2019-2020年高中英语必修9Module4Section2-BackgroundInation.doc

2019-2020年高中英语必修9Module4Section2-BackgroundInformation1. Languages and nationalities: LanguagePutonghuaEnglishHindustaniSpanishRussian Nationality ChineseEnglish Indian Spaniard RussianLanguage Arabic BengaliMalay-IndonesianPortugueseFrench NationalityArabBengaliMalaysian; IndonesianPortugueseFrench 2. Languages on different continents:Text Transcript of Languages on the ContinentsAFRICA - accounts for almost one-third of the worlds languages. It is estimated that 2,058 languages are spoken on the African continent. Very few of these languages are spoken by large numbers: less than 5% of them have more than a million speakers. The most widely accepted classification of African languages recognizes four main families as follows: Niger-Congo, Nilo-Saharan, Khoisan and Afroasiatic (Semitic languages constitute one of its branches).In addition to English and French that have spread throughout Africa as a result of colonialism, Arabic and Swahili are also used as lingual fracas throughout the continent.ANTARTICA - has no indigenous inhabitants, but there are seasonally staffed research stations on it. Approximately 29 nations signatory to the Antarctic Treaty, send personnel to perform seasonal (summer) and year-round research on the continent and in its surrounding oceans; the population of persons doing and supporting science on the continent and its nearby islands south of 60 degrees south latitude (the region covered by the Antarctic Treaty) varies from approximately 4,000 in summer to 1,000 in winter. In addition, approximately 1,000 personnel including ships crew and scientists doing onboard research are present in the waters of the treaty region. These personnel speak a variety of languages including Bulgarian, Chinese, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, and Ukrainian. ASIA - the vast continent contains the largest number of the worlds languages. It is estimated that 2,197 languages are spoken in the various regions of Asia. Russian is the dominant language of Siberia. The northernmost tier of Asia is home to Uralic and Palaeosiberian languages, many of which are represented by only a few thousand people. The Altaic family of languages covers a vast area from the Balkan peninsula to northeast Asia. The best known language of this group is Turkish. Some scholars think that Japanese and Korean also belong to the Altaic family, but not everyone agrees. Southeast Asia contains languages of the Austro-Asiatic family spoken in the countries between China and Indonesia, as well as parts of India and Malaysia. There are well over 100 Austro-Asiatic languages.The Indian subcontinent is home to speakers of the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European family with over 500 languages spoken by over 500 million people. Among these languages are Hindi, Urdu, and Bengali. By the way, Romany, the language of the gypsies, also belongs to this family. The southern part of the Indian subcontinent contains languages of the Dravidian family, such as Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Malayalam, each spoken by about 25 million people. By far the largest language family in Asia is Sino-Tibetan. Chinese is the largest member of this family with over 1 billion speakers. It has at least eight main varieties, referred to as dialects.EUROPE - With only 230 languages spoken on its territory, is the least linguistically diverse of all the continents. It accounts for only 3% of the worlds languages. Most of the languages spoken in Europe belong to the Indo-European family. This family includes Baltic, Celtic, Germanic, Romance, and Slavic languages, in addition to Albanian, Armenian, and Greek that dont have any close relatives. Europe is also home to some scattered members of the Uralic family, such as Finnish, Estonian, and Hungarian. You may have also heard of Basque - a language that does not belong to any known language family.OCEANIA - includes several language families: the Austronesian family with up to 700 languages, that covers a vast area, from Madagascar to Easter Island, and from Taiwan and Hawaii to New Zealand; the Indo-Pacific family with some 800 languages spoken in New Guinea and in the islands to the immediate east and west, and the languages of Australia, home to some 250 aboriginal languages. NORTH AMERICA - The dominant languages are English, French, and Spanish spread by colonialism. In addition, North America is home to a number of indigenous American Indian languages. Only about 50 of the once numerous American Indian languages have more than 10,000 speakers. The American Indian languages have been classified into over 50 families. It is not known whether these languages have a mon origin. Some of the larger families are Eskimo-Aleut, Na-Dene, and Algonquian. The main linguistic bridge between North and South America contains mostly speakers of languages that belong to the Mayan family.SOUTH AMERICA - The dominant languages are Spanish and Portuguese that have spread throughout the continent as a result of colonialism. South America is one of the most linguistically diverse areas of the world. Indigenous Indian languages are used throughout the whole of the South American continent. They are spoken by over 11 million people. Few of these languages have been pletely described. Most are spoken by tribes with small numbers of speakers who live in remote jungle areas. Many are on the brink of extinction. Because of the difficulties in recording and analyzing these languages, classification of languages into families is very general and quite possibly inaccurate. Among the major families are Macro-Chibchan, Ge-Pano-Carib, and Andean-Equatorial. North and South America are estimated to have 1,013, or 15%, of the worlds languages.3. Where are the main Chinese dialects spoken?4. Languages in China:Because there has long been a single method for writing Chinese, and a mon literary and cultural history, a tradition has grown up of referring to, the eight main varieties of speech in China as dialects. But in fact they are as different from each other (mainly in pronunciation and vocabulary) as French or Spanish is from Italian, the dialects of the south-east being linguistically the furthest apart. The mutual unintelligibility of the varieties is the main ground for referring to them as separate languages. However, it must also be recognized that each variety consists of a large number of dialects, many of which may themselves be referred to as languages. The boundaries between one so-called language and the next are not always easy to define. The Chinese refer to themselves and their language, in any of the forms below, as Han - a name which derives from the Han dynasty (202 BC-AD 220). Han Chinese is thus to be distinguished from the non-Han minority languages used in China. There are over 50 of these languages (such as Tibetan, Russian, Uighur, Kazakh, Mongolian, and Korean), spoken by around 6% of the population.