How Languages Bind Us Together

I love languages, in an armchair sort of way. I have no formal training in languages, but I am often struck by how the evolution of language is simply a superficial marker of the deeper evolution of culture. People move and take with them a piece of their ancestral culture in the form of certain rituals, yes, but more importantly, they take their language with them. This 'snapshot' of their past doesn't remain still either; it incorporates influences from the new homeland, and the evolution continues. But the ancestral links remain. I remember my own wonder when I first learned in school about the Romance languages and how they were all derived from Latin. I further remember my amazement at learning about this so-called Indo-European language family, and the fact that Latin and Sanskrit were sister languages! Common knowledge for us now, but still a powerful symbol of how cultures have traveled over millenia. For example, India and China are neighbors, but, separated by the Himalayas and some mighty rivers, their cultures have had little contact and hence, their languages--Indo-European/Dravidian and Sino-Tibetan language families respectively--have little in common. The ties between the Dravidian (South India) and Austro-Asiatic (South East Asia) languages are more complex: close connections in script, but little in terms of vocabulary.

Because of my interest in the general subject of languages, I was fascinated to see this footage of British actor, Eddie Izzard, going to Friesland in Northern Holland where some of the Anglo-Saxon tribes originally came from. Eddie knows that the local language, Frisian, is a Germanic language that is very similar to Old English. So, naturally, he attempts to buy a cow from a local farmer, by speaking in old English and seeing if he's understood. (Hat tip to Tall Blog.)