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AP Human Geography: Language Flashcards

Language

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8650294937AccentA distinctive mode of pronunciation of a language, especially one associated with a particular nation, locality, or social class.0
8650294938DialectA regional variation of a language distinguished by vocabulary, spelling, and pronunciation, particular to a specific region or social group.1
8650294939Extinct LanguageA language that no longer has any speakers, or that is no longer in current use.2
8650294940IdeogramA written character symbolizing the idea of a thing without indicating the sounds used to say it. Used in Mandarin (Chinese)3
8650294941IsoglossA geographic boundary line delimiting the area in which a given linguistic feature occurs.4
8650294942Isolated LanguageA natural language with no demonstrable genealogical (or "genetic") relationship with other languages or language families; 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. (Basque)5
8650294943Language BranchA Subsection of a Language Family. Differences are not as extensive or old as with language families. i.e The Romance "-------" of the Indo-European language family.6
8650294944LanguageThe method of human communication, either spoken or written, consisting of the use of words in a structured and conventional way.7
8650294945Language GroupA 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. An individual language, including all dialects (I.e. Italian, German, English)8
8650294946Language FamilyA collection of languages related to each other through a common ancestor long before recorded history. The trunk of the language tree, from which language branches come from.9
8650294947Indo European language familyLargest language family that includes English and most other languages in the Western Hemisphere. Also used in South and Southwest Asia. Includes the Germanic branch, Indo-Iranian branch, Balto-Slavic branch, and Romance branch.10
8650294948Sino-Tibetan Language Family2nd largest language family. Includes Madarin, Thai, Cantonese and Burmese11
8650294949Lingua FrancaA Language mutually understood and commonly used in trade by people who have different native languages (currently English worldwide).12
8650294951Monolingual StateA country in which only one language is spoken (i.e. Japan, Korea)13
8650294952BilingualThe ability to speak two languages.14
8650294953Multilingual StateA country in which more than one language is in use (India, Nigeria, Belgium, Switzerland)15
8650294954Official LanguageThe language adopted for use by the government for the conduct of business and publication of documents, a language that is given special legal status.16
8650294955OrthographyThe conventional spelling system of a language.17
8650294956Pidgin LanguageA Form of speech that adopts a simplified grammar and limited vocabulary of a lingua franca, used for communications among speakers of two different languages.18
8650294957Standard LanguageThe specific form of a language used for official government business, education, and mass communications.19
8650294958ToponymThe name of a place, often reflecting that place's history and culture.20
8650294960CreoleA language that results from the mixing of a colonizer's language with the indigenous language of the people being dominated. Developed out of an earlier pidgin stage.21
8650294961DenglishThe term is used in all German-speaking countries to refer to the increasingly strong influx of English or pseudo-English vocabulary into German.22
8650294962FranglaisA form of French using many words and idioms borrowed from English.23
8650294963EbonicsA dialect of English spoken by some African Americans.24
8650294964SpanglishA hybrid language combining words and idioms from both Spanish and English, especially Spanish speech that uses many English words and expressions.25
8650294967Romance BranchA language branch of the Indo-European Language Family. This branch includes languages that evolved from Latin (the language of the Romans). The 5 main languages include: Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, and Romanian.26
8650294968Germanic BranchA language branch of the Indo-European Language Family. This branch is divided into North and West Germanic. North Germanic includes Scandinavian languages (Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic), which all came from Old Norse. West Germanic is further divided into High Germanic and Low Germanic subgroups. High German includes the standard German language. Low German includes English, Dutch, Flemish (Dialect of Dutch), Afrikaaans, and Frisian.27
8650294969Indo-Iranian BranchThe branch of the Indo-European language family with the most speakers. This branch includes more than 100 individual languages divided into an eastern group (Indic), which includes the languages of Hinid and Urdu and a western group (Iranian), which includes Farsi and Kurdish.28
8650294970Balto-Slavic BranchThis branch of the Indo-European language family can be broken down into four groups: East Slavic (Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian), Baltic (Latvian, Lithuanian), West Slavic (Polish, Czech, and Slovak), and South Slavic (Serbo-Croatian). Russian is the most widely used language in this branch, due to the spread of the Soviet Union.29
