Appetizer
by Millina Walls & Minneh Song
Creole or creolized language
A language that results from the mixing of a colonizer's language with the indigenous language of the people being dominated. Some examples are Haitian Creole, Louisiana Creole, and Hawaiian Creole.
Denglish
Combination of German and English. Examples of Denglish words include alcopop, outsourcing, terminal, and brainstorming.
Franglais
A term used by the French for English words that have entered the French language; a combination of français and Anglos, the French words for "French" and "English," respectively.
Examples: Longtemps, pas voir- Long time, no see
Je ne care pas- I don't care
J'agree- I agree
Spanglish
Combination of Spanish & Enlgish, spoken by Hispanic Americans
Examples: Parquear el carro- To park the car- Aparcar el coche
Lonche- Lunch- Almuerzo
Ebonics
Dialect spoken by some African Americans
Examples:
beef- a grudge with someone
kicks- shoes
trippin'- crazy
Imma do it- I'm going to do it
Isogloss
A boundary that separates regions in which different language usages predominate.
An example is in the north, people tend to use the word "pop," and in the west coast they say "soda," and in the south, people say "coke."
Language Family
A collection of languages related to each other through a common ancestor long before recorded history.
For example, Indo-European is the world's most spoken language family.
Language Branch
A collection of languages related through a common ancestor that existed several thousand years ago. Differences are not as exclusive or as old as language families, and archaeological evidence can confirm that the branches derived from the same family.
Ex: Branches of Indo-European are Indo-Iranian, Romance, Germanic, Balto-Slavic, Albanian, Armenian, Greek, and Celtic.
Language Group
A collection of languages within a branch that share a common origin in the relatively recent past and display relatively few differences in grammar and vocabulary.
For example: West Germanic is a group within the Germanic branch of Indo-European to which English belongs.
Isolated Language
A language that is unrelated to any other languages and therefore not attached to any language family. An example is Basque, which is the only isolated language in Europe.