CHAPTER 5 —> Languages

Creole language

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

Dialect

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

Extinct language

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

Ideogram

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

Indo-European

Language family including the Germanic and Romance languages that is spoken by about 50% of the world's people.

Isogloss

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

Isolated language

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

Language

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 branch

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

Language family

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

Language group

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.

Lingua franca

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

Literary tradition

A language that is written as well as spoken.

Monolinguality

Speaking only one language.

Bilinguality

Speaking two languages.

Multilinguality

Speaking several languages.

Official language

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

Pidgin language

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.

Standard language

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

Toponym

Place names given to certain features on the land such as settlements, terrain features, and streams.

Anatolian Hypothesis (Sedentary Farmer theory)

Theory argued by Colin Renfrew that Proto-Indo-European language originated with people in present day Turkey and was spread with agricultural practices to Europe and South Asia.

Nostratic Hypothesis

Proposed, but still controversial, language family of northern Eurasia

Kurgan Hypothesis (Nomadic Warrior Theory)

Theory arguing that the Proto-Indo-European language originated near Russia and Kazakhstan and diffused due to domesticated horses and chariots establishing military superiority through Europe and South Asia.

National Language

the language spoken and written by the majority of people in a country

Trade Language

a restructured language (as a lingua franca or pidgin) used especially in commercial communication.

Received Pronunciation (RP)

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

AAVE

an abbreviation for AFRICAN AMERICAN VERNACULAR ENGLISH

mutual intelligibility

The ability of two people to understand each other when speaking

Belgium languages

Walloons speak French (Romance) which was historically dominant, and the Flemish speak a derivative of Dutch (Germanic)

Celtic languages

threatened by extinction in England; are still spoken by people in France; have been revived in some parts of the British Isles; have an extensive body of literature

Hebrew Language

The ancient Jewish language of the Torah and other scriptural writings and the national language of Israel. Today undergoing a revival.

Icelandic language

isolated, hasn't changed much

Language and Gender

use gender inclusive and gender neutral language

Haitian Creole

What language is a result of mixing African and European languages?

Swahili

Lingua Franca of Sub Saharan Africa

centrifugal

tending to move away from a center

centripetal force

An attitude that tends to unify people and enhance support for a state

Anglo, Saxon, Jutes

Anglo Saxons were originally not Romanized or Christian, but slowly migrated into Western Europe. They then formed England.

English language

Was created by the German tribes and then the additions of the Normans

Balto-Slavic Branch

This branch of the Indo-European language family can be broken down into four groups: East Slavic (Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian), Baltic (Latvian, Lithuanian), West Slavic (Polish, Czech, and Slovak), and South Slavic (Serbo-Croatian). Russian is the most widely used language in this branch, due to the spread of the Soviet Union.

Indo-Iranian Branch

The branch of the Indo-European language family with the most speakers. This branch includes more than 100 individual languages divided into an eastern group (Indic), which includes the languages of Hinid and Urdu and a western group (Iranian), which includes Farsi and Kurdish.

Romance languages

Any of the languages derived from Latin including Italian, Spanish, French, and Romanian.

West Germanic Group

English, German, Dutch

North Germanic Group

Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic

Institutional language

A language used in education, work, mass media, and government.

Literary Tradition

A language that is written as well as spoken

pidgin language

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.

extinct language

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

Germanic Branch

A language branch of the Indo-European Language Family. This branch is divided into North and West Germanic.

North Germanic

Scandinavian languages (Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic), which all came from Old Norse.

West Germanic

Further divided into High Germanic (German) and Low Germanic (English, Dutch, Flemish (Dialect of Dutch), Afrikaaans, and Frisian) subgroups