World Languages

When languages are depicted as leaves on trees, the trunk of the tree represents

• dialects

• language groups

• language families

• creolized languages

Which of the following was NOT a Germanic speaking people that influenced the English language?

• Angles

• Saxons

• Jutes

• Normans

Why is English the most widely spoken language in Canada and the U.S.?

• The Norman Conquest

• Viking Explorations of the New World

• British Colonialism

• The Internet

What branch of the Indo-European language family does English belong to?

• Germanic

• Romance

• Slavic

• Indo-Iranian

What language family is French a member of?

• Sino-Tibetan

• Austronesian

• Indo-European

• Altaic

Why did Basque survive despite being surrounded by Indo-European languages?

• contagious diffusion

• isolation

• innovation

• distance decay

Which of the following is NOT a Romance language?

• Italian

• Portuguese

• Romanian

• Greek

What is the second largest language family?

• Indo-European

• Afro-Asiatic

• Sino-Tibetan

• Austronesian

As opposed to other languages that are phonetic, Chinese _____________ are not.

• isolines

• videograms

• logograms

• letters

How could the document below help preserve a dying language?

• it demonstrates official government support

• when people fill out documents they show they are literate

• people who speak minority languages pay lower taxes

• the language on the document is widely used on the internet