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