Empires Of The World Flashcards
Mandarin Chinese has about _________ speakers.
900 million speakers
From the language point of view, the present population of the world is not six billion, but something over _____________.
six thousand
English and Spanish has about ________ speakers.
300 million speakers
Over a thousand languages have under _________ speakers.
A dozen speakers
In considering human history, how is the language community a natural unit of measurement?
Languages, by their nature as a means of communication, divide humanity into groups.
What role does language play in history?
Languages make possible both the living of a common history, and also the telling of it.
Why is language a good medium to preserve a group’s history?
Every language is a tradition passed down from the old to the young. So in that sense, language can survive your lifetime and continue.
Are their any extinct languages?
Yes. The history of language is filled with traditions that have died out.
What does language have in common with genetics?
Membership in the language community is based on a clear relation.
Are language communities easy to count?
No. Languages change very rapidly so groups are hard to distinguish.
Before the discovery and expansion of agriculture, human communities were __________________.
small bands of hunter-gatherers
In the early period of language history, each community probably __________________.
had its own language
How did agriculture change language history?
Communities became larger and more organized. People settled down and had neighbors for years. There became a motive for communication to pay and negotiate.
What kind of things was primitive language used for?
Storytelling, dispensing of legal judgments, and healing rituals.
Recitation or verbal accounts of history are unreliable. What changed this?
The invention of writing. This was a great way to study an unaltered record of language history.
