Creole

Used to describe the language of the Caribbean region.

Creolization

The process in which two or more languages converge and form a new language (used to describe languages in the Caribbean when slavery and colonization merged cultures.

Esperanto

An effort was launched in the early in the 20th century to create a unifying world language.

Lingua Franca

A language used as a common tongue among the people who speaks diverse languages to conduct business. Example: airline pilots must speak English.

Official language

A language spoken by the educated and politically elite used to create internal cohesion, usually the language of the courts and government.

Pidgin language

A mix of languages when cultures mix, very low levels of grammar, useful enough to trade.

Monolingual states

A country where only one language is spoken. Example: Japan, Uruguay, Venezuela, Iceland, Portugal, Poland, Lesotho.

Multilingual states

A country where more than one language is spoken, can be a reflection of cultural pluralism, often happens in countries where colonialism threw together many cultural and linguistic groups.

Sound shift

A slight change in a word across languages within a subfamily or through a language family from the present backward toward its origin.

Toponymy

A study about place name

Preliterate society

A society which people speak the language but don't write it.