| A | B |
|---|
| language | system of communication through speech |
| literary tradition | system of written communication |
| official language | language used by the government for laws, reports, and public objects |
| dialect | regional variation of a language distinguished by distinctive vocabulary, spelling, and pronunciation |
| isogloss | word-usage boundary |
| standard language | dialect that is well established and widely recognized as the most acceptable form |
| language family | collection of languages related through a common ancestral language that existed long before recorded history |
| language branch | collection of languages related through a common ancestral language that existed several thousand years ago |
| language group | collection of languages within a branch that share a common origin in the relatively recent past and display few differences in grammar and vocabulary |
| creolized language | language that results from mixing a colonizer's language with an indigenous language |
| ideograms | represent ideas or concepts |
| extinct languages | no longer spoken or read in daily activities by anyone in the world |
| isolated language | unrelated to any other (not in a family) |
| lingua franca | language of international communication |
| pidgin language | simplified version of a lingua franca |
