Son of Language Family Values Trivia Quiz

Answer: Indo-European

Albanian (or "Shqip," to a native speaker) occupies a branch of its own in the Indo-European family, although its position in the family tree is still uncertain. The name "Albanian" was taken from "Albenoi," the name of an Illyrian tribe, as explained by Hellenic astronomer Claudius Ptolemy.

The endonym "Shqiptarë" comes from the root "shqip," an adverb meaning "clearly" or "intelligibly" (Lloshi, 2010).

Answer: Tatar

Tatar, which has several (often very divergent) dialects, is a Turkic language. In fact, the first Tatar peoples were Turkic tribes who were eventually assimilated by Genghis Khan's Golden Horde.

Estonian and Hungarian are (obviously) the national languages of Estonia and Hungary; Udmurt is spoken in Russia's Republic of Udmurtia, and is a member of Uralic's Finno-Permic branch (Comrie, 1981).

Answer: Turkic

Chuvash is a highly-divergent language that occupies a branch by itself in the Turkic family; where the rest of the Turkic languages may have a /z/ or a /sh/, Chuvash has /r/ and /l/ (Róna-Tas, 2007).

Azeri, the national language of Azerbaijan, is on a branch with Turkish; this branch is sometimes referred to as the "Southern Turkic" branch (Benzing & Menges, 1959). Azeri can be written with the Arabic, Latin, or Cyrillic alphabets, depending on where the speaker lives (Omniglot.com).

Uzbek is a member of the "Uyghur" or "Eastern" branch of Turkic (Comrie, 1981; Benzing & Menges, 1959). Like Azeri, Uzbek can be written with the Arabic, Cyrillic, and Latin alphabets (Omniglot.com).

Answer: Yakut

Yakut is a "Northern" Turkic language (Comrie, 1981), and has more native speakers than all of the Tungusic languages combined.

Evenki is the largest Tungusic language in number of speakers, with 27,000 speakers (Bulatova & Grenoble, 1999). Even, as its name suggests, is closely related to Evenki. According to Piers Vitebsky's book "The Reindeer People," the Even language may have as many as 10,000 terms for "reindeer."

Manchu, once the language of China's rulers, is a highly-endangered Tungusic language; perhaps fewer than 60 of the 10,000,000 ethnic Manchu still speak the language (Krauss, 1997).

Answer: Sino-Tibetan

Although some linguists dispute that the Tibeto-Burman languages are directly related to China's Sinitic languages, this view is still considered a minority opinion. The Tibeto-Burman languages comprise the largest branch of the Sino-Tibetan family in most classifications, and Burmese and Dzongkha are among the more robust languages in the Tibeto-Burman branch.

The Burmese alphabet features (largely) circular characters because it was first written on palm leaves, and the writing implement would tear the leaves when straight lines were drawn.

Answer: Mon-Khmer

The Mon-Khmer family is of somewhat controversial status; it is often considered a part of--or synonymous to--the proposed Austro-Asiatic family, rather than as a stand-alone family in its own right. The status of Austro-Asiatic as the higher-level family (i.e. including the Mon-Khmer, Nicobarese, and Munda subfamilies) is now accepted by the majority of linguists (Campbell, 1999). Still, regardless of whether Austro-Asiatic or Mon-Khmer is the highest-level family, Vietnamese is a Mon-Khmer language.

All four of the language families offered as answers here have member languages spoken in Vietnam.

Answer: Maldivian

Maldivian is actually an Indo-European language, and is the national and official language of the Maldives.

Remarkably, Malagasy--the national and official language of Madagascar--is most-closely related to the languages of Borneo, 4500 miles across the ocean.

Answer: Pama-Nyungan

The Pama-Nyungan family is a source of great argument among Australianists. If a true family, it contains the vast majority of Australia's aboriginal languages. Oceanic and Trans-New Guinea are branches of Austronesian; Worrorran is a small family of Australian languages.

