Concept Review: Language – Flashcards
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What distinguishes a language branch?
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Differences are not as old as in language families. Languages related through a common ancestor. Scientific evidence can confirm branches derived from the same family.
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English is part of which branch of the Indo-European family?
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Germanic
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Which (in numbers of people) is the world's most extensively spoken language?
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Indo-European
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Which Romance languages are primarily spoken in southwestern Europe and Latin America?
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Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Italian
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Which of these languages is Low Germanic?
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Dutch, Afrikaans, Frisian, and Flemish?
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Which of these languages are the North Germanic Group?
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Danish, Swedish, Icelandic, and Norwegian
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From where did the four Scandinavian languages derive?
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Old Norse
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What is one of the main elements of cultural diversity among the nearly one billion residents of India?
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Language
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Which of the following language families belong to India?
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Sino-Tibetan, Dravidian, Austro-Asiatic, and Indo-European
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Why are 16 percent of the Chinese population over the age of sixteen unable to read or write more than a few characters of Chinese?
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Large number of Chinese characters
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Which country speaks Austro-Thai?
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Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos?
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Why have Japanese and Korean formed distinctive language families?
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Japan is an island and Korea is a peninsular state.
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How do the structures of Chinese and Japanese language differ?
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Japanese uses two systems of phonetic symbols.
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Which language family transcends (in importance) the number of speakers because its languages were used to write the holiest books of three major world religions: the Bible (New and Old Testaments), and the Quran?
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Afro-Asiatic
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A standard Arabic language has developed among the 230 million speakers because...
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of the influence of the Quran, newspapers, and radio.
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Which European country(ies) are not dominated by Indo-European speakers?
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Finland, Hungary, and Estonia
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The global distribution of languages results from a combination of which two geographic processes?
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diffusion, migration, interaction, and isolation
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Which are the first and second most-spoken languages in the world?
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Mandarin, English
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The three tribes that brought the beginnings of English to the British Isles came from...
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Germany and Denmark.
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In what significant ways does U.S. English differ from that of England?
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spelling, pronunciation, and vocabulary
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What was an important influence for new English words in America?
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new inventions, new physical features and animals, and American Indians
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Noah Webster primarily conceived the difference in American pronunciation and spelling from that of the British Isles because
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it would establish a uniquely American dialect; it would reduce cultural dependence on England; it would inspire national pride
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What treaty ensured that Spanish and Portuguese would be diffused to the western portion of the New World?
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Treaty of Tordesillas
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How has Switzerland remained at peace with four or five different languages withing their borders?
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Switzerland has a decentralized government.
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Lingua franca languages include
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Swahili, Russia, and Hindustani
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The current growth in the use of English has occurred because of
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military conquest, migration, and expansion diffusion.
