Written by Where do our Words Come From?!?!
Europe provides students with a wonderful opportunity to recognize the various patterns and groupings of its major language branches and families. In this activity, students will use a translating app connected to the web, in order to map the changes in language across the continent and its nearby countries. Students will have the opportunity to reintroduce themselves to the political map of Europe, and will also make them recognize the predominate languages that are spoken there.
Students will choose a word that is synonymous with the majority of humans on the planet, i.e. “tree”, “fish”, “love”, “egg”, “nine”, or “shoe”. Choosing a word matters because if they pick something relatively new to the human language, a name brand, or an element of pop culture, they will not see much transition across the countries, i.e. Snapchat, Hashtag, or frappucino.
Students will open Google translate and begin translating their word. Students should write down the word in or near the country that it represents. If they need to slightly diagram the word outside of the country because of space limitations, that is OK. Discourage them from writing small countries’ words in the margins, as they will lose the ability to recognize language shifts across the continent. Have them recognize any patterns of words, either by spelling, pronunciation, or characters that are used by placing them in clumped isoglosses.
Access a map for this activity HERE.
