Chapter 5: Languages Flashcards Preview

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Flashcards in Chapter 5: Languages Deck (23)
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1
Q

define language

A

form of communication, uses sounds that have a meaning to a group

2
Q

what is an institutional language

A

language used in education, work, mass media, government.

3
Q

what is a literacy tradition

A

language written and spoken

4
Q

what is a developing language

A

spoken in daily use with a literacy tradition that is not widely distributed

5
Q

what is a vigorous language

A

spoken in daily use but lacks a literacy tradition

6
Q

what is a threatened language

A

used for face-to-face communication but losing users

7
Q

what is a dying language

A

used by older people, but not transmitted to children

8
Q

what are the 3 types of language classification

A
  1. language family: collection of languages related to each other through a common ancestor long before recorded history
  2. language branch: common ancestor that can be confirmed though archaeological evidence (not as big as family)
  3. language group: share common origin in the relatively recent past and display relatively few differences in grammar and vocal.
9
Q

what are the 4 most frequent writing systems

A

Cyrillic, latin, arabic, Chinese

10
Q

what are the 8 info-european language branches

A

romance, germanic, indo-iranian, alto-slavic, Albanian, Armenian, celtic, greek

11
Q

what is a lingua franca

A

language that is mutually understood and commonly used in trade by people who have different native languages

12
Q

what is a pidgin language

A

speech that adopts simple grammar and limited vocabulary of a lingua franca, used to communicate between 2 different languages

13
Q

what is a de facto language

A

predominate but not official language

14
Q

what is a logogram

A

symbol represents word rather than sound

15
Q

what is a dialect

A

regional varieties of a language distinguished by vocabulary, spelling, and pronunciations

16
Q

what is an isogloss

A

word usage boundary related to dialects

17
Q

what are 2 challenges in distinguishing between language and dialect

A
  1. globalization surpasses dialect and language varieties

2. cultural identity encourages new languages

18
Q

what is an official language

A

adopted by government for the conduct of business and publication of documents

19
Q

what is a creole language

A

language resulted from mixing of colonizer and indigenous languages

20
Q

what is an endangered language

A

it is at risk of extinction, few surviving speakers

21
Q

what is an isolated language

A

unrelated to other languages, no language family

22
Q

what is a big reason for dead languages

A

migration and conquest

23
Q

what is a growing language

A

extinct/nearly extinct language that is coming back