– 3. Tribal
Categories
• Universalizing:
• Buddhism
• Christian
• Islam
• Ethnic:
• Judaism
• Hindu
• Shinto
• Tribal:
• Animism
• Shamanism
World Patterns
Christian
Islam
Hindu
Buddhism
Judaism
Secular
1970
933 m
503 m
458 m
180 m
14 m
2002
2.0 b
1.3 b
900 m
360 m
14 m
850 m
Measure of affiliation
More than ½ world population adheres
to universalizing religions
Principal world religions
Innovation areas and diffusion routes of
major world religions
Judaism -
ethnic
• Monotheistic
• Foundation to Christianity &
Islam
• 3,000 – 4,000 years old, Near
East cultural hearth
– Dispersion - immigration
– Zionism - 1948
Variety
• Ashkenazim – (conservative liberal)
– 80%, mixing of genders, dress, language
• Liberal – reformed
• Ultra Orthodox (shepardic)
– Hebrew services, traditional dress, beards,
hats, kosher food, no pork or shellfish, no
mixing of genders at church
• Landscape:
– Synagogue (group most important – 10
men), vineyards
Jewish dispersions, A.D. 70 - 1500
Christianity -
universalizing
• Monotheistic
• Parent religion: Judaism, Near
East
• Rapid expansion throughout
Roman Empire – to underclasses
• Accounts for nearly 1/3 world
population (Protestant & Catholic)
Expansion diffusion
• Hierarchical:
– first military outposts, cities
• Contagious:
– to surrounding populations
• Relocation:
– faith to the New World & Asia
through the missionary system
Christianity split
• Fall of the Roman Empire
• Catholic
– Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, Poland, Ireland
– Latin America, Philippines, Africa
• Protestant
– West & northern Europe (The Netherlands,
England, Germany)
– Anglo-America, Australia, New Zealand,
Oceania, South Africa
– Sub-Saharan Africa
– both present + traditional
– Ethnic barriers: Japan, China India
– Cultural hearth: not important today
Christian landscape
– Untied States
• 20 denominations = 85% of
population
• Catholic
• Florida, New England, Southwest, New
Orleans
• Utah: Mormon
• South: Baptist, the Bible Belt
• Upper Midwest: Lutherans
Major religious regions of the United States
Religious groups
• Roman Catholic
• Largest single church
• Protestant faiths
• Larger proportion of population
• Biggest groups: Baptists, Methodists
• Mormon
• 2nd fastest growing church worldwide, 14 m
• American developed religion
• 80% of Utah’s population
• Jewish
• 6 m, concentrations: NYC, Chicago, Miami
Religious landscapes
• Parish church –
• formed center of small towns
• village commons (the Puritans)
• Village church –
• rural communities
• Central cathedrals –
• in plaza, focus of religious / secular life
• Cemetery – beside church, or outskirts
of town
Islam (Muslim) -
universalizing
• Monotheistic
• Parent religion: Judaism, Near East,
622 A.D.
• Contagious diffusion
• Arabia, Central Asia, No. India, North Africa
• Relocation diffusion
• Indonesia, So.Africa, Western Hemisphere
• Cultural hearth – still important
location today
Islamic regions
• Asia – largest absolute number
• Africa – highest proportion, 42%
• Indonesia – highest percentage of any
country
• Sub-groups:
– Sunni: 80 to 85% of total
– Shi’ites: Iran, Iraq, Bahrain, Yemen
Spread and extent of Islam
Islamic landscape
• Mosque – center of worship &
community life
– Community more important than
building
Hinduism -
ethnic
• Polytheistic
• World’s oldest religion
• perhaps 4,000 years old
• Web of religious, philosophical, social,
economic, artistic elements
• 780 million in India, 80% of pop.
• Indus River Valley
• spread by contagious diffusion
• So.East Asia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia,
Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Myanmar, Sri Lanka
Hindu landscape
• Temples / shrines
• Holy men / sacred animals
• Sacred locations
– Ganges River
Buddhism •
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universalizing
Polytheistic
Out growth of Hinduism
Founded in India, 2,500 years ago
Spread by contagious diffusion
– India to China, then Japan, Southeast Asia
• Two schools of thought:
– Theravada – old school
– Mahayana – more progressive form
Buddhism diffusion
• Contagious
• North to China, then across to
Japan
• South to Southeast Asia
Buddhist landscape
• Stupa – commemorative shrine
• Temple / pagoda – enshrining
image or relic of Buddha
• Monastery
• Bodhi tree