Language Families & Branches
This term refers to a collection of languages related through a common ancestral language before recorded history.
What is a language family?
One theory suggests the Indo-European language family spread through the migration of agricultural peoples from this region around 7000–6000 BCE.
What is the Anatolian (or Turkey) hypothesis?
This term describes languages that are at risk of no longer being spoken as native speakers die or shift to other languages.
What are endangered languages?
These five languages: Swahili, English, Mandarin, Arabic, and Spanish, are widely used to facilitate communication across linguistic groups.
What are lingua francas?
The spread of global culture through media, trade, and travel, which can sometimes overshadow local cultures, is called this.
What is cultural globalization?
The Indo-European language family includes this branch, from which English originated.
What is the West Germanic branch?
Another theory posits that Indo-European languages spread through conquest and migration of these peoples from the Pontic-Caspian steppe around 4000 BCE.
What is the Kurgan hypothesis?
Countries like Wales and New Zealand have implemented programs to revitalize their native languages, such as this Celtic language.
What is Welsh / Māori?
In regions with heavy trade, such as West Africa, this simplified form of language develops, combining vocabulary from multiple languages.
What is a pidgin language?
When local traditions or languages resist global influences, preserving unique identities, it demonstrates this.
What is cultural divergence?
These smaller divisions within a branch consist of languages with a relatively recent common origin and similar vocabulary.
What are language groups?
This modern global language is a direct descendant of the West Germanic branch and has been shaped by Norse, Latin, and French influences.
What is English?
This phenomenon occurs when interaction between cultural groups leads to a new language that mixes elements of multiple languages.
What is creolization?
When a pidgin becomes fully developed and learned as a native language by children, it evolves into this.
What is a creole?
English borrowed extensively from these two languages following historical invasions and political domination in Britain.
What are French and Norse?
A specific form of speech used by a community that may differ slightly in vocabulary, spelling, and pronunciation from other forms of the same language is called this.
What is a dialect?
English diffused globally through colonization, trade, and this other major historical factor.
What is globalization / modern media?
Interaction with global languages can contribute to the decline of local languages, creating tension known as this.
What is language conflict?
Swahili became a lingua franca due to interactions between these two major cultural influences in East Africa.
What are Bantu-speaking Africans and Arab traders?
Regional dialects, such as American English vs. British English, are an example of this geographic linguistic phenomenon.
What is spatial variation in language?
The process by which a language spreads to new regions or people, often resulting in regional variations or new languages, is called this.
What is diffusion?
Today, English is spoken worldwide and functions as this type of language, used for communication between speakers of different native languages.
What is a lingua franca?
When languages disappear completely, it is considered this, which represents the permanent loss of cultural knowledge.
What is language extinction?
Lingua francas like English can sometimes lead to cultural convergence by spreading ideas and practices globally, but also cultural divergence when they replace local languages. This process illustrates the interplay of these two forces.
What are globalization and localization / glocalization?
A new form of communication emerging from multiple interacting languages, often influenced by global trade and media, represents this intersection of local and global cultural forces.
What is linguistic hybridization / creolization?