Your Name Katie Ferguson
LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS WORKSHEET (25 questions)
Directions: Fill in the blank with the correct answer or highlight/underline the correct choice
for each item.
1. Language of Investigation Bosnian
2. What places of origin (countries, regions, cities) is this language primarily spoken?
Bosnia
3. This closest/ most similar language to this language is Serbo-Croatian
3. Approximately, how many speakers are there globally of this language?
16 million
Alphabet: Orthography
5. This language has which type of alphabet?
a. Latin (every sign has a single sound)
b. Syllabic (every sign represents a whole syllable)
c. Logographic (each sign represents and entire word)
6. This language reads in which directions:
a. LEFT to RIGHT, UP to DOWN
b. RIGHT to LEFT, DOWN to UP
c. RIGHT to LEFT, UP to DOWN
d. LEFT to RIGHT, DOWN to UP
7. The letters/ characters of this alphabet are of which language family?
a. Indo-European
e. Uralic
b. Sino-Tibetan
f. Dravidian
c. Semitic
g. Austonesian
d. Bantu
h. Altic
8. Does this language depend primarily on tone or pitch?
a. Yes
b. No
Phonetics and Phonology:
9. What sounds are specific to this language, but are not present in English?
D as in jack, J as in year, Lj as in million, and Nj as in onion
10. What sounds are found in English, but are not found in this language?
They do not have the letter Q, W, X, or Y in there alphabet.
11. What sounds do speakers of this language have difficulty pronouncing in English?
There are two sounds that the speakers of Bosnian have difficulty pronouncing and those two sounds
ate “to” and “be”
Syntax and Grammar:
12. The word order of this language is
a. Verb, subject, object (VSO)
d. Verb, object, subject (VOS)
b. Subject, verb, object (SVO)
e. Subject, object, verb (SOV)
c. Object, verb, subject (OVS)
f. Lacks a dominant word order
13. Are there particular parts of speech that are represented differently (such as articles or
prepositions)?
Yes, prepositions are represented differently
14. How are tense and aspect indicated?
Present, Past Future, Pluperfect, Future perfect, Imperative, and Conditional
15. What are the punctuation forms used in this language? List using English comparisons.
Vowels, Stress, Consonants, and other sounds
16. How does this language mark gender?
Nouns have gender and cases, and the past tense is conjugated by gender and person while other
tenses are conjugated only by person
Morphology: Remember that cognates have the same origin; they are not simply words that sound
alike.
17. If there are some shared cognates between English and this language, what are they?
If not, why not?
I believe that they do not have shared cognates one because I could not find any and two possibly
because there language is so different than English that they just do not share any cognates.
18. If there are some FALSE cognates between English and this language, what are they?
If not, why not?
English dance is not a sematic quivalent of “dancing” in Bosnian, which means “dance hall.” Dragstar
means “24-hour store”, whereas English drug store means “pharmacy.”
Semantics:
19. How is formality or respect expressed?
With always greeting everyone you encounter
20. What is an informal expression in this language? What is the English translation/meaning?
“Ti” which means “you.” People can only use the word “ti” when they have permission too. This shows
respect to the person. Before using “ti” they are supposed to use “vi”, when addressing older people.
Pragmatics:
21. What is the common expression for greetings? (In English, we ask “How are you?”)
Zdravo which means “Hello”
22. Are there certain topics that are considered inappropriate or forbidden?
It is inappropriate to call someone by their first name.
Teaching Implications:
23. Through your research what have you found are the biggest difficulties of speakers of this
language learning English? Please provide specific examples.
I honestly think that any language is going to be difficult for anyone whose first language is not
English before to learn a different language there is many different things you must know before
learning it like the different ways to say a consonant or vowel. I know for me when I took Spanish
class in High School is was very difficult to learn. With taking two years of Spanish I still am not good
at it. So I think it is very difficult for another person to learn a different language.
24. If you have an early production ELL who this language is their L1, what would be the most
important thing you will teach them in regards to the difference between their language and English?
I would teach my ELL student that English and Bosnian language is very different in many ways. One
way they are different is that some of the consonants are pronounced and mean different things. Like
one of their consonants is J they pronounce it as year. For English we would say Jack. So there are
many differences between these two languages.
25. What would you expect to be ongoing difficulties for intermediate ELLs who this is there L1? What
areas would you still need to address even after they had mastered social English?
Being able to comprehend the English words, I think would be an ongoing difficulty for any ELL
students. Some areas I would still address is comprehending and working on pronouncing the words
and being able to understand what the words mean.