Human Geography CHAPTER 5 - Languages

Which of the following definitions correctly describes an isogloss?

A geographic boundary of a word

What is a creolized language?

A local language mixed with the language of a colonial power.

Which of the following definitions for a pidgin language is correct?

A simplified from of a lingua franca.

Which of the following definitions of language is correct?

A system of communication through speech

Which language family is seen as more significant than its number of speakers would suggest due to its use in the Bible and the Quran, the holiest books of multiple major world religions?

Afro-Asiatic

Which of the following language families includes Arabic?

Afro-Asiatic

Which of the following statements regarding the Welsh language is correct?

All schools in Wales must teach Welsh.

Why is the dialect of English spoken in the United States so different from the dialect spoken in England?

American colonists were isolated from English speakers in Great Britain.

Which of the following is an example of an isolated language?

Basque

In which of the following South American countries is Portuguese the dominant language?

Brazil

Which of the following terms is used by Latin Americans to identify the dialect of Spanish spoken in Spain?

Castilian

Which of the following persons or individuals is credited with devising the sedentary farmer hypothesis of Proto-Indo-European diffusion?

Colin Renfrew

What language family predominates in Eastern Europe?

Eastern Europe : Romance languages predominate in Southern Europe as Balto-Slavic languages do in Eastern Europe.

Which of the following terms refers to African American Vernacular English?

Ebonics

What is today's globally predominant lingua franca?

English

Which of the following languages is the official language in the most countries?

English

Which of the following statements regarding the use of English on the Internet is correct?

English is becoming a less dominant language of the Internet.

In which of the following countries does the primary spoken language belong to the Uralic language family?

Finland

The words jeans and hamburger are used in the French language. This is known as __________.

Franglais

Today the language of international diplomacy is generally recognized as English. What language once held that position?

French

Which of the following languages is one of the four official languages of Switzerland?

French

English, an Indo-European language, belongs to which of the following language branches?

Germanic

Which of the following is an example of a language that was extinct but was then revived?

Hebrew

Which of the following languages is a part of the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family?

Hindi

What language family is the most widely spoken in the world?

Indo-European

Why has a standard Arabic language developed among its 230 million speakers?

It has developed due to the influence of the Quran.

The Romanian language is most closely related to which of the following European languages?

Italian

What is the origin of the name of the Romance language branch?

Its evolution from the Latin language spoken by the Romans

Which of the following language families utilizes a distinctive clicking sound?

Khoisan

Which of the following statements correctly describes the nomadic warrior hypothesis of the origin and diffusion of Proto-Indo-European?

Kurgan warriors spoke Proto-Indo-European and conquered much of Europe and South Asia.

What language classification concept represents the largest number of speakers?

Language family

Which of the following terms refers to a collection of languages related through a common ancestral language that existed long before recorded history?

Language family

Which of the following statements regarding the South Slavic group of languages is correct?

Languages such as Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian are viewed as distinct languages by their speakers.

A business owner wishes to do business with another company located overseas. The business owner and manager of the overseas company each speak a different language, but use English when communicating with each other. What is this an example of?

Lingua franca

What is NOT true about the preservation of local languages?

Local languages are resurging and reversing the dominance of lingua francas.

Chinese languages use symbols that represent words or ideas rather than sounds. Which of the following terms describes this system of writing?

Logograms

Which of the following statements regarding dialects is correct?

Making the distinction between a dialect and a language is often difficult.

Which of the following languages has the largest number of speakers?

Mandarin

Which of the following languages is the most widely spoken in China?

Mandarin

Which of the following language and country associations is most similar to the relationship between Hindi and India?

Mandarin and China

Aside from English, what is the other official language of New Zealand?

Maori

Which of the following is an indigenous language of New Zealand?

Maori

Which of the following statements regarding the origin of English is correct?

Modern English primarily evolved from the languages spoken by the Germanic tribes that invaded the British Isles.

Part of the West Slavic group.

Poland and the Czech Republic.

Which of the following languages is one of the four most widely spoken contemporary Romance languages?

Portuguese

Which of the following statements correctly describes Received Pronunciation (RP)?

RP is an upper-class dialect

If Latin was the language of the Roman Empire, why don't the areas of the former Roman Empire still all speak Latin today?

Regions became isolated from one another after the collapse of the Roman Empire.

One characteristic of the northeastern dialect of American English is the dropping of the "r" sound in words like car. Which of the following factors helps explain this distinctive feature?

Residents here remained in close contact with England.

In which of the following regions is the Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family spoken?

Russia

What country is dominated by Indo-European speakers?

Russia

There is often more than one word for something in the English language. Man, for example, could also be referred to as masculine. A horse might also be an equine. What is the reason for this?

Simple English words generally stem from German while more elegant words stem from French.

Which of the following language families includes Mandarin and Yue?

Sino-Tibetan

In which of the following countries is Catalán spoken?

Spain

Which of the following cultural features is an example of a literary tradition?

Textbook

What treaty ensured that Spanish and Portuguese would be diffused to the western portion of the New World?

The Treaty of Tordesillas

Which of the following statements regarding language in the United States is correct?

The United States does not have an official language.

Which of the following statements comparing American English and British English is correct?

The two dialects differ in pronunciation, vocabulary, and spelling.

Which of the following statements regarding the languages of Nigeria is correct?

There are 527 distinct languages spoken in Nigeria.

Which of the following locations does NOT have English as an official language?

United States

Which of the following languages is the most widely spoken in the Austro-Asiatic language family?

Vietnamese

Which of the following terms refers to people from southern Belgium?

Walloons

Tayo is spoken on the islands of New Caledonia, a French territory. It is a combination of French and the language spoken by indigenous islanders. This is an example of a(n): __________.

creolized language

Two people speak the same language but differ in some of their vocabulary, spelling, and pronunciation. This is an example of a(n) __________.

dialect

Sowa is an indigenous language of Vanuatu in the South Pacific. Around the year 2000, the last Sowa speaker died. This is an example of a(n) __________.

extinct language

A country mandates that Spanish must be used on all signs, in government reports and school textbooks. This is an example of a(n) _________________.

official language