Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World (126 page)

major epochs 24-25

Language loss

(
Punic
) 76-77, (
Hebrew
) 79-80, (
Egyptian
) 164-167, (
Gaulish
) 299-301, (
Massachusett
) 485, (
North American languages
) 489-490

Language mixing
see
creolisation

Language prestige 19, 532, 550-552

Language properties 23

Language size distribution 527

Language spread (
see also
Imperial languages), caused by military conquest 20-21, 85, 195-199, 243, 294, 339, 416, 422, 46-461, 520, 557

caused by cultural influence 22-24, 179, 250, 499, 504, 521, 539, 557

caused by settlement 22, 63-67, 141, 239, 347, 391-392, 399, 416, 492-495, 534-535, 557

caused by technical innovation 61-68, 326-328, 511-513, 540-541, 546, 548

Language spread
(cont.)

caused by trade 21-22, 75-77, 98, 102-103, 160-162, 178, 274, 290-292, 387-388, 463, 478, 491, 497, 510-511, 513, 517-519, 536, 546

caused by religious conversion 21-22, 86-93, 179, 387-390, 499
n
, 501-502, 504, 520, 521, 536-537

mechanisms of:

migration: diffusion: infiltration 19, 85, 250

sweep-aside vs re-education 505-509

seaborne contacts 24, 199-202, 323, 325, 338-339, 538-539

obstacles to: 364-367, 400-401

Language structural type

as factor in language spread 23, 97, 552-557

Language survival (
see also
Imperial languages) 22-23, 444-446, 529

Langue d’oc
320
n

Lao-zi, Chinese sage 150

Laos 204, 206, 417

script 202

Las Casas
see
De Las Casas

Latin
12, 20-22, 24
n
, 48, 53, 75, 76-78, 86, 92, 101
n
, 179, 520

breaks up into
Romance languages
308-309

and the Britons 301-304, 517

and
Celtic-speakers
295-301, 304

classification 277
n

daughter languages (
Romance
) 329

decline/revival/death 260-261, 307, 309, 314, 315-321, 325-330, 526

and
French
405-406

grammatica
316-321, 325, 476

Greek influence 250-254, 298-299

in North Africa 100, 307
n

Punic
bilingualism 307
n

spread of 275, 490, 540

Vulgar
307

Vulgate bible
294

and Western Christianity 209

see also
Romance languages

Latin America
see
Americas

Latvia 432-433, 443, 445

Le Morte d’Arthur
(Malory) 332

Le Phénomène humain
(Chardin) 403
n

Lebanon 44, 70-71, 78, 128

Lee Kwan Yew, prime minister of Singapore 548

Leibniz, Baron Gottfried von, German philosopher 410

Lenape
483

Lengua general
346, 356, 358, 360, 363-373, 375, 568
n
15

León 99

Leontopolis 151

Léopold, Belgian king 418

Lepontic
242, 284-285, 291

Lerdo Law 375

Levant Company 479

Leydekker, Melchior, translator of Bible into Malay 402

Lezgian
41

Liang Wudi, Chinese emperor 119

Liberia 508, 515

Libraries (
Sumerian/Akkadian
) 34, 49, 54; (
Hittite
) 41; (
Punic
) 75; (
Sanskrit
) 221
n
; (
Greek
) 248; (
English
in India) 499

Libya 78, 97, 119, 120

and Egypt 126-127, 164

Libyan
126-129, 149

Line of Raghu, The
(
Kālidāsa
) 559

Lingala
419
n

Lingua franca

origin of term 407
n

various languages which took this role

Akkadian
42, 54, 62, 110, 129

Arabic
209, 547

Aramaic
34, 35, 79, 80-82

’Atlantic Celtic’
290-292

Chinese
547

English
24, 457, 458, 503, 510, 513, 532, 545

Italian
407
n

French
412, 532

Greek
20, 86, 164, 190, 299

Latin
265, 325

Malay
380, 532

Nahuatl
355

Pali
215

Persian
101, 497

Phoenician
546

Portuguese
387-388, 395, 497, 513

Russian
429, 443, 531

Sanskrit
179

Sogdian
108, 546

Swahili
105, 508, 533

Turkic
531, 547

deliberate establishment of lingua franca general 543, 558

Akkadian
by Assyria 19, 44

Aramaic
by Persia 47, 548

Greek
by Alexander 48

Quechua
by Incas 357-360

miscellaneous by Western powers 381

English
by Singapore 548

unintentional establishment of lingua franca

Aramaic
by Assyria 66 (contra: 562 n. 28)

Persian
by Arabs 99

loss of role

Latin
328-330

retention of role

Nahuatl, Quechua
367

Guarani
376

English, Portuguese
513

Western imperial languages 444-446

Lingua geral
393-395

Linguistic innovations

many in the Ancient Near East 29-35

cuneiform as ideographic standard 61-63, 512

syllabic writing 156

alphabetic writing 45-46, 63-68, 202-203, 241-242

printing 326-328, 346

electronic communications 511-513

Linguistics

origins of 156-157, 180-182, 209-212, 220, 224, 238
n

reconstruction of past languages 31

Lisu
134

Literacy

providing evidence for language history 24

as supposed factor in language spread 63-64

Gaulish
284-288

in late Roman Empire 308

spread through
Sanskrit
202

spread under Soviets 441-442

its value doubted 57, 182-183

Lithuania 24
n
, 424-425, 431, 432

Liuye
see
Soma

Livius Andronicus, Latin poet 251, 299

Livonia 432

Livy, Roman historian 285

’Livy of Anáhuac’ 344

Logograms
see
writing

Lombards 306, 307, 309

Lomonósov, Mikhail, Russian scholar 439

López de Santa Anna, Antonio 494

Loprieno, Antonio 113
n

Lorenzana y Buitrón, Antonio de, Archbishop of Mexico 373-374, 539

Louis XIII, French king 409

Louis XIV, French king 409, 414

Low German
312

Lud 35
n

Ludlul Bēl Nēmeqi
30

Ludwig the German, king 317-318

Lulubi 43

Luoyang 151

Lusitanian
288
n

Lusophone 390

Luther, Martin, German reformer 326, 447, 472-473

Luwian
39, 41, 44, 50, 62, 71, 84

Luzon 148

Lycian
83-84, 86

Lydia 46, 47, 83

Lydian
12, 30, 35
n
, 41, 4748, 83-84, 86, 249

M&A (Merger & Acquisition) 19, 24

Ma Huan, Chinese mariner 147

Macaulay, Thomas Babington, British pundit 22
n
, 496, 503
n
, 516
n