Chapter 5 Ambatali, Emeliza E. BA ELS 2-2

Ambatali, Emeliza BA ELS 2-2
Test your skills. 1. Multiple choice. Encircle the letter of the correct answer from the choices given.
A. 1.1 Jason grew up speaking the same language his parents spoke (and everyone elsein their small
village). It was only after he left home that he found out their language was different. No one else in the
world seemed to speak the same language exactly, but there were two languages that seemed to have
been blended together to make it. What category of language does Jason speak.
a. Language Isolate b. Creole c. Indo-European d. Language group
B. 1.2. Dr. Livingston was travelling through the African Sahara and came across a group of
people speaking a language he had never heard before. After studying the language, it was
found that this particular language was completely dissimilar to all other languages in the
world. What category of languages would this new language belong to?
a. Language Isolate b. Language group c. Niger-congo Afro-Aslatic
B. 1.3. Language A, B and C are very closely related. In fact, If you were to learn one of these,
you would likely be able to get by if spoken to in any of the others. They stem from the same
parent language . which language category does this describe?
a. Language Issolate b. Language family c. Creole d. Language group
D. 1.4. Which of the following is a form of animal communication?
a. smell b. Vocalization c. Color d. All of the answers are correct
C. 1.5. Which of the following statement is true?
a. Animals can communicate with language.
b. Humans use language but do not communicate.
c. Humans and animals both communicate but only humans use language.
d. Animals cannot communicate.
A. 1.6. How would animal communication be defined?
a. The expression of information .
b. The use of language.

c. The use of grammar
d. Something that animals do.
A. 1.7. Why are Mandarin and Hindi widely spoken languages?
a. They are spoken in countries with long histories of colonialism.
b. They are used throughout the world for business and finance.
c. They are consultered to be very easy to learn.
d. They are spoken in countries with the largest population.
B. 1.8. Which of the following is NOT a factor in the spread of languages over time.
a. Religious missions b. Waves of migration c. Trade Nationalism
language families
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestral language or
parental language, called the proto-language of that family. The term "family" reflects the tree model of
language origination in historical linguistics, which makes use of a metaphor comparing languages to
people in a biological family tree, or in a subsequent modification, to species in a phylogenetic tree of
evolutionary taxonomy. Linguists therefore describe the daughter languages within a language family as
being genetically related.[1]
Contemporary distribution (2005 map) of the world's major language families (in some cases geographic
groups of families). This map includes only primary families i.e. branches are excluded.
For greater detail, see Distribution of languages on Earth.
According to Ethnologue there are 7,139 living human languages distributed in 142 different language
families.[2][3] A "living language" is simply one that is currently used as the primary form of
communication of a group of people. There are also many dead languages, or languages which have no
native speakers living, and extinct languages, which have no native speakers and no descendant
languages. Finally, there are some languages that are insufficiently studied to be classified, and probably
some which are not even known to exist outside their respective speech communities.
Membership of languages in a language family is established by research in comparative linguistics.
Sister languages are said to descend "genetically" from a common ancestor. Speakers of a language
family belong to a common speech community. The divergence of a proto-language into daughter
languages typically occurs through geographical separation, with the original speech community
gradually evolving into distinct linguistic units. Individuals belonging to other speech communities may
also adopt languages from a different language family through the language shift process.[4]
Genealogically related languages present shared retentions; that is, features of the proto-language (or
reflexes of such features) that cannot be explained by chance or borrowing (convergence). Membership
in a branch or group within a language family is established by shared innovations; that is, common
features of those languages that are not found in the common ancestor of the entire family. For
example, Germanic languages are "Germanic" in that they share vocabulary and grammatical features
that are not believed to have been present in the Proto-Indo-European language. These features are
believed to be innovations that took place in Proto-Germanic, a descendant of Proto-Indo-European that
was the source of all Germanic languages.

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Ambatali, Emeliza BA ELS 2-2

a. Language Isolate b. Creole c. Indo-European d. Language group

a. Language Isolate b. Language group c. Niger-congo Afro-Aslatic

a. Language Issolate b. Language family c. Creole d. Language group

D. 1.4. Which of the following is a form of animal communication?

a. smell b. Vocalization c. Color d. All of the answers are correct

C. 1.5. Which of the following statement is true?

a. Animals can communicate with language.

b. Humans use language but do not communicate.

d. Animals cannot communicate.

A. 1.6. How would animal communication be defined?

a. The expression of information .

b. The use of language.

d. Something that animals do.

A. 1.7. Why are Mandarin and Hindi widely spoken languages?

a. They are spoken in countries with long histories of colonialism.

c. They are consultered to be very easy to learn.

d. They are spoken in countries with the largest population.

a. Religious missions b. Waves of migration c. Trade Nationalism

For greater detail, see Distribution of languages on Earth.

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