Chapter 5 - Language

centripedal

a unifying force (ex: language/culture)

centrifugal

a separating force (ex: war/conflict)

institutional language

used in government, education/work, and mass media

developing

used in daily life throughout all ages

vigorous

developing but without a literary tradition

threatened

loses users and is spoken only face to face

dying

used by older people exclusively

family

a collection of languages related through a common ancestral language that existed before recorded history

branch

a collection of languages within a family that came from a common ancestral language thousands of years ago

group

a collection of languages within a branch that share a relatively recent past

main language families

Indo European (45.7%)
Sino Tibetan (21.1%)
Niger Congo (6.9%)
Afro Asiatic (6.3%)
Austronesian (5%)
Dravidian (3.5%)
Turkic (2.6%)

vulgar latin

the spoken, non standard form of Latin romance languages developed from

development of English

German invasion, Norman invasion, diffusion

lingua franca

an international language used to connect people linguistically

logograms

meaningful symbols that represent words

official language

a language used formally by the government for public documents + schools

working language

used by an international corporation for mass communication

informal language

created by mixing English and another language (ex: Spanglish)

pidgin language

a simplified version of English/a lingua franca

dialect

distinct regional variation of a language

dialect distinction

spelling, pronunciation, and vocabulary

standard language

the most acceptable, widely used dialect in a country

received pronunciation (RP)

England's standard language

African American Vernacular English (AAVE)

the distinctive dialect preserved and formed throughout African American history

creole

combines the indigenous and colonizers languages

mutual intelligibility

ability to understand someone speaking another way without previous knowledge/effort

Belgium

country divided between Walloons (French) and Flemings (Dutch)

endangered language

one that newer generations aren’t being taught

isolated language

one that’s completely unique due to lack of connections

extinct language

one that used to be used daily but has since died out

forms of Celtic

brythonic + goidelic