Language
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People have attempted to define "language" in a number of ways. Example definitions include:
- a system for representing things, actions, and ideas.
- a system of meanings shared among different people
- a code that members of a linguistic community use to mediate between form and meaning
- a set of gramatically correct utterances (i.e. words, sentences, etc.)
- a set of utterances that could be understood by a linguistic community
- thought
In any case, human language is the most central meaning of "language".
Making a principled distinction between one human language and another can often be difficult. Chomsky (1986) points out that "some dialects of German are very close to dialects that we call 'Dutch' and are not mutually intelligible with others that we call 'German'". Note that there are parallels to biology, where it is not always possible to make a principled distinction between one species and the next. In either case (at least given the standard view on the evolution of the species), the ultimate difficulty stems from both languages and species descending from one another, with modification.
Some people speak of animal languages, while others argue they are not complex or expressive enough to count as "true" languages.
Mathematics and computer science use artificial entities called formal languages (including programming languages), which may or may not count as "true" languages.
Information about language on wikipedia
The Linguistics article examines different theoretical perspectives on human language in detail. This is perhaps becoming Wikipedia's most useful introductory article about language.
The Language families and languages article provides more information on particular languages and their interconnections.
The Common phrases in different languages article may be of interest to travelers.
See also
- Computer assisted language learning (a historical perspective)
- the Ethnologue, which provides a fairly complete list of all languages, locations, population, and genetic affiliation can be found in the Ethnologue.
- General semantics
- Language education
- Naming
- Orthography
- Philology and Historical_Linguistics
- Philosophy of language
- Phonology
- Profanity
- Psycholinguistics
- Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
- Second language
- Semantics
- Speech therapy
- Tongue-twister
External Links
- Mark Rosenfelder's Metaverse provides a useful listing of 4000 languages and dialects (grouped by their relationships), where the numbers one to ten in each language can be found
- Museum of Languages
- LingoTeach, GPL tool to learn languages
- http://www.optimnem.co.uk provides online language courses that teach spatial learning strategies for English, French and German. Tutor-supported.
What are our priorities for writing in this area? To help develop a list of the most basic topics about language, please see Linguistics basic topics.