Chapter 5 Test Flashcards
Define de jure
A language that is required by law to be used in the government
What are the 3 most widely spoken languages in the world?
Mandarin, Spanish, and English
What are the levels of organization of the world’s languages from biggest to smallest?
Language family, language branch, and language group
What is the world’s most widely used language family?
The Indo-European family
What group is English in?
The West Germanic group
What branch is the West Germanic group a part of?
The Germanic branch
Is English the de facto language or the de jure language in the united states?
It is the de facto language, meaning that it is the preferred language.
What language family is the Germanic branch a part of?
The Indo-European
English is spoken by about how many people?
Around a half a billion
How many countries have English as their official language?
67+
About what percentage of the world speaks a language from the Indo-European family?
Around 50%
What are the 4 main branches of the Indo-European family?
Germanic, Romance, Baltic-Slavic, and Indo-Iranian
What languages are part of the Germanic branch?
Dutch, German, and English
What languages are part of the Romance branch?
Spanish, French, Italian, and Portuguese
What language is part of the Baltic-Slavic branch?
Russian
What languages are part of the Indo-Iranian branch?
Hindu and Bengali
Where did English first originate?
The British Isles
What was the name of the first group of people that lived on the British Isles?
The Celts?
Around 450CE, the British Isles were invaded by what tribes?
3 different Germanic tribes: The Jutes, Angles, and Saxons
What other invaders besides Germans brought their languages to the British Isles?
The Vikings from Norway/ Scandinavia and the Normans from Northern France
Overall, what groups brought their languages to the British Isles to mix together to form English?
The Celts, Jutes, Angles, Saxons, Vikings, and Normans
What language is Old English very similar to?
Frisian
Where is Frisian spoken?
In the region of the Netherlands called Friesland
How did English change significantly in the 17th century?
Because of British colonization, English was brought to the New World (murica) and other countries such as Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. English mixed with the languages of the native tribes to create a very different sounding language that closely resembles modern English
Why did English change as soon as immigrants arrived in the “New world”?
They needed new words to describe their environment and situation
What languages influenced British English into changing into American English?
British English, French, Dutch, Native American, Spanish, and West African
What is BRP or RP
British Received Pronunciation
Why was BRP formed?
As new “lower class” immigrants poured into London in search of jobs, the “upper class” created a new “proper” dialect/accent to distinguish themselves from the commoners
Why does Australian English sound so different from American English?
Because as British English was mixing with Native American languages in the U.S., British English was mixing with the languages of the Natives and Irish people in Australia
Why did Americans change their dialect and accent in the 17-18 hundreds?
To differentiate themselves from Britain, who they were having conflict with and wanted to separate from
What helped officially differentiate British English and American English?
The Webster’s American Spelling Book, published in 1783
Why was the Webster’s American Spelling Book published in 1783?
To help assimilate children into American Society while they were in school
Where did the original settlers of Northeastern US/ New England first originate?
They were from Southeast England
Where did the original settlers of the Midlands (like the Tidewater/Chesapeake Bay area) first originate?
They were from Scotland and Ireland/ North of England
Where did the original settlers of the Southeastern Region first originate?
They were from Southeast England, Africa (slaves), and other places
What 3 cities did BRP first originate in?
London, Oxford, and Cambridge
Why is there a relatively uniform form of English (dialect) spoken across the Midwest/Great Plains?*
Because all of the different dialects and accents blended together as many different settlers moved west
Why is it that nearly 90% of Spanish and Portuguese speakers live outside Europe?*
Because as countries in Europe colonized land that was even bigger than their own countries, they brought their languages (in this case Spanish and Portuguese) with them and it became popular amongst the many natives
Why is Portugal upset about the standardization of Portuguese?*
Because it’s closer the Brazilian Version of Portuguese, not their version.
Why is it so difficult to distinguish an individual language from dialects? Give an example
Because some languages have so many different dialects that sound so different they could be different languages. Ex: Napo Letano and Calebrese
Where did the Indo-European language family most likely originate?
In Central Asia
Why did the Indo-European language family likely diffuse?
Because of agriculture
What did all of the languages in the Romance branch originate from?
Latin in the Roman Empire
The language used by Roman soldiers stationed in the faraway Roman provinces is known as what?
Vulgar Latin
What are the 5 major romance languages in order from most popular to least popular
Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, and Romanian
What can explain how a language survives, or becomes 2 or more languages?
Migration or Isolation
When people become isolated, what do they do to communicate?
They develop their own language
How can a language survive?
Migration
Why languages vary by region?
The diversity in our dialects (what we say) and accents (how we say it) reflects the diversity of the people who first settled here
Why do Southerners say “Y’all”?
Because “Ye aw” is a Scots-Irish term for a group of people, and many Scots-Irish people from the countryside and highlands migrated to the Southern United States
In what year did “Y’all” first appear in the southern United States?
1824
What’s an isogloss?
A geographic boundary in which a distinct language or dialect is more common (A line that separates 2 dialects or languages)
What were the original 3 dialect regions in the U.S.?
Northern, Midlands, and Southern
As people moved west what did they bring with them?
Their distinctive dialects
Where did most western settlers come from?
The Midland dialect region
What is an example of a country that has entire language isogloss regions?
Belgium
What languages are spoken in Belgium?
Dutch, French, and German
What are 3 reasons that language is important?
- To prevent extinction of one’s languages and one’s unique culture
- Retain a connection to one’s culture
- To resist the invasion of another language and culture (usually English)
About how many languages are there in the world?
6,909
How many of the world’s languages are considered endangered?
500+
What language was considered almost extinct? What saved it?
Hebrew was considered almost extinct until the creation of the state of Israel after World War 2
After Hebrew was revived, around how many new words had to be created and why?
About 4,000 new words had to be created because of the many changes that had taken around the world while the language was dormant
What language is the lingua franca of the world?
English is considered the worlds biggest trade language, also known as the lingua franca
What is the lingua franca commonly used for?
For conducting business when the two parties don’t share a common native language
What is a Pidgin language? Give 2 examples
A hybrid language made up of different languages designed to make communication easier. Ex: Hawaiian and Creole
What languages is Hawaiian a mix of?
English, Chinese, Korean, and other Pacific languages
What languages make up the language called Creole?
Spanish, English, French, and West African
What group of people tries to preserve what language as a way to retain their unique culture? Where do they live?
The Basque people of Northern Spain and Southern France try to preserve their language called Euskara
What keeps the Basque people’s culture alive?
The fact that they’re isolated and that their language and culture have had little to no diffusion
What language was once banned in what countries?
Gaelic in Scotland and Ireland was once banned by the British but is now making a comeback
Why is Gaelic being taught in schools?
To help preserve a link to the past through the younger generation
What was one of the reasons that caused Czechoslovakia to break up?
Language and culture because what is now the Czech Republic had a very different language and culture than what is now Slovakia
What year did Czechoslovakia break up?
In 1993
What is Franglais?
A blend of French and English words
What do the French do to keep the “unfavorable” English words out of their countries?
They make it illegal to speak them
What are 2 major concerns of the French people about English?
- They’re concerned that because many new technology terms come from the English language that it will infiltrate their language.
- They’re concerned that English is the lingua franca of the internet
What do the French think they’re trying to resist when they ban English?
They’re trying to resist the “global domination” of the English language and culture
