Languages of the World

There are 7,000 languages spoken in the world.

While we are learning about Latin America today many of you had excellent questions about languages of the world. Below are some Hot Tamale Activities to explore you curiosity.

What does it mean to be a Romance language?

• Read and summarize in your own words these two links. Feel free to do your own research.

Why is Latin a "dead language"?

• Google it and see what you find. Summarize the information and link your sources

Here is a story of a language only spoken by two people in Mexico, but they don't get along so they don't speak to each other! 

• Read the article and summarize in your own words. What would you do if you were them?
• If you were the last person to speak a language, what would you do? Would you try to record yourself speaking it? Try to teach it to others? 
• This page has images of places that have languages that are becoming extinct. Create your own map of these places.

National Geographic has a whole website dedicated to languages that are becoming extinct.

• Select a region and click on the Hotspot. Then click "more about this Hotspot" and read the information. Summarize the information in an email. 

Your travel list/map

View My Travel Map in a larger map Above is a map of some places I've been and some places I want to go.

Where have you been? Where do you want to go?

Hot Tamale Activities (email bordner@cityhigh.org)

• Email me a list of where you've been (and what you did there) and where you want to go (and why you want to go there). You can also create a blog post describing this and adding photos of you!
• Create your own map like this. Watch this video to get started and this video to add details.
• What is the worst place you've ever been? Why was it so bad? What is the best place you've ever been? What made it great?

The places you select do not have to be Spanish speaking countries. You may (and should) also talk about any travel around the United States.

Geography and History

As we are learning about geography this week I am reminded of two videos/images.

This is a video of the borders of European countries over the last 1000 years. (This can be viewed without music)

This is a gif image of the amount of land that Native Americans lived in over the last 250 years.

Hot Tamale Activities (email bordner@cityhigh.org)

• How do these images connect to what we are doing in this class? How do these images connect to what you are learning in other classes? How do these images connect to what you have learned before?
• What events led to the borders changing? (To find this answer you should research on Google/Wikipedia)
• Find other images of maps from around the world and at different times and send me the link.