Deck 4: The Geography of Language: Locating the Spoken Word

Question 1

The single most common variable by which different cultural groups are identified and by which they assert their unique identity is:

A) Religion
B) Demography
C) Language
D) Race

Answer 1

C

Question 2

The main means by which learned belief systems, customs, and skills pass from one generation to the next is:

A) religion
B) ethnicity
C) language
D) race

Answer 2

C

Question 3

Which statement is NOT true of language?

A) Primates and other higher-order species have language systems as complicated and expressive as human language.
B) It is the most common variable by which different cultural groups assert their unique identity.
C) It is the main means by which learned belief systems and customs pass from one generation to the next.
D) Language facilitates cultural diffusion and shapes the way people think about, perceive, and talk about the environment.

Answer 3

A

Question 4

English speakers from places such as London, Houston, and Melbourne all use the same language but speak different:

A) memes
B) morphemes
C) dialects
D) lingua franca

Question 5

In many former colonial countries, the language of the colonial power has combined with indigenous languages to form:

A) pidgins
B) lingua francas
C) dialects
D) language families

Question 6

Which statement regarding language is NOT correct?

A) Separate languages are mutually unintelligible.
B) Dialects are variant forms of languages.
C) Dialects are mutually unintelligible.
D) Culture groups often have their own languages of dialects.

Question 7

About how many languages and dialects are spoken in the world today?

A) 500
B) 1500
C) 3000
D) 7000

Question 8

Suppose that speakers of languages A, B, and C live close to one another and come into contact fairly regularly. A fourth language, D, takes elements from A, B, and C to facilitate communication among the groups. D might be considered a:

A) creole language
B) lingua franca
C) Dialect
D) pidgin language

Question 9

_____ are the new product of different linguistic groups that come into contact with one another, and are characterized by having a small vocabulary derived from the blending of diverse tongues that converge spatially.

A) pidgin languages
B) lingua franca
C) dialects
D) isoglosses

Question 10

Into what type of language can a pidgin language evolve as it acquires more words and speakers?

A) creole language
B) lingua franca
C) Dialect
D) Neologism

Question 11

When pidgin languages acquire fuller vocabularies and become the native languages of their speakers, they become:

A) pidgins
B) lingua francas
C) creole languages
D) isoglosses

Question 12

A language of communication and commerce spoken across a wide area, where it is not the mother tongue, is known as:

A) pidgin
B) lingua franca
C) creole language
D) language family

Question 13

Which is NOT true of lingua francas?

A) They exist to facilitate commerce.
B) They are derived from French.
C) They serve a similar purpose as a pidgin language.
D) They are one agreed-upon language used for communication purposes among different peoples.

Question 14

Along the U.S.-Mexico border, where many people speak both English and Spanish, there is no need for:

A) cultural understanding
B) religious institutions
C) a lingua franca
D) language preservation societies

Question 15

Which association is NOT correct?

A) Spanish-language
B) Tok Pisin-dialect
C) Swahili-lingua franca
D) Quebec, Canada-bilingualism

Question 16

Throughout East Africa, Swahili is used as a:

A) pidgin language
B) lingua franca
C) dialect
D) subdialect

Question 17

A language family is:

A) a group of languages that spring from a common ancestor
B) used by the members of a large extended family
C) synonymous with a creole language
D) often used as a lingua franca

Question 18

Languages that are related and share a common ancestor are said to be part of:

A) lingua francas
B) creole languages
C) language families
D) Isoglosses

Question 19

What is the largest and most widely spoken language family?

A) Uralic
B) Indo-European
C) Semitic
D) Sino-Tibetan

Question 20

Which language family is dominant in North and South America?

A) Afro-Asiatic
B) Indo-European
C) Semitic
D) Sino-Tibetan

Question 21

-Based on the illustration, which language is NOT a Romance language?

A) French
B) Spanish
C) Romanian
D) German

Question 22

-Based on the linguistic family tree, which statement is NOT accurate?

A) Danish and Swedish are Germanic languages.
B) Italian is a Romance language.
C) Scottish and Welsh are Celtic languages.
D) Ionic and Doric are Indic languages.

Question 23

-What do all of the languages shown in the family tree have in common?

A) All are in danger of extinction when the current generation of speakers dies out.
B) All are members of the Indo-European family of languages.
C) All dispersed as a result of the Austronesian diffusion.
D) All fall into the category of pidgin or creole languages.

Question 24

-Which two languages shown on the family tree do NOT share a common ancestor?

A) Irish and Romanian
B) Dutch and Ionic
C) Lithuanian and Bulgarian
D) Danish and Gothic

Question 25

-According to the illustration, which is NOT a Greek language?

A) Ionic
B) Aeolic
C) Lydian
D) Arcadian

Question 26

-According to the illustration, which is NOT a subfamily of Indo-European?

