AP Human Geography Chapter 6 Language

Accent

A distinctive mode of pronunciation of a language, especially one associated with a particular nation, locality, or social class.

Dialect

A particular form of a language that is particular to a specific region or social group.
ex: regional slang, pop or soda, cellar or basement

Extinct Language

An extinct language is a language that no longer has any speakers, or that is no longer in current use.

Ideogram/ logogram

A written character symbolizing the idea of a thing without indicating the sounds used to say it. An Example: 6 (six)

Isogloss

A geographic boundary line delimiting the area in which a given linguistic feature occurs.

Isolated Language

a natural language with no demonstrable genealogical (or "genetic") relationship with other languages; that is, one that has not been demonstrated to descend from an ancestor common with any other language. i.e A language family with only one language.

Language Branch

A Subsection of a Language Family. i.e The Romance "-------" of the Indo-European language family.

Language

The method of human communication, either spoken or written, consisting of the use of words in a structured and conventional way.

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.
ex: Romance language group derived from Latin: Spanish, Italian, Romanian, Portuguese, and French

Language Family

A collection of languages related to each other through a same original tongue, but have different characteristics
ex: 50% of global population speak languages from Indo-European family

Indo European language family

Largest language family that includes English and most other languages in the Western Hemisphere. Also used in South and Southwest Asia.

Sino-Tibetan Language Family

2nd largest language family. Includes Madarin, Thai, Cantonese and Burmese

Lingua Franca

A Language mutually understood and commonly used in trade by people who have different native languages, sometimes a combination of 2 languages

Monolingual

The condition of being able to speak only a single language

Bilingual

The ability to speak two languages

Multilingual

The ability to speak multiple 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 used by politicians, broadcasters, and actors. Usually spoken accent of the upper-class in England.

Toponym

a place name or a word derived from the name of a place

Creole

a mother tongue formed from the contact of two languages that was a pidgin language that has become the primary language of people who speak it.