Introduction
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A language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means of communication of humans, and can be conveyed through spoken, sign, or written language. Many languages, including the most widely-spoken ones, have writing systems that enable sounds or signs to be recorded for later reactivation. Human language is not dependent on a single mode of transmission (sight, sound, etc.) and is highly variable between cultures and across time.
Human languages have the properties of productivity and displacement, and rely on social convention and learning.
Estimates of the number of human languages in the world vary between 5,000 and 7,000. Precise estimates depend on an arbitrary distinction (dichotomy) being established between languages and dialects. Natural languages are spoken, signed, or both; however, any language can be encoded into secondary media using auditory, visual, or tactile stimuli – for example, writing, whistling, signing, or braille. In other words, human language is modality-independent, but written or signed language is the way to inscribe or encode the natural human speech or gestures.
Depending on philosophical perspectives regarding the definition of language and meaning, when used as a general concept, "language" may refer to the cognitive ability to learn and use systems of complex communication, or to describe the set of rules that makes up these systems, or the set of utterances that can be produced from those rules. All languages rely on the process of semiosis to relate signs to particular meanings. Oral, manual and tactile languages contain a phonological system that governs how symbols are used to form sequences known as words or morphemes, and a syntactic system that governs how words and morphemes are combined to form phrases and utterances. (Full article...)
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Maybrat is a Papuan language spoken in the central parts of the Bird's Head Peninsula in the Indonesian province of West Papua.
Maybrat is also known as Ayamaru, after the name of its principal dialect, while the divergent Karon Dori dialect has sometimes been counted as a separate language. Maybrat is not demonstrably related to any other language, and so is considered a language isolate. Nevertheless, in its grammatical structure, it has a number of features that are shared with the neighbouring languages. (Full article...)Did you know (auto-generated)
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- ... that WNJU, a Spanish-language television station serving New York City, was the first in the United States to air a hard-liquor advertisement?
- ... that Mohammad Tabrani first proposed the term "bahasa Indonesia" for the national language of Indonesia?
- ... that Ontario's last German-language newspaper, the Berliner Journal, was forced to publish in English in 1918 after the Canadian government prohibited German publications?
- ... that the Gujarati poem "Shav Vahini Ganga" criticises the Indian government's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic?
- ... that Arithmetic was the first mathematics text book written in the Russian language?
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- ...that the Jru' language, an indigenous language of Laos, was once written in a secret script?
- ...that during the filming of The Linguists in the Andes, the cast coped with altitude sickness by drinking coca leaf tea?
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The modern Chinese varieties make frequent use of what are called classifiers or measure words. One use of classifiers is when a noun is qualified by a numeral known as a noun phrase. When a phrase such as "one person" or "three books" is translated into Chinese, it is normally necessary to insert an appropriate classifier between the numeral and the noun. For example, in Standard Mandarin, the first of these phrases would be 一个人 yí gè rén, where yī means "one", rén means "person", and gè is the required classifier. There are also other grammatical contexts in which classifiers are used, including after the demonstratives 这 (這) zhè ("this") and 那 nà ("that"); however, when a noun stands alone without any such qualifier, no classifier is needed. There are also various other uses of classifiers: for example, when placed after a noun rather than before it, or when repeated, a classifier signifies a plural or indefinite quantity.
The terms "classifier" and "measure word" are frequently used interchangeably (as equivalent to the Chinese term 量词 (量詞) liàngcí, which literally means "measure word"). Sometimes, however, the two are distinguished, with classifier denoting a particle without any particular meaning of its own, as in the example above, and measure word denoting a word for a particular quantity or measurement of something, such as "drop", "cupful", or "liter". The latter type also includes certain words denoting lengths of time, units of currency, etc. These two types are alternatively called count-classifier and mass-classifier, since the first type can only meaningfully be used with count nouns, while the second is used particularly with mass nouns. However, the grammatical behavior of words of the two types is largely identical. (Full article...)Selected picture -
The Rosetta Stone is an ancient Egyptian granodiorite stele inscribed with a decree issued at Memphis in 196 BC on behalf of King Ptolemy V. The decree appears in three scripts: the upper text is Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, the middle portion Demotic script, and the lowest Ancient Greek.
Language News
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- Authorities in Cameroon ban "undeclared meetings and manifestations" in Bamenda, the capital of the Northwest Region, after separatists announced a manifestation to commemorate the declaration of independence of Ambazonia, a breakaway state consisting of the English-speaking regions of Cameroon. (Xinhua)
- 13 June 2022 – Censorship of Wikipedia
- The Wikimedia Foundation files an appeal against a Russian court order demanding the removal of certain Russo-Ukrainian War-related information from the Russian-language Wikipedia, which is one of the few remaining fact-checked sources still available to the general Russian public. (Reuters) (DW)
- 2 June 2022 – Internet censorship in Russia
- Russia blocks access to the Finnish, Russian and English websites of Finnish state broadcaster Yle, on orders of the Prosecutor-General of Russia. (Yle)
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Languages of Africa: Arabic, Chadic, Cushitic, Kanuri, Maasai, Setswana, Swahili, Turkana, Xhosa, Yoruba, Zulu, more...
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Languages of Austronesia: Austric, Fijian, Hawaiian, Javanese, Malagasy, Malay, Maori, Marshallese, Samoan, Tahitian, Tagalog, Tongan, Auslan, more...
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Constructed languages: Esperanto, Ido, Volapük, more...
Agglutinative language, Analytic language, Constructed language, Creole, Context-free language, Extinct language, Dialect, Fusional language, Inflectional language, International language, Isolating language, Language isolate, National language, Natural language, Pidgin, Pluricentric language, Polysynthetic language, Proto-language, Sign language, Spoken language, Synthetic language, Variety (linguistics)
Applied linguistics, Cognitive linguistics, Accent (dialect), Computational linguistics, Descriptive linguistics, Eurolinguistics, Generative linguistics, Historical linguistics, Lexicology, Lexical semantics, Morphology, Onomasiology, Phonetics, Phonology, Pragmatics, Prescription, Prototype semantics, Psycholinguistics, Semantics, Stylistics, Sociolinguistics, Syntax
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Alphabets: Arabic alphabet, Bengali alphabet, Cyrillic alphabet, Hebrew alphabet, Latin alphabet, more...
Other writing systems: Abjad, Abugida, Braille, Hieroglyphics, Logogram, Syllabary, SignWriting, more..
See also: History of the alphabet, Script
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