A) Romance languages
B) Celtic languages
C) Germanic languages
D) Mandarin languages

Question 27

-The majority of the top 10 most-spoken languages in the world come from which language family?

A) Afro-Asiatic
B) Indo-European
C) Semitic
D) Sino-Tibetan

Question 28

-Into what language family does English fall?

A) Afro-Asiatic
B) Indo-European
C) Semitic
D) Sino-Tibetan

Question 29

-Comparing the _____ of various Indo-European tongues reveals their kinship.

A) Grammar
B) Vocabularies
C) Isoglosses
D) tomonymns

Question 30

-Following Indo-European, which language family is spoken by the MOST people?

A) Sino-Tibetan
B) Uralic
C) Afro-Asiatic
D) Dravidian

Question 31

-In French the word for three is trois, in Romanian it is trei, in Sanskrit it is travas, and in Welsh it is tri. This indicates that these languages are:

A) derived from a common ancestor
B) dialectically the same
C) related, but in different language families
D) completely unrelated

Question 32

-Which language family is second only to Indo-European in number of native speakers?

A) Niger Congo
B) Altaic
C) Afro-Asiatic languages
D) Sino-Tibetan languages

Question 33

-The origin of the Sino-Tibetan language family is thought to be:

A) the Ural Mountains
B) the Himalayan Plateau
C) African Congo
D) the Appalachians

Question 34

-Into what language family does Han Chinese fall?

A) Sino-Tibetan
B) Uralic
C) Afro-Asiatic
D) Dravidian

Question 35

-The official language of China is:

A) Han
B) Manchurian
C) Pinyin
D) Mongolian

Question 36

-Based on the table, which statement is NOT accurate?

A) The world's second-most-spoken language is spoken exclusively in the Northern Hemisphere.
B) The world's most-spoken language is centered in the Eastern Hemisphere.
C) The world's second-most-spoken language is centered in the Western Hemisphere.
D) It is likely that the world's second-most-spoken language diffused as a result of European colonialism.

Question 37

-Based on the table, which statement is accurate?

A) All of the world's top 10 most-spoken languages, except one, are Indo-European.
B) The world's most-spoken language is centered in Africa.
C) The world has almost the same number of speakers of Hindi as it does of Arabic.
D) Most Arabic languages are spoken in sub-Saharan Africa.

Question 38

-Note the table's "Main Areas Where Spoken" column. Spanish diffused to South America, English diffused to South Africa, and Portuguese diffused to Brazil primarily as a result of:

A) voluntary migration
B) traveling scholars
C) colonial expansion
D) the International Language Center

Question 39

-According to the table, the Sino-Tibetan language family is dominated numerically by speakers of:

A) Korean
B) Chinese
C) Japanese
D) Burmese

Question 40

-After Chinese, the world's most widely spoken language, according to the table, is:

A) Spanish
B) Hebrew
C) Arabic
D) English

Question 41

-According to the table, which association is NOT correct?

A) English-South Africa
B) Arabic-North Africa
C) Hindi-Middle East
D) Chinese-Singapore

Question 42

Into what language family do Semitic languages like Hebrew fall?

A) Sino-Tibetan
B) Uralic
C) Afro-Asiatic
D) Indo-European

Question 43

The most widely spoken Afro-Asiatic language is:

A) Swahili
B) Hebrew
C) Amheric
D) Arabic

Question 44

Which family consists of two major divisions, Hamitic and Semitic?

A) Niger-Congo languages
B) Afro-Asiatic languages
C) Sino-Tibetan languages
D) Indo-European languages

Question 45

The Semitic languages are spoken mostly in:

A) sub-Saharan Africa
B) Europe
C) eastern Asia
D) the Middle East

Question 46

The most widespread Semitic language with the greatest number of speakers is:

A) Semantic
B) Hamitic
C) Arabic
D) Urdu

Question 47

With the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, a common language was needed to unite the Jewish immigrants. _____ was revived as the official national language of the new country.

A) Amharic
B) Arabic
C) Hebrew
D) Sephardic

Question 48

Hebrew and Arabic are:

A) Koranic languages
B) Hamitic languages
C) Semitic languages
D) dead languages

Question 49

An example of a formerly "dead" language revised for use in the twentieth century is:

A) Hamitic
B) Tuareg
C) Latin
D) Hebrew

Question 50

What word is used to describe a state, such as Switzerland, where several languages are spoken?

A) bilingual
B) international
C) polyglot
D) dialect

Question 51

In which countries are Hamitic languages spoken today?

A) Nigeria and Ethiopia
B) Iran and Iraq
C) Saudi Arabia and Oman
D) Morocco and Algeria

Question 52

Which language family is dominant south of the Sahara Desert?

