APHuGs Ch4 p.

1
AP Human Geography Name:_________________________
Chapter 5: Language

Key Issue #1: Where are the world’s languages distributed?

1. Language:

2. What does learning foreign languages say about the Americans. vs. the Dutch?

3. How are language and migration intertwined? Provide one specific geographic example.

4. Why do geographers look at similarities among languages do understand diffusion & interactions?
5. 90 languages are spoken by _____________, 304 languages are spoken by ____________________,
and 6,708 languages are spoken by _________________.
v Where do you think many of the 6,708 languages are spoken?
6. Institutional language:

7. Official language:

v How did imperialism impact official languages?

8. Literary tradition:

v Why would a lack of a literary tradition be problematic for a language?

9. Developing language:

10. Vigorous language:

How languages are ORGANIZED à describe how each vocab relates to a tree
- Language family (part of tree = ):

- Language branch (part of tree = ):

- Language group (part of tree = ):

Language Families
11. Based on Figure 5-3 what other languages have more than 5 million speakers and share the same
branch with English?
Share the same branch with Portuguese?
Share the same branch with Hebrew?
12. Why does biologist Quentin Atkinson believe that languages can all be traced back to Africa?

13. What two language families are used by more than 1 billion people?
 APHuGs Ch4 p.2
Two Largest Language Families
14. Describe the Indo-European languages:

15. Describe the Sino-Tibetan languages:

16. Look at Figure 5-6 and describe where both Indo-European & Sino-Tibetan languages are, PLUS pick
1 language you want:

Other Large Language Families

Describe the Southeast Asian Language Families

Languages & % spoken in the world Locations Fun facts
Austronesian

Austro-Asiatic

Tai-Kadai

Describe the East Asian Language Families

Languages & % spoken in the world Locations Fun facts
Japanese

Korean

Describe the Other Asian Language Families

Languages & % spoken in the world Locations Fun facts

Describe the African Language Families

Languages & % spoken in the world Locations Fun facts

Describe the Quechuan Language Families

** Summarize the major language families **

 APHuGs Ch4 p.3
Key Issue #2: Where did English and related languages originate and diffuse?
1. How many people in the world speak a language in the Indo-European language family?

2. What are the 4 more commonly spoken language branches of the Indo-European language family?

3. Germanic Branch (what are the languages?)

West Germanic North Germanic (spoken where?)
* *
* *
* *
*
4. Romance Branch (what are the contemporary languages & where they can be found?)
à à
à à

5. Indo-Iranian Branch – divided into ______________________ and _________________________

§ Iranian group languages & where they are located:

§ What languages are spoken in South Asia?

§ What is the official language of India? What is the history of the official language of India?

§ What does analyzing the languages in India tell us about its history?

6. Balto-Slavic Branch
… dominate _______________, where originally there was 1: ___________, divided into 4 groups:

à à à à

v Look at Figure 5-7 (p151): what are 5 countries that are part of the Balto-Slavic language
branch?

v What is the most widely used eastern Slavic language?

v What are the most widely used western Slavic languages?

v Explain the complicated politics of the Serbo-Croatian language:

v Why do minute language differences matter?

7. Which branch dominates the north of Europe? South? East?

 APHuGs Ch4 p.4
Origin & Diffusion of Indo-European
8. How did Latin originally diffuse?

9. What variations occurred within the Latin language? Why?

10. Vulgar Latin:

11. What happened to Latin from the 5th to the 8th century A.D.?

12. How did imperialism impact the spread of romance languages? Provide 2 specific geographic examples.

13. What is the Treaty of Tordesillas (look up outside the book)? And how did it impact language
diffusion?

14. How are linguists trying to determine where Indo-European languages originated from? What is a
specific example to back-up their assumptions?

15. Summarize the nomadic warrior theory: 16. Summarize the sedentary farmer theory:

17. Which hypothesis do you believe? Why?

Origin & Diffusion of English

18. Who are the 1st inhabitants of the British Isles that we know about language from?
19. Where did they get pushed to by invaders?
20. Who were the 3 invaders of the British Isles?
21. Why are the people from England frequently called Anglo-Saxons?
22. After the Normans invaded, what was the official language of England for 300 years? Who spoke this?
23. Why did England change its official language in 1362?
24. What did German bring to the English language? What did French bring to the English language?

25. What was the primary way in which the English language diffused?
What are 3 specific geographic examples and time periods of this diffusion?
Ø
Ø
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26. What are 3 examples of language combinations with English:
 APHuGs Ch4 p.5
Global Importance of English
27. How has English as an international language impacted pop culture and trade?
28. Lingua Franca:

29. Why do so many students in the European Union, and other places, learn English?

30. Pidgin language:

31. What are other lingua franca languages? Provide 2 specific geographic examples.

32. In what TWO ways has global dominance of English hindered the U.S.?
Ø

33. How have language and technology interacted? Give 2 specific examples!

34. How is the U.S. central to the internet?

35. What happened in 2009 with language and the internet?

36. Logograms:

37. Why is Chinese an attractive language on social media?

Official Languages
38. What official language is most common in the world?

