written form of a language literary tradition

form of a language spoken in a local area dialect

a group of languages that share a common origin but have since evolved into individual languages language branch

language family group of languages that share a common ancestor before recorded history

2 nd largest language family
Sino-Tibetan

roots of language trees below the surface represent possible prehistoric super families

the trunks of trees depict language families

Germanic invaders of England
Saxons, Jutes, and Angles

Angles and Normans contributed to the development of the English language because they invaded England

Why is English the most important language of North
America?
the diffusion of English colonies

The first speakers of the language that evolved into
English were tribes that lived in present-day
Denmark.

English is part of the __________________ language group.
West-Germanic

English is part of the ____________________ language branch.
Germanic

Which group of the Germanic family is extinct?
East-Germanic

Why has the Icelandic language changed very little?
Isolation from other places

English is part of which language family?
Indo-European

when people migrate and become isolated from other members of their group the results of Isolation causes a language to become two languages

Romance languages
Italian, French, Romanian, Portuguese, and Spanish

the language spoken throughout the Roman Empire by soldiers
Vulgar Latin

widely spoken language in Brazil
Portuguese

mix of indigenous and colonial languages creolized language

most widely spoken Indo-European language is
English

four most frequently spoken branches of
Indo-European
Germanic, Romance, Indo-Iranian, and Balto-Slavic

2 most important languages of South America
Portuguese and Spanish

Flemings and Walloons live in
Belgium.

Flemings and Walloons speak languages that belong to different language branches.

official languages of Switzerland
Romansh, French, Italian, and German

Russian/language branch
Balto-Slavic

most important language of Pakistan
Urdu

Celtic languages revived in parts of the British Isles, spoken in France, threatened by extinction in England, and extensive body of literature.

Marija Gimbutas theory points to the first speakers of
Indo-European as the
Kurgans

The Kurgans from present day Russia and Kazakhstan

Basque is spoken primarily in the Pyrenees Mountains.

according to Colin Rehfrew’s
Indo-European language diffused across Europe with the diffusion of agriculture. This is the Anatolian hearth theory.

Sino-Tibetan and Indo-European world’s largest language families

language family encompassing the Peoples Republic of
China
Sino-Tibetan

Mandarin language spoken by the greatest number of native speakers in the world

Chinese is written in the form of ideograms

Hebrew example of a revived language

Bulgaria
Indo-European language is spoken here

Uralic
2 nd most widely spoken language family in Europe

individual languages in Africa resulted primarily from thousands of years of isolation between tribal groups

most important language family in Sub-Saharan Africa is
Niger-Congo

distinction of African languages linguist continue to add newly discovered languages to the African list

mutually understood language by people who have different native languages lingua franca

development of different dialects in England different Germanic invaders settled in different regions

differences in British and American English pronunciation, prevalent dialects, vocabulary, and spelling

Which immigrants to the American colonies had the most diverse backgrounds?
Middle Atlantic

boundary between language regions isogloss

use of English in the French language franglais