A) Uralic
B) Afro-Asiatic
C) Niger-Congo
D) Dravidian

Question 53

Bantu and its related languages began spreading about 4000 years ago from the country that is today known as:

A) Botswana
B) Sudan
C) the Democratic Republic of Congo
D) Nigeria

Question 54

The inhospitable deserts, tundra, and coniferous forests of northern and central Asia are the landscape of the:

A) Sino-Tibetan homeland
B) Finn homeland
C) Altaic homeland
D) Basque homeland

Question 55

Which is a Uralic tongue?

A) English
B) Finnish
C) German
D) Swahili

Question 56

Which language family is dispersed among the tropical islands stretching east from Madagascar?

A) Uralic
B) Altaic
C) Austronesian
D) Sino-Tibetan

Question 57

-Which language is NOT written on the sign shown here?

A) Arabic
B) Hebrew
C) English
D) Chinese

Question 58

-Based on this sign, it is fair to assume that the local population:

A) is a polyglot
B) is English-speaking
C) is illiterate
D) speaks one language

Question 59

Which language family spreads from Madagascar to Hawaii?

A) Indic
B) Anatolian
C) Austronesian
D) Altaic

Question 60

The most geographically widespread language in the Austronesian family is:

A) Korean
B) Japanese
C) Javanese
D) Polynesia

Question 61

Vietnamese and Thai are:

A) Uralic languages
B) Austronesian languages
C) Khoisan-related languages
D) Austro-Asiatic languages

Question 62

According to the Anatolian hypothesis, where did the earliest speakers of the Indo-European languages live?

A) Great Britain
B) Turkey
C) Nigeria
D) India

Question 63

According to the Anatolian hypothesis, which factor was responsible for the diffusion of Indo-European languages?

A) plant domestication
B) animal husbandry
C) river travel
D) nomadic herding

Question 64

According to the Kurgan hypothesis, Indo-European languages diffused from:

A) central Europe
B) central Asia
C) southern Africa
D) Iceland

Question 65

Following the first waves of diffusion of the Indo-European languages, which factor was important in the continued diffusion of the language family?

A) exploration
B) disease
C) military conquest
D) self-segregation by religious groups

Question 66

The world's most linguistically diverse city is:

A) London
B) New York
C) Beijing
D) Tokyo

Question 67

Approximately how many languages are spoken in New York City?

A) 455
B) 630
C) 770
D) 800

Question 68

-According to the map shown here, which statement is NOT true?

A) The Kurgan homeland bordered the Black and Caspian seas.
B) Indo-European migrations extended as far as Italy and Spain by 1000
C) By 1000 B.c. E., Indo-European languages had diffused as far as the northern borders of the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea.
D) Indo-European languages gained a foothold in Northern Africa by 1000 B.C.E.

Question 69

The expansion of Islam as a religion and the evangelical success of the Muslims in Southwest Asia and North Africa facilitated the diffusion of:

A) Hebrew
B) Turkish
C) Arabic
D) Kurdish

Question 70

Which association is NOT correct?

A) Spanish-Protestant
B) Hebrew-Jewish
C) Amharic-Coptic Christianity
D) Arabic-Muslim

Question 71

Which language survived mainly as the ceremonial language of the Roman Catholic Church and Vatican City?

A) Hebrew
B) Italian
C) Latin
D) Coptic

Question 72

Martin Luther's translation of the Bible led to the standardization of which language?

A) English
B) Russian
C) German
D) Hungarian

Question 73

Which holy book is the model for written Arabic?

A) the King James Bible
B) the Torah
C) the Welsh Bible
D) the Qur'an

Question 74

How can a holy book make one language more powerful than another?

A) The language is used in ceremonies.
B) The language is only used by religious leaders.
C) The language is standardized.
D) The language is fluid.

Question 75

Which mapping technique do geographers use to indicate spatial borders of individual words or pronunciations?

A) latitude and longitude
B) Mercator projection
C) Isoglosses
D) Toponyms

Question 76

In North America, the words porch, stoop, balcony, and veranda are used in different regions. If you were to map where each word is said, you would be drawing:

A) linguistic islands
B) language families
C) linguistic bundles
D) isoglosses

Question 77

Geolinguists map dialects by using _____, which indicate the spatial borders of individual words.

A) isophones
B) isoglosses
C) isotherms
D) isolines

Question 78

Which dialect of American English was NOT yet well established by the time of the American Revolution?

A) Western
B) Northern
C) Southern
D) Midland

Question 79

A person who says she is going to "pak the cah" (for "park the car") MOST likely hails from what part of the United States?

A) Colorado
B) California
C) Illinois
D) Maine

Question 80

-This map illustrates which geographic concept?

A) toponyms
B) pidgin
C) isoglosses
D) language hotspots