Language key terms

Accent

A way of pronouncing words that indicates the place of origin or social background of the speaker.

Agriculture Theory

Theory of the diffusion of the Proto-Indo-European language into Europe through the innovation of agriculture.

Artifact

An object made by a human being, typically an item of cultural or historical interest.

Bilingualism

The ability to communicate in two languages.

British Received Pronunciation (BRP)

The dialect of England associated with upper class Britons living in the London area and now considered standard in the UK.

Conquest Theory

Theory of the diffusion of the Proto-Indo-European language into Europe through the speakers' overpowering of earlier inhabitants through warfare and technology.

Convergence (of languages)

Collapsing of two languages into one resulting from consistent spatial interaction of peoples with different languages.

Creole/Creolization

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

Cultural transmission

The process by which one generation passes culture to the next.

Deep reconstruction

Technique using the vocabulary of an extinct language to re-create the language that preceded it.

Denglish

The diffusion of English words into German.

Dialect

A regional variation of a language in vocabulary and pronunciation.

Diffusion (of languages)

Movement of languages through migration.

Divergence (of languages)

When a language breaks into dialects due to a lack of spatial interaction among speakers of a language.

Ebonics

Dialect spoken by some African Americans.

Esperanto

A constructed international language developed in the late 1880s.

Extinct language

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

Franglais

English words that have entered the French language.

Hispanicization

Process whereby the number of Hispanics is increasing in the U.S.

Ideogram

System of writing used in China and other East Asian countries.

Isogloss

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

Isolated language

Language that is unrelated to any other languages.

Language

A system of communication through the use of speech.

Language branch

A collection of languages related through a common ancestor.

Language family

A collection of languages related to each other through a common ancestor.

Language group

A collection of languages within a branch that share a common origin.

Language replacement (extinction)

Obliteration of an entire culture through war, disease, assimilation, or any combination of the three.

Lingua franca

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

Linguistic fragmentation

A condition in which many languages are spoken, each by a relatively small number of people.

Linguistic geography

The study of speech areas and their local variations.

Literary tradition

A language that is written as well as spoken.

Mentifact

Shared ideas, values, and beliefs of a culture.

Modern linguistic mosaic - literacy, technology, political organization

Three areas of innovation that have shaped the location and nature of language in the modern world.

Monolingual state

Country in which only one language is primarily spoken.

Multilingualism

The ability to communicate in more than two languages.

Nostratic

Hypothesized ancestral language of Proto-Indo-European, as well as other ancestral language families.

Official language

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

Pidgin language

A form of speech that adopts a simplified grammar and limited vocabulary.

Pre-literate societies

Cultures without any written language.

Proto-Indo-European

Hypothesized ancestral Indo-European language.

Revived language

A language that dissolved and was subsequently resurrected.

Sociofact

Structures and organizations of a culture which influence social behavior.

Sound shift

Slight change in a word across related languages.

Spanglish

A combination of English and Spanish.

Standard language

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

Sub-family

Group of languages with more commonality than a language family.

Toponymy

The study of place names.

Vulgar Latin

A form of Latin used in daily conversation by ancient Romans.