Chapter 5: Language Test Review – Flashcards
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A literary tradition is
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the written form of a language.
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A form of a language spoken in a local area is
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dialect.
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A group of languages that share a common origin but have since evolved into individual languages is a
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language branch.
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A group of languages that share a common ancestor before recorded history is a
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language family.
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The second-largest language family is
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Sino-Tibetan.
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When languages are depicted as leaves on trees, the roots of the trees below the surface represent
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possible prehistoric superfamilies.
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When languages are depicted as leaves on trees, the trunks of the trees represent
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language families.
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Germanic invaders of England included which tribe?
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Angles, Saxons,Jutes
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Both the Angles and the Normans contributed to the development of the English language, because they
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invaded England
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English is the most important language in North America primarily because of
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the diffusion of English colonies
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The first speakers of the language that evolved into English were tribes that lived in present-day
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Denmark
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English is part of which language group?
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West germanic
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English is part of which language branch?
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Germanic
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English is part of which language family?
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Indo-European
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Which group of the Germanic family is extinct?
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East Germanic
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The Icelandic language has changed less than any other Germanic language because of
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Isolation
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When people who speak a given language migrate to a different location and become isolated from other members of their tribe
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isolation usually results in the differentiation of one language into two.
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Which of the following is not a Romance language?
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Bulgarian
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The language spoken by soldiers stationed throughout the Roman Empire was known as
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Vulgar Latin
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The most widely spoken language in Brazil is
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Portuguese
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A creolized language is
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A mix of indigenous and colonial languages
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The most widely spoken IndoEuropean language is
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English
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The four most frequently spoken branches of Indo-European include
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Balto-Slavic/Indo-Iranian/Romance/Germanic
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The two most important languages in South America are
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Portuguese and Spanish.
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The Flemings and Walloons live in what country?
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Belgium
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The Flemings and Walloons speak languages belonging to different
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Language Branches
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Official languages in Switzerland include
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Italian/Romansh/French/German
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Urdu is the most important language of
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Pakistan
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Russian is part of what language branch?
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Balto-Slavic
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Celtic languages
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Were threatened by extinction in England, are still spoken in France, have been revived in some parts of the British Isles, and have an extensive body of literature.
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Marija Gimbutas' theory points to the first speakers of the Indo-European language as the ancient
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Kurgans
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The Kurgans
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were horse and cattle herders from the grassland steppes of present day Russia and Kazakhstan.
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Basque is spoken primarily in
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the Pyrenees Mountains.
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According to Colin Rehfrew's Anatolian hearth theory, Indo-European languages diffused across Europe
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with the diffusion of agriculture.
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The two largest language families in the world are
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Sino-Tibetan and Indo-European.
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The language family encompassing the languages of the People's Republic of China is
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Sino-Tibetan
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The language spoken by the greatest number of native speakers in the world is
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Mandarin
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Chinese is written in the form of
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ideograms
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Hebrew is an example of
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A revived language
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An Indo-European language is spoken in this European country
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Bulgaria
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The second most widely spoken language family in Europe is
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Uralic
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The large number of individual languages documented in Africa has resulted primarily from
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Thousands of years of isolation between tribal groups
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The most important language family in Sub-Saharan Africa is
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Niger- Congo
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African languages are distinguished by the fact that
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linguists continue to add newly discovered languages to the African list
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A lingua franca is
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a language that is mutually understood by people who have different native languages.
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Dialects developed within England primarily because
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different Germanic invaders settled in different regions.
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British and American English differ in
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alphabet
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Immigrants to which American colonies had the most diverse backgrounds?
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Middle Atlantic
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An isogloss is
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a boundary between language regions.
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Franglais is
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the use of English in the French Language
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Icelandic has probably changed less over time than any other Germanic language.
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True
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Indo-European divided into different branches because of isolation of different speakers.
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True
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The most frequently spoken Afro-Asiatic language is
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Arabic
