Chapter 5 Definitions Rubenstein Flashcards
Creole or Creolized language
A language that results from the mixing of a colonizer?s language with the indigenous language of the people being dominated.
Denglish
A combination of German and English.
Dialect
A regional variety of a language distinguished by vocabulary, spelling and pronunciation.
Ebonics
A dialect spoken by some African Americans.
Extinct language
A language that was once used by people in daily activities but is no longer used.
Franglais
A term used by the French for English words that have entered the French language; a combination of francais and anglais, the French words for French and English, respectively.
Isogloss
A boundary that separates regions in which different language usages predominate.
Isolated language
A language that is unrelated to any other languages and therefore not attached to any language family.
Language
A system of communication through the use of speech, a collection of sounds understood by a group of people to have the same meaning.
Language branch
A collection of languages related though a common ancestor that existed several thousand years ago. Differences are not as extensive or as old as with language families and archaeological evidence can confirm that the branches derived from the same family.
Language family
A collection of languages related to each other through a common ancestor long before recorded history.
Language group
A 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.
Lingua franca
A language mutually understood and commonly used in trade by people who have different native languages.
Literary tradition
A language that is written as well as spoken.
Logogram
A symbol that represents a word rather than a sound.
Official language
The language adopted for use by the government for the conduct of business and publication of documents.
