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AP Human Geography: Language Flashcards

Language

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8451378012AccentA distinctive mode of pronunciation of a language, especially one associated with a particular nation, locality, or social class.0
8451378013DialectA regional variation of a language distinguished by vocabulary, spelling, and pronunciation, particular to a specific region or social group.1
8451378014Extinct LanguageA language that no longer has any speakers, or that is no longer in current use.2
8451378015IdeogramA written character symbolizing the idea of a thing without indicating the sounds used to say it. Used in Mandarin (Chinese)3
8451378016IsoglossA geographic boundary line delimiting the area in which a given linguistic feature occurs.4
8451378017Isolated 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
8451378018Language 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
8451378019LanguageThe method of human communication, either spoken or written, consisting of the use of words in a structured and conventional way.7
8451378020Language 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
8451378021Language 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
8451378022Indo 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
8451378023Sino-Tibetan Language Family2nd largest language family. Includes Madarin, Thai, Cantonese and Burmese11
8451378024Lingua FrancaA Language mutually understood and commonly used in trade by people who have different native languages (currently English worldwide).12
8451378025Literary TraditionA Language that is written as well as spoken.13
8451378026Monolingual StateA country in which only one language is spoken (i.e. Japan, Korea)14
8451378027BilingualThe ability to speak two languages.15
8451378028Multilingual StateA country in which more than one language is in use (India, Nigeria, Belgium, Switzerland)16
8451378029Official 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.17
8451378031Pidgin 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
8451378032Standard LanguageThe specific form of a language used for official government business, education, and mass communications.19
8451378033ToponymThe name of a place, often reflecting that place's history and culture.20
8451378034VernacularUsing a language or dialect native to a region or country rather than a literary, cultured, or foreign language. It is usually the language of the common people.21
8451378035CreoleA 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.22
8451378036DenglishThe term is used in all German-speaking countries to refer to the increasingly strong influx of English or pseudo-English vocabulary into German.23
8451378037FranglaisA form of French using many words and idioms borrowed from English.24
8451378038EbonicsA dialect of English spoken by some African Americans.25
8451378039SpanglishA hybrid language combining words and idioms from both Spanish and English, especially Spanish speech that uses many English words and expressions.26
8451378041HankulThe system of writing Korean is written in. In this system, each letter represents a sound.27
8451378042Romance 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.28
8451378043Germanic 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.29
8451378044Indo-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.30
8451378045Balto-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.31
8451378046Celtic 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.32
8451378061HindiApproximately 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.33
8451378062SwahiliThe lingua franca in Africa, used by many to communicate as a second language, due to so many different native languages. This language was developed between African and Arab traders and is one for the few African languages with extensive literature. It is part of the Niger-Congo language family.34
8451378065MandarinThis 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.35
8451378067HebrewThis language was an extinct language that has been revived. It diminished in use in the fourth century B.C. and was thereafter retained only for Jewish religious services. When Israel was established in 1948, this language became one of the new country's two official languages, along with Arabic. This language was chosen to unify the Jews of Israel and give them a sense of nationalism, since Israel was created by Jewish refugees and migrants who spoke many different languages. Reviving this language required the creation of many new words for the modern world.36
8451378069BasqueAlso known as Euskera, this isolated language predates the Indo-European language and is not related to any other language family in Europe. Spoken in the Pyrenees Mountains (between Spain and France), the mountainous homeland created isolation, making the preservation of the language possible.37
8451378072GlobalizationThe 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).38
8451378074Vulgar 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.39

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