language and culture AP HUMAN GEOGRAPHY

language

a way a group of people communicate using speach, signals, and gestures

dialect

regional or social variations of a language that differ in pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar

language laws

regulations governing the use of languages within a country

standard language

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

isogloss

a map line that marks the boundary between areas where different linguistic features are used

mutual intelligibility

the ability of speakers of different but related languages or dialects to understand each other without prior study or exposure.

dialect continuum

a series of language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are mutually intelligible

sound shifts

a systematic change in the pronunciation of a particular phoneme or group of phonemes within a language over time

language divergence

the process through which a single language splits into multiple languages

language convergence

Collapsing of two languages into one resulting from constant spatial interaction of people with different languages

language extinction

the process by which a language loses its last native speakers, leading to its total disappearance

backwards reconstruction

The tracking of sound shifts and hardening of consonants "backward" toward the original language

deep reconstruction

Technique using the vocabulary of an extinct language to re-create the language that proceeded the extinct language

dialect chains

A set of contiguous dialects in which the dialects nearest to each other at any place in the chain are most closely related

language isolate

demonstrable genetic relationship with any other languages

language families

A collection of languages within a family with a common ancestral language

language subfamilies

Divisions within a language family where the commonalities are more definite and the origin is more recent

indo-european language family

are a family (or phylum) of several hundred related languages and dialects

porto-indo-european language

the hypothetical common ancestor of the Indo-European language family, believed to have been spoken around 4500 to 2500 BCE

nostratic language

a hypothesized proto-macrolanguage family that was spoken by people somewhere in Asia roughly fifteen thousand years ago

renfrew hypothesis

three areas in and near the first agricultural hearth, the Fertile Crescent, gave rise to three language families

conquest theory

A theory that holds that speakers of early Proto-Indo-European migrated east to west on horseback

agriculture theory

where and how people farm shapes settlement patterns, land use, economies, culture, and environmental change

dispersal hypothesis

postulates that the spreads of early farming lifestyles were often correlated with prehistoric episodes of human population and language dispersal from agricultural homelands.

euskera and basque

The Basque ethnic group comes from a region of southwest France and northwest Spain known to outsiders as Basque and to Basque people as Euskal Herria

4 main european languages in the americas

English, French, Portuguese and Spanish

romance languages

French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and Romanian

germanic languages

german, english, danish, swedish, dutch

salvic languages

russian, ukrainian, polish, slovak

colonialism and language

colonizers usually imposed their language onto the peoples they colonized, forbidding natives to speak their mother tongues

ways languages diffuse

migration, trade, colonization, and the spread of technology

lingua franca

a language that is adopted as a common language between speakers whose native languages are different

pidgin and creole languages

creole language is a fully developed natural language that emerges by blending different languages. pidgin, which often serves as a simplified means of communication between groups with no common language

monolingual and multilingual states

monolingual state is a state where only one language is spoken or allowed. multilingual A place with two or more official languages

official language

an official language a country speaks

global language

a language that is widely spoken and understood across different countries and cultures

English's role as Lingua Franca/Global Language

as a global means of inter-community communication

toponyms

descriptive, commemorative, associative.

why do toponyms change

political motivation

how do toponyms provide a sense of place

provide insights into the cultural identity of an area, as well as its historical significance and linguistic heritage