Portal:Language

Portal topics: Activities; Culture; Geography; Health; History; Mathematics; Nature; People; Philosophy; Religion; Society; Technology; Random portal

Introduction

Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and written forms, and may also be conveyed through sign languages. Human language is characterized by its cultural and historical diversity, with significant variations observed between cultures and across time. Human languages possess the properties of productivity and displacement, which enable the creation of an infinite number of sentences, and the ability to refer to objects, events, and ideas that are not immediately present in the discourse. The use of human language relies on social convention and is acquired through 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) 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.

The scientific study of language is called linguistics. Critical examinations of languages, such as philosophy of language, the relationships between language and thought, how words represent experience, etc., have been debated at least since Gorgias and Plato in ancient Greek civilization. Thinkers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) have argued that language originated from emotions, while others like Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) have argued that languages originated from rational and logical thought. Twentieth century philosophers such as Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) argued that philosophy is really the study of language itself. Major figures in contemporary linguistics of these times include Ferdinand de Saussure and Noam Chomsky. (Full article...)

Outline of linguistics • Index of language articles

Refresh with new selections below (purge)

Selected language - show another

Nahua man from the Florentine Codex. The speech scrolls indicate speech or song.

Nahuatl (English: /ˈnɑːwɑːtəl/ NAH-wah-təl; Nahuatl pronunciation: [ˈnaːwat͡ɬ] ^ⓘ), Aztec, or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about 1.7 million Nahua peoples, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have smaller populations in the United States.

Nahuatl has been spoken in central Mexico since at least the seventh century CE. It was the language of the Aztec/Mexica, who dominated what is now central Mexico during the Late Postclassic period of Mesoamerican history. During the centuries preceding the Spanish and Tlaxcalan conquest of the Aztec Empire, the Aztecs had expanded to incorporate a large part of central Mexico. Their influence caused the variety of Nahuatl spoken by the residents of Tenochtitlan to become a prestige language in Mesoamerica. (Full article...)

List of selected language articles

Did you know (auto-generated)

... that in 1903, Georg Forchhammer invented a system to help his deaf students see the sounds of spoken Danish?
... that some microprocessors feature a compressed instruction set that packs machine-language instructions into a more memory-efficient size?
... that the success of the book Fifth Chinese Daughter led to the U.S. State Department translating the book into various Asian languages and sending its author on a speaking tour across Asia?
... that at age 12, Shaylee Mansfield became the first deaf actor to be credited alongside the voice actors for a signed performance in an animated production?
... that foreign nationals wishing to gain Philippine citizenship need to demonstrate proficiency in English or Spanish as well as a Philippine language?
... that David Ahl purchased BASIC-8 to sell with the PDP-8 when DEC management proved more interested in their own FOCAL language?

edit

More did you know - show different entries

...that a large portion of the vocabulary of the coastal Mozambiquean language Koti derives from a past variety of Swahili?
...that the Ambelau, Buru, Kayeli and Lisela people and their Ambelau, Buru, Kayeli and Lisela languages are unique to the Indonesian islands of Buru and Ambelau?
...that the Korean dialect spoken by ethnic Koreans in Japan has changed so much that some of its speakers don't think it can be properly referred to as "Korean" anymore?
...that the National Language Authority in Pakistan is the first autonomous regulatory institution to have internationally standardized the Urdu language code table and Urdu keyboard for typewriters, teleprinters, and computer software?

More Did you know

edit

Related portals

Selected topic - show another

The roots of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) are basic parts of words to carry a lexical meaning, so-called morphemes. PIE roots usually have verbal meaning like "to eat" or "to run". Roots never occurred alone in the language. Complete inflected verbs, nouns, and adjectives were formed by adding further morphemes to a root and potentially changing the root's vowel in a process called ablaut.

A root consists of a central vowel that is preceded and followed by at least one consonant each. A number of rules have been determined to specify which consonants can occur together, and in which order. The modern understanding of these rules is that the consonants with the highest sonority (*l, *r, *y, *n) are nearest to the vowel, and the ones with the lowest sonority such as plosives are furthest away. There are some exceptions to these rules such as thorn clusters. (Full article...)

List of selected topics

edit

Selected picture - show another

Credit: © Hans Hillewaert

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.

More selected pictures

More...

edit

Language News

1 January 2024 – Public Domain Day

The animated short film Steamboat Willie, the German-language version of the novel All Quiet on the Western Front, and other works published in 1928 enter the public domain in the United States. (Mashable)

Language news from Wikinews...

edit