Portal:Language

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 signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing. 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 include Ferdinand de Saussure and Noam Chomsky. (Full article...)

Outline of linguistics • Index of language articles

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Precontact distribution of the Natchez language

The Natchez language is the ancestral language of the Natchez people who historically inhabited Mississippi and Louisiana, and who now mostly live among the Muscogee and Cherokee peoples in Oklahoma. The language is considered to be either unrelated to other indigenous languages of the Americas or distantly related to the Muskogean languages.

The phonology of Natchez is atypical in having voicing distinction in its sonorants but not in its obstruents; it also has a wide range of morphophonemic processes. Morphologically, it has complex verbal inflection and a relatively simple nominal inflection (the ergative case marks nouns in transitive clauses), and its syntax is characterized by active-stative alignment and subject-object-verb word order (or more accurately Agent-Object-Verb and Subject-Verb). Natchez storytellers used a specific register, "cannibal speech" to impersonate cannibals, a recurring character in Natchez oral literature. (Full article...)

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... that in 2019, the Canadian government's Translation Bureau began providing translation services in Dene, East Cree, Plains Cree, and Mohawk?
... that a Roman Catholic archbishop was the first person to translate some of Shakespeare's works into Polish?
... that Karan Aujla's Hindi-language single "Tauba Tauba" from the 2024 film Bad Newz became a Canadian Hot 100 top-25 song ahead of the film's release?
... that the author of The Power of Babel says that speakers of Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish are all speaking the same language?
... that in 1944, the Tuvan-language journal Lenin–Stalinnьꞑ tugunuꞑ adaa-pile switched from the Latin script to the Cyrillic script?
... that the seven leaders of the East Turkestan Revolutionary Party had Uyghur-language code names, the initials of which spelled out the word Lëninchi, meaning "Leninist"?

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...that the totem pole (pictured) which welcomes visitors to the British Museum was documented for the museum by Rev. John Henry Keen years before it was purchased?
...that Missouri French is a nearly extinct dialect of French that developed in what is now the midwestern United States during the colonial period?
...that Hindi, Bengali, and Portuguese were all proposed as official languages of the United Nations?
...that the Vedda language is a Creole based on Sinhalese of Sri Lanka instead of a dialect?

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The Global Language Monitor (GLM) is a company based in Austin, Texas, that analyzes trends in the English language. (Full article...)

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Credit: Luca

The Phoenician alphabet was a non-pictographic consonantal alphabet, or abjad. It became one of the most widely used writing systems, spread by Phoenician merchants across the Mediterranean world, where it evolved and was assimilated by many other cultures. The Aramaic alphabet, a modified form of Phoenician, was the ancestor of modern Arabic script, while Hebrew script is a stylistic variant of the Aramaic script. The Greek alphabet (and by extension its descendants such as the Latin, the Cyrillic and the Coptic), was a direct successor of Phoenician, though certain letter values were changed to represent vowels.