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Chapter 6
Term | Definition |
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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 a country's political and intellectual elite seek to promote as the norm for use in schools, government, the media, and other aspects of public life |
Dialect | Variant of a standard language along regional or ethnic lines |
Dialect chain | A group of contiguous dialects where the dialects nearest to each other geographically are the most similar and the dialects father 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. They 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 convergence |
extinct language | Language with no 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 |
Agricultural theory | The theory that 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 language |
Pidgin language | Combination of two or more languages in a simplified structure and vocabulary |
Creole language | A language that began as a pidgin language and was later adopted as the mother tongue of a people. |
toponym | Place name |