AP Human Geography Chapter 5 Language

Bilingual

Able to speak two languages

Creole Language

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

Denglish

Combination of German and English

Developing Language

A language spoken in daily use with a literary tradition that is not widely distributed.

Dialect

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

Ebonics

Dialect spoken by some African Americans

Extinct Language

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

Indo-European

A family of languages consisting of most of the languages of Europe as well as those of Iran, the Indian subcontinent, and other parts of Asia

Institutional Language

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

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

Our spoken, written, or signed words and the ways we combine them to communicate meaning

Language Branch

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 the branches 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.

Language Isolate

A language that belongs to no known language family.

Lingua Franca

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

Linguistic Fragmentation

Many languages spoken by a small group of people.

Literary Tradition

A language that is written as well as spoken

Logogram

A symbol that represents a word rather than a sound

multilingual

able to speak 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.

Received Pronunciation

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

Spanglish

Combination of Spanish and English, spoken by Hispanic-Americans.

Standard Language

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

Subdialect

A subdivision of a dialect

Toponym

The place name of a geographic location

Vigorous Language

a language that is spoken in daily use but that lacks a literary tradition

Vulgar Latin

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