Term
What language has the most speakers? |
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Definition
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Term
What language has the 2nd most speakers? |
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Definition
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Term
What are dialects a result of? |
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Definition
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Term
What is the standard language in England? |
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Definition
British Recieved Pronunciation (BRP) |
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Term
What are the main differences between a dialect and a standard language? |
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Definition
Vocabulary, spelling, and pronunciation |
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Term
What did Webster do to English in America? |
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Definition
He changed spellings and pronunciations slightly to create a unique form of English spoken in America. |
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Term
Where are the major dialect differences in America? |
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Definition
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Term
What are the 3 major dialect regions in Eastern U.S.? |
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Definition
Eastern, midlands, southern |
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Term
What three places were early settlers clustered in? |
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Definition
New England, Mid-atlantic, Southeast |
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Term
What diffused dialects to the middle and western parts of the U.S.? |
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Definition
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Term
Where does the standard pronunciation in Western U.S. originate from? |
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Definition
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Term
What language family does 48% of the world's population speak? |
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Definition
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Term
What is the second-largest language family? |
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Definition
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Term
What percentage of the world's population speaks a Sino-Tibetan language? |
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Definition
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Term
Where is Sino-Tibetan mostly spoken? |
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Definition
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Term
What are the branches in the Sino-Tibetan family? |
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Definition
Sinitic, Tibeto-Burman, Austro-Thai |
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Term
How do the languages spoken in China play a role in national unity? |
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Definition
small number of languages, written the same |
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Term
What are the challenges of Sino-Tibetan languages? |
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Definition
Thousands of characters, hard to learn how to read. |
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Term
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Definition
Ideograms and phonetic symbols |
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Term
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Definition
the phonetic symbols that Korean is written with |
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Term
Why are Japanese and Korean different from many other SE and E asian languages? |
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Definition
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Term
How has Chinese influenced Japanese and Korean? |
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Definition
Half of korean words are chinese, and Japanese gets its writing from chinese |
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Term
What languages are part of the Afro-Asiatic language family? |
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Definition
Arabic, Hebrew, a large number of languages in N and SW Africa |
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Term
What is the major language in the Afro-Asiatic language family? |
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Definition
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Term
What is the international significance of Arabic? |
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Definition
It's the official language of 24 countries |
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Term
What is Arabic's connection with religion? |
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Definition
the Bible and the Quran are written in Arabic |
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Term
How many native speakers does Arabic have? |
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Definition
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Term
What is the 6th official language of the U.N.? |
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Definition
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Term
Where is the Altaic language family spoken? |
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Definition
the land between Turkey and Mongolia |
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Term
What is the most used language in the Altaic language family? |
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Definition
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Term
Who is Ataturk, and how was he significant? |
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Definition
He was the leader of the Turkish government in the 1920s who changed the Turkish alphabet from Arabic to Roman to modernize Turkey's culture. |
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Term
What did the Soviet Union do to Turkish when they were in power? |
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Definition
Turkish was suppressed so the Soviets could create a homogenous national culture |
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Term
Where is the Uralic language family spoken? |
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Definition
Estonia, Finland, Hungary |
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Term
How does Uralic make the countries that speak it unique? |
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Definition
All the other european countries speak Indo-European languages |
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Term
How did speakers of the Uralic language family keep their cultural identity? |
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Definition
They carved out homelands for themselves in Germanic and Balto-Slavic speaking places |
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Term
What is the most used african language family? |
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Definition
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Term
What language family do 95% of people in Sub-Saharan Africa speak? |
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Definition
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Term
What language family is Swahili in? |
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Definition
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Term
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Definition
The interaction between african groups and Arab traders produced it. |
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Term
What is the official language of Tanzania? |
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Definition
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Term
How is the Khoisan language family unique? |
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Definition
It includes clicking sounds |
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Term
Where is Khoisan concentrated? |
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Definition
