Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Checking the physical effects
Language and physical geography may interact in various ways. The two most significant ways are
through environmental terminology and linguistic refuges.
Environmental terminology
Languages tend to develop robust vocabularies that pertain to locally observed environmental con-
ditions, and weak vocabularies that pertain to unfamiliar settings. English, for example, is weak in
native terminology that pertains to deserts, the sub-arctic, very mountainous areas, and other charac-
teristics that are not common to England. Thus, English has adopted environmental terminology from
other languages to describe things that English cannot, or at least not very well. Accordingly, stand-
ard English dictionaries now include terms such as
arroyo
(from Spanish) to describe intermittent
streams in desert environments,
taiga
(from Russian) to describe high-latitude coniferous forest, and
fiord
(from Norway) to describe steep-sided, glacially carved inlets of the sea.
Linguistic refuges
A
linguistic refuge
is an area where a language is insulated against outside change by virtue of re-
moteness, or the remains of a locale where a once widespread language continues to be spoken. Act-
ingasphysicalbarriers,aspectsofthephysicalenvironmenthaveservedtoisolatespeakersofvarious
languages and thus preserve their native tongues from outside agents of change. Heavily forested and
extremely mountainous areas, as noted earlier in this chapter, have historically served that purpose.
The traditional Welsh and Irish languages, for example, at one time appeared to be on the brink of
extinction, relegated to remote peninsulas, islands, and valleys in their homelands following the on-
slaught of English. However, nationalist aspirations and heritage awareness have led to campaigns to
resuscitate these languages and promote their everyday use. Central to these efforts have been human
resources — native language speakers — many of whom hail from villages and farms in linguistic
refuge areas.
Playing the landscape naming game
Language may provide cultural character to the physical environment as well as to people. For ex-
ample, what do New Jersey, Lake Okeechobee, Baton Rouge, and El Paso have in common? The
answer is they are all
toponyms
or place names. People the world over have a habit of naming land-
scape features, be they mountains, hills, rivers, lakes, bays, seas, deserts, forests, cities, towns, streets
