Chapter 5 - Language

A language that is unrelated to any other languages and therefore not attached to any language family.

Isolated Language

When people who speak a given language migrate to a different location and become isolated from other members of their group, what typically happens?

Isolation usually results in the differentiation of one language into two (they grow apart)

The geographic study of the distribution of languages provides a good example of the what?

The interplay between globalization and local diversity

The second most widely spoken language family in Europe is the what?

Sino-Tibetan

The second-largest language family is what?

Sino-Tibetan

The two largest language families in the world are the _____________ and _______________.

Sino-Tibetan and Indo-European

Combination of Spanish and English, spoken by Hispanic Americans.

Spanglish

Explain how British and American English differ?

Spelling, pronunciation, and vocabulary; alphabet

The form of language used for official government, business, education, and mass communications.

Standard Language

Basque is primarily spoken where?

The Pyrenees Mountains

Why is the English language the most important language in North America?

The diffusion of English Colonies

When languages are depicted as leaves on trees, the roots of the trees below the surface represent what?

(prehistoric) language families

An isogloss is...

A boundary that separates regions in which different languages usages predominate.

The English language is an isogloss. What is an isogloss?

A boundary that separates regions in which different languages usages predominate.

A lingua franca is what?

A language that is mutually understood by people who have different native languages (English, Swahili)

A written form of a language

A literary tradition

A creolized language is what?

A mix of indigenous and colonial languages

Basque is a good example of what?

An isolated language

Germanic invaders of England included which tribe?

Angles, Saxons, Jutes

Russian is part of what language branch?

Balto-Slavic

The four most frequently spoken branches of Indo-European include all but which ones?

Balto-Slavic, Indo-Iranian, Romance, and Germanic

The Flemings and Walloons live in what country?

Belgium

The dialect of English associated with upper-class Britons living in London and now considered standard in the United Kingdom.

British Received Pronunciation (BRP)

An Indo-European language is spoken in which of these European countries?

Bulgaria

A language that results from the mixing of a colonizer's language with the indigenous language of the people being dominated.

Creole or Creolized Language

A combination of German and English

Denglish

The first speakers of the language that evolved into English were tribes that lived in present day ________.

Denmark

A form of a language spoken in a local area is a _________.

Dialect

A regional variety of a language distinguished by vocabulary, spelling, and pronunciation.

Dialect

Why did dialects develop within England?

Different Germanic invaders settled in different regions

________ is to Canada as ________ it to the United States

French, Spanish

Official languages in Switzerland include

German, Italian, French, Romansch

English is a part of which language branch?

Germanic

Which group of the Germanic family is extinct?

East Germanic

Dialect spoken by some African Americans.

Ebonics

The language spoken by the greatest number of native speakers in the world is what?

English

The most widely spoken Indo-European language is _________.

English

Which statement best describes the use of English on the Internet?

English has become less dominant but is still leading the Internet language

A language that was once used by people in daily activities but is no longer used.

Extinct Language

Every European country is dominated by Indo-European speakers except

Finland, Estonia, and Hungary

A term used by the French for English words that have entered the French language; a combination of français and anglais, the French words for "French" and "English," respectively.

Franglais

Celtic languages

Have an extensive body of literature

The Icelandic language has changed less than any other Germanic language because of what?

Iceland's relative isolation from other places

Chinese is written in the form of _________.

Ideograms

The system of writing used in China and other East Asian countries in which each symbol represents and idea or concept rather than a specific sound, as is the case with letters in English.

Ideograms

English is a part of which language family?

Indo-European

Both the Angles and the Normans contributed to the development of the English language, because they....

Invaded England

A boundary that separates regions in which different languages usages predominate.

Isogloss

What are the Romance languages?

Italian, Portugese, Romanian, French

English has achieved unprecedented acceptance globally due to what?

Its role as the common language of global economy and culture

Marija Gimbutas' theory points to the first speakers of the Indo-European languages as the ancient.... who?

Kurgans

A system of communication through the use of speech, a collection of sounds understood by a group of people to have the same meaning.

Language

A collection of languages related through a common ancestor that existed several thousand years ago. Differences are not as extensive or as old as with language families, and archaeological evidence can confirm that branches derive from the same family.

Language Branch

A collection of languages related to each other through a common ancestor long before recorded history.

Language Family

A collection of languages within a branch that share a common origin in the relatively recent past and display relatively few differences in grammar and vocabulary.

Language Group

The Flemings and Walloons speak languages belonging to different what?

Language branches

A group of languages that share a common ancestor before recorded history is a ________ ________

Language family

A language mutually understood and commonly used in trade by people who have different native languages.

Lingua Franca

African languages are distinguished by the fact that....

Linquist continue to add newly discovered languages to the African list

A language that is written as well as spoken.

Literary Tradition

Immigrants to which American colonies had the most diverse backgrounds?

Middle Atlantic

The most important language family in Sub-Saharan Africa is what?

Niger-Congo

A pidgin language has .....

No native speakers

The language adopted for use by the government for the conduct of business and publication of documents.

Official Language

Urdu is the most important language of/in

Pakistan

A form of speech that adopts a simplified grammar and limited vocabulary of a lingua franca; used for communications among speakers of two different languages

Pidgin Language

The most widely spoken language is in Brazil, what is it?

Portugese

The two most important languages in South America are

Portugese and Spanish

The main difference between languages in the same family, branch, or group is how?

Recently in time the languages were once the same

Australia and New Zealand's language policies differ today in that Australia......

Regards English as a way to promote cultural diversity, while New Zealand gives great support to other languages

Hebrew is an example of a what language?

Revived language

The language family encompassing the languages of the People's Republic of China is what?

Sino-Tibetan

The survival of any language relies on what?

The political and military strength of its speakers

Franglais is what?

The use of English in the French language

Who were the Kurgans?

They were horse and cattle herders from the grassland steppes of present day Russia and Kazakhstan.

The large number of individual languages documented in Africa has resulted primarily from what?

Thousands of years of isolation between tribal groups

A form of Latin used in daily conversation by ancient Romans as opposed to the standard dialect, which was used for official documents.

Vulgar Latin

The language spoken by soldiers stationed throughout the Roman Empire was known as what?

Vulgar Latin

English is a part of which language group?

West Germanic

According to Colin Renfrew's Anatolian hearth theory, Indo-European languages diffused across Europe. How and why?

With the diffusion of agriculture