39. What is the difference between a primary language and an official language?

40. Analyze Figure-23: How many languages are being preserved/protected compared to official E.U.
languages? What can you infer about culture from this map?

** Summarize the interactions of different languages **

 APHuGs Ch4 p.6
Key Issue #3: Why do individual languages vary among places?
1. Dialect:

2. Subdialect:

3. Why do geographers care about dialects and subdialects?

English Dialects
4. Why is English in America so different from that in England?

5. Why does vocabulary differ between British English and American English? Give 2 specific examples.

6. Why did spelling change in America? Who was integrally involved in this change?

7. Where has pronunciation changed more?

8. Standard language:

9. Received Pronunciation (RP):

10. Who is responsible in England for the RP? How did it spread?

11. What are the 3 English dialects in the U.K.? What do changes in dialect locations demonstrate?

U.S. Dialects
12. Isogloss:

13. What are the 3 dialect regions in the East Coast?

£ How did new immigrants interact with the language?

£ Why do North and South dialects sound strange to many Americans?

14. African American Vernacular English:

£ Why did this language develop?

£ How did it spread? (What type of diffusion is this?)

15. Ebonics:

£ What is an example?
16. Why is AAVE controversial within the African American community?
 APHuGs Ch4 p.7

17. What are distinctive components of the Appalachian dialect?

18. What is complicated about speaking an Appalachian dialect?

19. Bidialectic:

20. Creole:

£ Examples à

£ What happened to creole languages in former colonies? Why?

Dialect or Language
21. Why have some dialects emerged as distinct languages?

22. Describe the history of the Catalan-Valencian-Balear language:

£ How does migration, population, and other aspects of culture impact this language?

23. Why do different language communities want Galician to be a dialect vs. its own language?

24. Compare & contrast Moldovan, Italy’s various languages, and Occitan:

25. How did French become the official language of France?

26. How are the Spanish and Portuguese languages attempting to unify their languages? Why?

27. What are TWO takeaways from the Gender Difference in Languages?
 APHuGs Ch4 p.8
Multilingual Places
28. What are the four official languages of Switzerland?
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29. How do these different languages exist peacefully?

30. What are Canada’s 2 official languages? How many people speak each language?

31. What is the history of French in Quebec? How has it changed over time? (Give 3 specific changes)

32. How many languages exist in Nigeria?

33. In addition to language diversity, what causes complications in Nigeria? How?

34. How did the Nigerian government respond to these problems?

35. What are the two regions of Belgium? Who lives where? What language do they speak?
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36.
37.

38.

39. How has the Belgium government dealt with this tension?

40. Compare & contrast Switzerland, Canada, Nigeria, and Belgium in regard to language diversity & the
impact on the country itself:

** Summarize the how individual languages are treated and used in different areas **
 APHuGs Ch4 p.9
Key Issue #4: Why do local languages survive?
1. How does language demonstrate the fate of a culture?

2. What makes an endangered language into a dying language?

Endangered Languages
3. Why do you think that South Pacific, Latin America, and North America have the most in trouble and
dying languages?

4. How do Australia and New Zealand differ in their belief about English?

£ Provide specific details about Australia’s use of English

£ Provide specific details about New Zealand’s use of English

5. For either Australia or New Zealand – relate language to another aspect of AP Human Geography:

6. Why are so many languages endangered and dying in the U.S.?

7. According to Ethnologue, how many endangered languages are being reawakened?

£ Describe the process for the Myaamia language.

Preserving Languages
8. Why is there interest in bolstering the preservation of the Celtic language branch?

9. What are the 2 branches of the Celtic language?

10. When was Wales conquered by the English?
11. When did Welsh stop being the dominant language? Why?

12. As of 2014 how many Welsh still speak the language? How have they maintained such a high
percentage? What else could be done to grow the speaking of the language?

13. Where was Cornish spoken? When did it “die out”?

14. In 2011, how many people now are fluent in Cornish?

15. Where is Breton spoken?

16. Why do you think that Breton has become an endangered language?
 APHuGs Ch4 p.10

17. What are the 2 Goidelic languages that still survive?

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18. Why do you think that more Irish is spoken in remote areas?

19. Why has there been a revival of Gaelic Irish?

20. Looking at Figure 5-43, why is more Irish spoken in the Republic of Ireland over Northern Ireland?

21. Where did Scottish Gaelic come from?

22. What is Scots?

Isolate & Extinct Languages

23. Isolated language:

£ What makes it a vigorous language?

24. Why might an isolated language be likely to survive into the future?

25. Describe the Basque language (3 aspects at least)

26. Why is Icelandic considered an isolated language?

27. How do languages change over time? (Give 2 specific examples).

28. Extinct language:

29. What are 3 different examples of extinct languages? How did each one become extinct?
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New & Growing Languages

30. How are new languages discovered?

31. Why did Hebrew diminish as a language?

32. How and why did Hebrew get revived as a language? (Be specific).