Objective: Explore a website that documents languages worldwide. Analyze language maps and classify languages by language families. Start by accessing ethnologue com and clicking on the following

Ethnologue.com Webquest

Objective: Explore a website that documents languages worldwide. Analyze language maps and classify languages by language families. Start by accessing ethnologue.com and clicking on the following:

Ethnologue -> Overview-> Introduction to the Printed Volume

http://www.ethnologue.com/ethno_docs/introduction.asp

Read through this page and summarize the information to answer the following:

1. 
   What is an Ethnologue and why do we need it?
   

2. 
   What do you think are some of the challenges with creating an Ethnologue?
   

Let’s look at languages in the USA! Click on World Languages at the top

http://www.ethnologue.com/country_index.asp

Click on the Americas. Then click on Northern America. Select United States underneath the map.

http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=US

This page provides a listing of the languages in the USA. Use the information at the end of the first section to answer the following:

3. 
   How many languages are in the USA?
   
4. 
   How many are living languages?
   
5. 
   How many are second languages without mother tongue speakers?
   
6. 
   How many have no known speakers?
   
7. 
   What surprises you about the answers to these questions?
   

Click on the link at the top of that says Maps. Then click on United States of America: Index Map. http://www.ethnologue.com/show_map.asp?name=US&seq=10

Using this map and the other maps of the US what conclusions can you draw about:

8. 
   What languages are spoken in the Northern Central and Southwestern Regions and why do these languages exist here?
   

9. 
   How are Northern Central and Southwestern languages similar to the languages spoken in the Southeast?
   

10. 
    How are Northern Central and Southwestern languages different than those spoken in the Southeast?
    

11. 
    Why might preservation of all of these languages be important?
    

Let’s look at Language Families. Go to: http://www.ethnologue.com/family_index.asp

This lists the Language Families and the number of languages that fall in each family. For each of the language families below, click through the family tree a bit and complete the chart.

Family	Number of Languages	Where are these languages found?	Important Language in Family
Indo-European
Sino-Tibetian
Niger Congo
Austronesian

12. 
    In general, what connection do you see between the name of a language and the location of the language?
    

Let’s build a Language Tree. Go to: http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=eng

On this list find the link for CLASSIFICATION: and click on it.

This provides the classification (from family to branch to group to language) for English. Fill this in below.

English:

Now select another language that you have heard spoken in your life. Identify the language and list its classification (add breaks when needed): http://www.ethnologue.com/browse/names/a

Other Language:

13. 
    What do you notice when you compare the classification of English to the other language you selected?
    

Let’s see if you can find a Monolingual Country: Go to:

http://www.ethnologue.com/country_index.asp

Define Monolingual:
Select a region and then a country that you believe might be Monolingual. Identify the following:

Country Name	Total Number of Languages Spoken	Largest spoken language and number of speakers.	Second largest language and number of speakers.

14. 
    Is this country really monolingual? Explain.