Ethnic Groups & Language Families

Both ethnicity and language play a major role in shaping society. So it stands to reason that they are related and influence each other in some measure. Sociolinguists study the relation between ethnicity and language for various reasons. They may take up the study to understand how language plays a role in the academic performance of ethnic minorities. Another area of interest is the way language is key in breaking down and reconstructing ethnic boundaries. It has been observed that these issues often have common ground and factors that play a major role in one area may be influential in another question of sociolinguistics.

What are ethnic groups?

The question “what are ethnic groups” is answered by sociology in the following way:

Ethnic groups are populations of people who share common beliefs, cultural practices, history, religion, and language; in most cases such groups also share ancestry. Ethnic groups usually reside in a particular geographical area in the world.

The concept of ethnicity traces its origins to classical antiquity. Authors like Anaximander, Hecataeus, and Herodotus gave the fundamental precepts of this idea. Herodotus in particular outlined the factors that defined Greek or Hellenistic ethnicity. These were as follows:

• Common ancestry
• Common language
• Common religious practices
• Common social customs

Some social scientists do not regard ethnicity as something that is inherently present among different human groups. They are of the belief that ethnicity is more a function of inter-group interactions and activities than a characteristic of the people themselves.

What are the ethnic groups by continent?

• Africa: There are thousands of ethnic groups in Africa. Each group has its own distinct culture and language. However, the African ethnic groups can be divided into the following sociolinguistic categories:
  1. Afroasiatic
  2. Khoisan
  3. Niger-Congo
  4. Nilo-Saharan

The exact number of ethnic groups in Africa is not known because of the lack of facilities to conduct censuses and the rapidly growing population.

• Asia: Asia is vast in its geographical extent. Hence its climates too are varied, and the different ethnic groups are adapted to live in weather conditions that range from the Arctic to tropical climes. Therefore there is a vast array of ethnic groups in Asia.
• Europe: There are about 87 distinct ethnic groups in Europe. Out of these about 33 form the majority communities in countries of their own.
• North America: The native people of North America are known as Native Americans. The largest ethnic group in North America consists of white Americans. European invaders brought European diseases and war when they came to colonise North America. A large portion of the indigenous people was killed because of this.
• South America: There are people of mixed race, indigenous, and European descent that form the majority of ethnic groups in South America.
• Oceania:
  1. Australia: The evident indigenous group that lives in Australia is the Australian Aboriginal people. Other than that a large portion of the population consists of people descended from European settlers.
  2. Pacific Islands: These are groups of Islands scattered all over the Pacific Ocean. They are mostly island tribes along with a few foreign settlers.

What is a language family?

The question “what is a language family” can be explained in the following way. Groups of languages that share a common origin or protolanguage are said to belong to a language family. Languages belonging to a language family often have shared features like similar vocabulary and structural devices. However, this characteristic may not be apparent at a cursory glance when comparing languages that have branched out in vastly different directions such as English and Hindi. Language families are further divided into smaller phylogenetic groups or branches. Linguists often use a tree diagram to represent the history of a language.

Correlation between ethnic groups and language families

Language plays a very important role in shaping ethnic identity. It helps in the creation and sustenance of ethnicity. In fact, language is more significant in the construction of an ethnic identity than other factors such as gender, age, etc. The way racial and ethnic identities are structured differs widely across communities and individuals. However, it is evident from research that all such constructs, albeit social and not biological in nature, use various linguistic constructs and devices in their formation. The linguistic devices that influence ethnicity are:

• Specific sociolinguistic features
• Heritage language
• Code-switching
• Suprasegmental features
• Discourse feature

Conclusion

It is important to study language and ethnicity in conjunction because both influence each other tremendously. How a society adapts and expresses changes in the wider world is shaped by its ideology, and the ideology of any society is expressed through the language it uses. For example, while English speakers or Hindi speakers have one or two terms for snow, ethnic groups such as those found in Alaska have multiple terms to express the different ways they view snow. This is how culture influences language. An instance of language influencing culture is the use of slang by certain social groups in North America. Certain expressions and modes of speaking are considered the unique identifiers of a particular kind of culture.