Trans–New Guinea languages

High school (ages 12+)
People & Society

Name:

Date:

Step 1 · Read the article

Open the article and read it at the level above. Then answer the questions below in your own words.

https://smallwhale.org/articles/trans-new-guinea-languages

Write what each word means, using the article.

Do not copy the article. Write two things you learned, the way you would explain them to a friend.

Answers below are taken from the article’s stored facts, so they match what the student read.

1. What is the estimated number of languages?Over 400
2. What is the estimated number of speakers?Approximately 10 million
3. How old is the common ancestor of these languages?About 5,000 years ago, in the Neolithic period.
4. Why are these languages important to people who speak them?They carry cultural stories, identity, and a connection to the land and ancestors.

Macrofamily: A proposed large grouping of languages believed to share a very ancient common ancestor.
Linguistic Paleontology: Using language reconstruction to infer historical events and cultural practices.
Phonology: The study of the sound systems of languages.
Agglutinative Languages: Languages where words are formed by stringing together morphemes, each with a single grammatical meaning.