8650294971Celtic BranchA language branch of the Indo-European Language Family. This branch includes the languages of the British Isles before the invasion of the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. This branch is divided into two language groups: Goidelic(Gaelic), which includes Irish Gaelic and Scottish Gaelic, and Brythonic, which includes Welsh, Breton, and Cornish. These languages declined because the Celts lost most of their territory and the English colonizers forbid the use of the Celtic languages.30
8650294972Uralic Language FamilyLanguage Family in Europe that includes the languages of Estonian, Finnish, and Hungarian. Languages in this family originated from the Ural mountains in Russia, spreading through migration.31
8650294973Austronesian Language FamilyLanguage Family spoken mostly in Indonesia. This family includes the languages of Javanese, Indonesian, Malay, and Malagasy. The most spoken language in this family is Javanese, since Java is the populous island of Indonesia. The Indonesian language is used as a lingua franca in Indonesia, due to so many different native languages (739 active languages). Malay is spoken in Malaysia, Malagasy is spoken in Madagascar.32
8650294974Afro-Asiatic Language FamilyThis language family is found in northern Africa and southwestern Asia (Middle East), where Islam is the dominant religion. This family includes the languages of Arabic and Hebrew. Hebrew is spoken in Israel, a Jewish state, and Arabic is spoken throughout the region since it is the language of the Koran, the Islamic holy book.33
8650294975Niger-Congo Language FamilyMore than 95% of people in Sub-Saharan Africa speak languages from this family. This family includes Swahili, the lingua franca in Africa, used by many to communicate as a second language, due to so many different native languages.34
8650294976Prehistoric SubgroupA language that predates the current language family, before the written record. Ex: Proto-Indo-European35
8650294977Altaic Language FamilyA language family spoken across central Asia named after the Altai Mountains. The most spoken language in this family is Turkish. The family also includes the languages spoken in the Caucasus Region and across Central Asia, previously controlled by the Soviet Union. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, newly independent countries in these regions reverted to their native languages in this family, including the countries of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Mongolia and Georgia.36
8650294980British Received Pronunciation (BRP)The dialect of English associated with upper class Britons living in the London area now considered the standard form of British speech.37
8650294981Language DivergenceWhen a lack of spatial interaction (isolation) among speakers of a language breaks the language into dialects and then new languages.38
8650294982Language ConvergenceWhen peoples with different languages have consistent spatial interaction and their languages collapse into one (i.e. pidgin and creole).39
8650294983Backward ReconstructionWhen linguists track sound shifts and the hardening of consonants backward to reveal an "original" language.40
8650294984Sound ShiftSlight word change in language within the subfamilies and language family from present time, backward to its origin (i.e: lacte in Latin, latta in Italian).41
8650294986HindiApproximately one-third of Indians, mostly in the north, use this Indic language. This language can be spoken in many different ways, but there is only one official way to write the language, using a script called Devanagari. It serves as the lingua franca in India and is used by the government, growing into a national language in the nineteenth century when the British encouraged its use in government. It is part of the Indo-Iranian branch.42
8650294988UrduPakistan's principal language, spoken very much like Hindi but written with the Arabic alphabet, a legacy of the fact that most Pakistanis are Muslims, and their holiest book (the Quran) is written in Arabic. It is part of the Indo-Iranian branch.43
8650294990MandarinThis language is the most spoken language in the world. It is spoken by approximately three-fourths of the Chinese people, and is used by the Chinese government. There is no single Chinese language. Instead of letters, Chinese languages use ideograms (characters) that mostly represent concepts rather than sounds.44
8650294991ArabicThis language serves as a unifying force in the Middle East (Northern Africa and Southwest Asia), typically referred to as the Arab World. This language is the language of Islam (used in the Koran),, which is predominant throughout the region. This language belongs to the Afro-Asiatic language family and is the official language in two dozen countries of North Africa and southwestern Asia, from Morocco to the Arabian Peninsula.45
8650294997GlobalizationThe process by which businesses or other organizations develop international influence and operate on an international scale. Currently, America dominates the world with multinational corporations and media, which has made English the world's current lingua franca (international language of business).46
8650294999Vulgar LatinThis language was spoken by the Roman army at the time of occupation and is the basis of the Romance languages, which evolved out of this language overtime due to isolation.47

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