Historical Linguistics

Question 1

Place the history of English languages in order:
a. Old English
b. Proto-Germanic
c. Modern English
d. Middle English
e. Proto-West-Germanic

Answer 1

b, e, a, d, c

Question 2

True or false: When a linguistic community splits into two, the halves stop evolving

Answer 2

False, the halves continue to evolve separately

Question 3

What is the group of related languages derived from the same ancestor?

Answer 3

Language family

Question 4

What is the ancestor of a language family?

Answer 4

Proto-language

Question 5

True or false: Language families cannot be contained in language families

Answer 5

False

Question 6

What is the ancestor of Indo-European language families?

Answer 6

Proto-Indo-European

Question 7

What are the Indo-European subfamilies?

Answer 7

Germanic, Romance, Balto-Slavic, Indo-Aryan, Greek, Albanian

Question 8

What is the phonological change that was once active in the language?

Answer 8

Sound change

Question 9

True or false: Sound change reduces intelligibility between varieties that undergo the change and varieties that do not

Answer 9

True

Question 10

True or false: The properties of ancestral proto-language can be revealed by the comparison of related languages

Answer 10

True

Question 11

What is the goal of language reconstruction?

Answer 11

Related languages converge on a single form