AP Human Geography: Chapter 6 Language – Flashcards
53 test answers
Unlock all answers in this set
Unlock answers 53question
Mutual Intelligibility
answer
The ability of two people to understand each other when speaking.
Unlock the answer
question
Dialect Chain
answer
A set of contiguous dialects in which the dialects nearest to each other at any place in the chain are most closely related.
Unlock the answer
question
Language Families
answer
Group of languages with a shared but fairly distant origin.
Unlock the answer
question
Subfamilies
answer
Divisions within a language family where the commonalities are more definite and the origin is more recent.
Unlock the answer
question
Sound Shift
answer
Slight change in a word across languages within a subfamily or through a language family from the present backward toward its origin.
Unlock the answer
question
Proto-Indo-European
answer
Linguistic hypothesis proposing the existence of an ancestral Indo-European language that is the hearth of the ancient Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit languages which hearth would link modern languages from Scandinavia to North Africa and from North America through parts of Asia to Australia.
Unlock the answer
question
Backward Reconstruction
answer
The tracking of sound shifts and hardening of consonants "backward" toward the original language.
Unlock the answer
question
Extinct Language
answer
Language without any native speakers.
Unlock the answer
question
Deep Reconstruction
answer
Technique using the vocabulary of an extinct language to re-create the language that proceeded the extinct language.
Unlock the answer
question
Nostratic
answer
The language believed to be the ancestral language not only of Proto-Indo-European, but also of the Kartvelian languages of the southern Caucasus region, the Uralic-Altaic languages (including Hungarian, Finnish, Turkish, and Mongolian), the Dravadian languages of India, and the Afro-Asiatic language family.
Unlock the answer
question
Language Divergence
answer
The opposite of language convergence; a process suggested by German linguist August Schleicher whereby new languages are formed when a language breaks into dialects due to a lack of spatial interaction among speakers of the language and continued isolation eventually causes the division of the language into discrete new languages.
Unlock the answer
question
Language Convergence
answer
The collapsing of two languages into one resulting from the consistent spatial interaction of people with different languages; the opposite of language divergence.
Unlock the answer
question
Renfrew Hypothesis
answer
Hypothesis developed by British scholar Colin Renfrew where in he proposed that three areas in and near the first agricultural hearth, the Fertile Crescent, gave rise to three language families: 1. Europe's Indo-European Languages (From Anatolia Turkey) 2. North African and Arabian languages (From the western arc of the Fertile Crescent) 3. Present-day Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. (From the eastern arc of the Fertile Crescent)
Unlock the answer
question
Conquest Theory
answer
One major theory of how Proto-Indo-European diffused into Europe which holds that the early speakers of Proto-Indo-European spread westward on horseback, overpowering earlier inhabitants and beginning the diffusion and differentiation of Indo-European tongues.
Unlock the answer
question
Dispersal Hypothesis
answer
Hypothesis which holds that the Indo-European languages that arose from Proto-Indo-European were first carried eastward into Southwest Asia, next around the Caspian Sea, and then across the Russian-Ukrainian plains and onto the Balkans.
Unlock the answer
question
Romance Languages
answer
Languages (French, Spanish, Italian, Romanian, and Portuguese) that lie in the areas that were once controlled by the Roman Empire but were not subsequently overwhelmed.
Unlock the answer
question
Germanic Languages
answer
Languages (English, German, Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish) that reflect the expansion of peoples out of Northern Europe to the west and south.
Unlock the answer
question
Slavic Languages
answer
languages (Russian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Ukrainian, Slovenian, Serbo-Croatian, and Bulgarian) that developed as Slavic people migrated from a base in present-day Ukraine close to 2,000 years ago.
Unlock the answer
question
Lingua Franca
answer
A term deriving from "Frankish language" and applying to a tongue spoken in ancient Mediterranean ports that consisted of a mixture of Italian, French, Greek, Spanish, and even some Arabic. Today it refers to a "common language," a language used among speakers of different languages for the purpose of trade and commerce.
Unlock the answer
question
Pidgin Language
answer
When parts of two or more languages are combined in a simplified structure and vocabulary.
Unlock the answer
question
Creole Language
answer
A language that began as a pidgin language but was later adopted as the mother tongue by a people in place of the mother tongue.
Unlock the answer
question
Monolingual States
answer
Countries in which only one language is spoken.
Unlock the answer
question
Multilingual States
answer
Countries in which more than one language is spoken.
Unlock the answer
question
Official Language
answer
In multilingual countries the language selected, often by the educated and politically powerful elite, to promote internal cohesion; usually the language of the courts and government.
Unlock the answer
question
Global Language
answer
The language used most commonly around the world; defined on the basis of either the number of speakers of the language, or prevalence of use in commerce and trade.
Unlock the answer
question
Place
answer
Uniqueness of a location.
Unlock the answer
question
Toponyms
answer
Place name.
Unlock the answer
question
Acculturation
answer
The adoption of cultural traits, such as language, by one group under the influence of another.
Unlock the answer
question
Artifact
answer
Any item that represents a material aspect of culture.
Unlock the answer
question
Cultural Complex
answer
The group of traits that define a particular culture.
Unlock the answer
question
Cultural Imperialism
answer
The dominance of one culture over another.
Unlock the answer
question
Custom
answer
Practices followed by the people of a particular cultural group.
Unlock the answer
question
Denomination
answer
A particular religious group, usually associated with differing Protestant belief systems.
Unlock the answer
question
Ecumene
answer
The proportion of the earth inhabited by humans.
Unlock the answer
question
Esperanto
answer
A constructed international auxiliary language incorporating aspects of numerous linguistic traditions to create a universal means of communication.
Unlock the answer
question
Evangelical Religions
answer
Religion in which an effort is made to spread a particular belief system.
Unlock the answer
question
Fundamentalism
answer
The strict adherence to a particular doctrine.
Unlock the answer
question
Ghetto
answer
A segregated ethnic area within a city.
Unlock the answer
question
Global Religion
answer
Religion in which members are numerous and widespread and their doctrines might appeal to different people from any region of the globe.
Unlock the answer
question
Local Religion
answer
Religions that are spiritually bound to particular regions.
Unlock the answer
question
Minority
answer
A racial or ethnic group smaller than and differing from the majority race or ethnicity in a particular area or region.
Unlock the answer
question
Missionary
answer
A person of a particular faith that travels in order to recruit new members into the faith represented.
Unlock the answer
question
Monotheism
answer
The worship of only one god.
Unlock the answer
question
Polyglot
answer
A multilingual state.
Unlock the answer
question
Polytheism
answer
The worship of more than one god.
Unlock the answer
question
Sino-Tibetan Family
answer
Language area that spreads through most of Southeast Asia and China and is comprised of Chinese, Burmese, Tibetan, Japanese, and Korean.
Unlock the answer
question
Syncretic
answer
Traditions that borrow from both the past and present.
Unlock the answer
question
Tradition
answer
A cohesive collection of customs within a cultural group.
Unlock the answer
question
Transculturation
answer
The expansion of cultural traits through diffusion, adoption, and other related processes.
Unlock the answer
