Language Families Match Trivia Quiz

Answer: Celtic

Celtic is one of several sub-families within the Indo-European language family. The Celtic languages are spoken in the British Isles or in Brittany in France. Gaelic encompasses Irish and Scots Gaelic. Breton is spoken in France, Welsh in Wales, Cornish in Cornwall in England, and Manx on the Isle of Man.

Answer: Iroquoian

Iroquoian is one of many language families native to North and South America. The original Iroquois League consisted of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Seneca, and Cayuga in New York State. The Cherokee were one of the so-called "Five Civilized Tribes" of Georgia and surrounding states.

Answer: Finno-Ugric

Of the languages of Europe, most are Indo-European. Two exceptions are Finno-Ugric languages, such as Magyar (Hungarian), Finnish, Estonian, and the languages of the Sami, once referred to as Lapps. These languages are also referred to as Uralic. Another non-Indo-European language in Western Europe is Basque, which does not seem to be related to any other language.

Answer: Romance

The Romance languages are all descended from Latin. Other major Romance languages include Portuguese, Italian, Romansh (spoken in Switzerland), and Romanian.

Answer: Sino-Tibetan

Only the Indo-European languages, which include the languages of India descended from Sanskrit as well as most of Europe's languages, are spoken by more people than the Sino-Tibetan languages of East Asia and Southeast Asia. The three main Sino-Tibetan languages (also called Tibeto-Burman) are Chinese, Burmese, and Tibetan languages.

Answer: Semitic

Semitic languages are a sub-family of the Afro-Asiatic language family. Other Semitic languages include Amharic, spoken in Ethiopia, and Maltese. Amharic is the second-most-spoken Semitic language (behind Arabic), while Maltese, the official language of Malta, is the only official language in the European Union that is Semitic. Ancient Semitic languages include Phoenician and Aramaic, the language spoken by Jesus.

Answer: Germanic

Other members of the Germanic sub-family include Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish, as well as Afrikaans in South Africa, and Yiddish.

Answer: Khoisan

Khoisan are languages spoken in Africa and are often called the "click languages", because among the consonant sounds are distinct clicks. Some languages of southern Africa use up to 150 different sounds, compared to 44 in English.

Answer: Slavic

Another sub-family of Indo-European, Slavic languages are further divided into three divisions: East Slavic, West Slavic, and South Slavic. East Slavic includes Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian. West Slavic includes Czech, Slovak, and Polish. South Slavic languages include Macedonian, Serbo-Croatian, Bulgarian, and Slovenian.

Answer: Polynesian

The Polynesian languages, forming a branch of the Austronesian (Malayo-Polynesian) language family, are scattered across the Pacific as far north as Hawai'i, east as far as Easter Island (Rapa Nui), west as far as the Solomons, and south as far as New Zealand, home of the Maori. Tongan is one branch of the Polynesian languages separate from the rest of them, which also include Samoan and Tahitian.