Answer: Amharic

All four here are major pan-national languages in Africa; Amharic is a Semitic language, and the official language of Ethiopia. Wolof is spoken mostly in Senegal and The Gambia; Swahili is spoken across a wide swath of East Africa and is a national/official language in Kenya, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Tanzania. Igbo is an official language of Nigeria.

According to Payne (1990), Igbo has a grand total of eight adjectives: big/small, dark/light, new/old, good/bad.

Answer: Mande

Mande is a small family sometimes grouped under Niger-Congo, although this (like so many other elements of language taxonomy!) is a subject of debate. The Semitic languages include (of course) Amharic, Arabic, and Hebrew. The Berber languages include Tamazight and Tuareg, and are spoken across the northern Sahara; the Cushitic languages, spoken mainly in the Horn of Africa, include Oromo and Somali (Ethnologue).

Answer: Quechuan

Quechua has the largest number of speakers of any indigenous American language. (The Quechuan peoples refer to the language as "Runasimi.") Aymara is also an official language of Bolivia and Peru, but it's an Aymaran language, rather than belonging to any of the families listed here.

The Arawakan family is spoken through South America, but not in Ecuador, Chile, or Uruguay (Ethnologue). The Cariban languages are spoken largely across the northern "edge" of South America, with an exclave pocket in Brazil; the Choco languages are spoken in Colombia and Panama (Ethnologue).

I could have asked "to which of these families does Quechua belong," but that would've been too easy, right?

Answer: Mazatlán Mixe

Mazatlán Mixe is a member of the Mixe-Zoque family, spoken on Mexico's Isthmus of Tehuantepec (Ethnologue). Haustec is a member of the Haustecan branch of Mayan; Itzá and K'iche' are members of the Yucatecan and Eastern branches of Mayan, respectively (Campbell, 1999).

K'iche' is the language of the Popul Vuh; the Itzá were the builders of the great ancient city of Chichen Itza.

Answer: Uto-Aztecan

Classical Náhuatl was, of course, the primary language of the Aztec Empire. The Algic languages are spoken in the northern and central US and Canada, and comprise one of the largest families in the Americas (Mithun, 1999). Otomanguean languages are spoken in Mexico and Nicaragua (Ethnologue); the Athabaskan languages are spoken from Alaska down the Pacific coasts of the US and Canada, and into Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma (Mithun, 1999).

The words "coyote" and "chili", among many others, originate from Náhuatl. Many of these were first borrowed into Spanish, and then into English and other languages.

Answer: Algonquian

Powhatan was the language spoken by Pocahontas; it became extinct around the 1790s (Mithun, 1999). As a result of Malick's film "The New World" (which retold the story of Pocahontas and John Smith), for which the Powhatan dialogue was written by linguist Blair Rudes, a great deal of interest has been kindled in revitalizing the language.

Algonquian is a major branch of the Algic family.

Iroquoian languages are spoken mostly in the upper New York state area, although Cherokee--perhaps the best-known Iroquoian language--is currently spoken in parts of North Carolina and Oklahoma (among other places, due to forced migrations). The Siouan languages (perhaps more properly the Siouan-Catawban languages) are spoken across the Great Plains and into Ontario and the Carolinas. The Muskogean languages are spoken from Oklahoma to the Southeast (see Mithun, 1999).

Answer: Alutiiq

Alutiiq (also known as Sugpiaq or Pacific Yupik) is spoken on the Kenai and Alaska Peninsulas, Kodiak Island, and Prince William Sound in Alaska (Fortescue, Jacobson, & Kaplan, 1994).

The Yupik languages are (with the Inuit languages) one of the two major branches of "Eskimoan," which is itself one of two branches of Eskimo-Aleut. Yupik is sometimes spelled "Yup'ik," although this should only be used to refer to Central Alaskan Yup'ik; the apostrophe refers to a geminate--or doubled--"p" (Jacobson, 1984).

Deg Xinag (Ingalik) and Holikachuk are Alaskan Athabaskan languages, spoken in west-central Alaska (Krauss, 1980). Alyutor is actually spoken on Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula, and is a member of the Chukotko-Kamchatkan family (Fortescue, 2005).