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Chapter 6 vocab
Term | Definition |
---|---|
language | A set of sounds and symbols that are used for communication. |
Mutual intelligibility | Ability of two people to understand each other when speaking. |
standard language | The variant of a language that country's political and intellectual elite seek to promote as the norm for use in schools, governments, the media, and other aspects of public life. |
dialect | Variant of a standard language along regional or ethic lines |
dialect chain | A group of contiguous dialects where the dialects nearest to each other geographically are the most similar and the dialects farther apart are least similar. |
isogloss | A geographic boundary where linguistic features occur |
language family | Group of languages with a shared but distant origin. |
language subfamilies | Divisions within a language family where commonalities are more definite and the origin is more recent |
cognate | A word in one language that shares its origin with a word in another language. Cognates have similar meanings and spellings and show shared origins and connections among languages. |
language divergence | Process where discrete, new languages are eventually formed from one language. Happens when people speaking two dialects of a language are relatively isolated from each other and have little spatial interaction; the opposite of language convergence. |
backward reconstruction | Tracking sound shifts and hardening consonants backward to uncover an original language. |
language convergence | Process where two languages collapse into one language. Happens when people speaking two languages have frequent and consistent spatial interaction with each other; the opposite of language divergence |
extinct language | language without any native speakers |
conquest theory | idea that early speakers of proto-indo-european left the hearth area and moved westward on horseback, overpowering earlier inhabitants and beginning the diffusion and differentiation of Indo-European tongues |
agriculture theory | The theory that the Proto-Indo-European language spread with the diffusion of agriculture. |
vernacular | A language used in everyday interaction among a group of people in a local area |
lingua franca | language used for trade or cultural interaction among people who speak different languages |
pidgin language | Combination of two or more languages in a simplified structure and vocabulary |
creole language | A language that began as a pigdin language and was later adopted as the mother tongue of a people. |
toponym | Place name |