Human Mosaic: Chapter 4

A mutually agreed-on system of symbolic communication that has a spoken and usually a written expression

A composite language consisting of a small vocabulary borrowed from the linguistic groups involved in commerce

A language derived from a pidgin language that has acquired a fuller vocabulary and become the native language of its speakers

An existing, well-established language of communication and commerce used widely where it is not a mother tongue

The ability to speak two languages fluently

A group of related languages derived from a common ancestor

A mixture of different languages

A theory of language diffusion holding that the movement of indo-European languages from the area in contemporary Turkey known as Anatolia followed the spread of plant domestication technologies

A theory of language diffusion holding that the spread of Indo-European languages originated with animal domestication in the central Asian steppes and grew more aggressively and swiftly than proponents of the Anatolian hypothesis maintain

The border of usage of an individual word or pronunciation

Words and phrases that are not part of a standard, recognized vocabulary for a given language but that are nonetheless used and understood by some of its speakers

A dialect spoken by a particular ethnic group

Those places on Earth that are home to the most unique, misunderstood, or endangered languages

An area protected by isolation or inhospitable environmental conditions in which a language or dialect has survived

A place-name, usually consisting of 2 parts, the generic and the specific

The descriptive part of many place-names, often repeated throughout a cultural area

A distinctive local or regional variant of a language that remains mutually intelligible to speakers of other dialects of that language; a subtype of a language