Language and Dialect Quiz

What determines whether two ways of speaking are classified as separate languages or as dialects of the same language?

• Pronunciation

• Mutual intelligibility

• Linguistic features

• Vocabulary

Which factor played a significant role in shaping what is officially deemed a language?

• Vocabulary

• Pronunciation

• Linguistic features

• Politics

What was the basis for selecting the standard language in many nation states?

• The language spoken in the capital

• The most widely spoken language

• The language of the ruling class

• The language with the most history

Which form of speech became known as Standard Italian?

• The Roman dialect

• The Florentine dialect

• The Milanese dialect

• The Neapolitan dialect

Who promoted standard Italian and prohibited other forms of speech in Italy?

• Giuseppe Garibaldi

• Niccolò Machiavelli

• Benito Mussolini

• Leonardo da Vinci

What is the term used by linguists to refer to different forms of speech?

• Dialects

• Languages

• Accents

• Varieties

Which form of speech is often associated with whiteness in the United States?

• African-American Vernacular English

• Australian English

• British English

• Standard American English

What is the term used to describe AAVE by some people in the United States?

• A variety of English

• A simplified version of mainstream US English

• A foreign language

• A separate dialect

What is the dividing line between varieties of a language?

• Murky and gradual

• Pronunciation

• Vocabulary

• Grammatical structures

What is the confounding beauty of human communication?

• The lack of diversity

• The linguistic continuum and gradual differences

• The clear-cut differences between forms of speech

• The neat buckets it can be sorted into