Ms. Patten

2011

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7000-8000 languages today165 languages spoken in the USAfrica and New Guinea each have about 1000 different languages spokenMajority of worlds languages are unwritten and many are becoming extinct (esp Australia and Americas)

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Familya collection of languages related through a common ancestor that existed long before recorded history16 major/200 minorEnglish is part of Indo European family4000 years old

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Branchcollection of languages related through a common ancestor that existed several thousand years agoIE8English belongs to the Germanic branch

Groupsa collection of languages within a branch that share a common and relatively recent originEnglish is part of the West Germanic group and the Low Germanic Sub Group

Proto Indo European5000-9000 yaNostratic14,000 yaMother Tongue200,000 ya

Most widely spoken language in the worldOfficial language in 52 countries2,000,000 words615,000 non technicalGermany has 185,000 non technical words typical college graduate knows 20,000-30,000 words

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DialectA regional variety of a language distinguished by vocabulary, spelling, syntax, cadence, and pronunciationBritish, American, Canadian

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Divergence (language tree)ConvergenceReplacementPidginSimplified languageA form of speech that adopts a simplified grammar and limited vocabulary of a lingua franca, used for communications among speakers of two different languagesLingua FrancaLanguage of tradeA language mutually understood and commonly used in trade by people who have different native languagesCreolea language that results from the mixing of a colonizer's language with the indigenous language of those being dominated