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Term
Where is Austronesian concentrated? |
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Definition
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Term
What percentage of the world's population speaks Austronesian? |
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Definition
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Term
How many people speak Austronesian as a 2nd language? |
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Definition
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Term
How many languages are spoken in Nigeria? |
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Definition
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Term
What is a problem in Nigeria due to languages? |
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Definition
Too many, which leads to conflict and fighting. |
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Term
To decrease fighting, where did the government of Nigeria move the capital to? |
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Definition
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Term
What are the branches in the Indo-European family? |
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Definition
Germanic, Into-Iranian, Balto-Slavic, and Romance |
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Term
What branch is English in? |
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Definition
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Term
What language group is English in? |
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Definition
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Term
What language family is English in? |
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Definition
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Term
What are the language groups in the Germanic branch? |
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Definition
High germanic, low germanic, west germanic, north germanic |
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Term
How many people speak an Indo-Iranian language? |
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Definition
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Term
What are the language groups in the Indo-Iranian branch? |
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Definition
Indic (eastern) Iranian (western) |
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Term
What is the history of Balto-Slavic? |
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Definition
Slavic was once a single language, but then speakers dispersed and lived in isolation. |
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Term
What are the language groups in the Balto-Slavic branch? |
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Definition
East-Slavic Baltic West and South Slavic Balto-Slavic |
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Term
Where did the Romance languages evolve from? |
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Definition
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Term
What are the 4 most important Romance languages? |
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Definition
Spanish, Franch, Portuguese, Italian |
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Term
What are the other 4, less extensively used Indo-European language branches? |
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Definition
Albanian, armenian, greek, celtic |
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Term
What alphabet is English written in? |
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Definition
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Term
What alphabet is Russian written in? |
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Definition
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Term
What are the 4 most widely spoken language branches in the Indo-European family? |
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Definition
Germanic, Romance, Slavic, Indo-Iranian |
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Term
What part of India is Hindi primarily spoken? |
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Definition
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Term
Why have differences in speaking, but not writing, emerged in Hindi? |
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Definition
Most speakers of Hindi, until recently, could not read of write it. |
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Term
What is the main element of cultural diversity in India? |
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Definition
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Term
How many official languages does India have? |
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Definition
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Term
When did the importance of Russian increase? |
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Definition
At the end of WWII, with the Soviet Union's rise to power |
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Term
Where are the speakers of Indo-Iranian clustered? |
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Definition
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Term
What is unique about the north/northeastern part of the netherlands? |
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Definition
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Term
What are the 4 main language families in South Asia? |
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Definition
Indo-European, Dravidian, Sino-Tibetan, and Austro-asiatic |
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Term
Why is India likely to have a civil war? |
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Definition
There are many languages spoken there, which may cause conflict. |
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Term
What are the 3 most widely spoken romance languages? |
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Definition
Spanish, Portuguese, French |
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Term
What language branch separates Romanian from the rest of it's Romance language counterparts? |
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Definition
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Term
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Definition
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Term
Where is the Kurgan hearth located? |
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Definition
North of the Caspian Sea, along the Dnepr river |
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Term
About how much time passed between the earliest movement of the Kurgans until their entering of central and southern Europe? |
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Definition
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Term
In addition to Europe, where else did the Kurgans migrate? |
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Definition
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Term
Where is the Anatolian hearth located? |
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Definition
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Term
How long did it take the Anatolian migration to reach the British isles? |
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Definition
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Term
What explains the success of the Anatolian migration? |
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Definition
Agricultural inventions, not military conquest |
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Term
What is the single ancestor of european languages, which cannot be proved, called? |
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Definition
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Term
Who does Marija Gimbutas believe are the first Proto-Into-European speakers? |
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Definition
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Term
Who believes that the Anatolians were the first speakers of Proto-Indo-European? |
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Definition
Archaeologist Colin Renfrew and biologist Russell D. Gray |
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