Portal:Language

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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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Sumerian (Sumerian: 𒅴𒂠, romanized: eme-gir₁₅, lit. ''native language'') was the language of ancient Sumer. It is one of the oldest attested languages, dating back to at least 2900 BC. It is a local language isolate that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia, in the area that is modern-day Iraq.

Akkadian, a Semitic language, gradually replaced Sumerian as the primary spoken language in the area c. 2000 BC (the exact date is debated), but Sumerian continued to be used as a sacred, ceremonial, literary, and scientific language in Akkadian-speaking Mesopotamian states such as Assyria and Babylonia until the 1st century AD. Thereafter, it seems to have fallen into obscurity until the 19th century, when Assyriologists began deciphering the cuneiform inscriptions and excavated tablets that had been left by its speakers. (Full article...)

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... that all known writing in Ancient Hebrew totals just 300,000 words, versus 9.9 million in Akkadian?
... that Czech industrialist Jan Felkl founded a company in 1854 that would produce globes in 17 languages?
... that the author of In the Land of Invented Languages lived in the same town as a fluent Klingon speaker?
... that the Nuwhaha people, despite sometimes being erroneously known as the "Upper Samish", do not speak the Samish language?
... that Nazi Party member Adalbert Baumann created Oiropa'pitshn, a language based on Yiddish?
... that Interlingue, an international auxiliary language, was released 100 years ago under the name Occidental by a Baltic German from Estonia?

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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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Scholars have attempted to reconstruct the phonology of Old Chinese from documentary evidence. Although the writing system does not describe sounds directly, shared phonetic components of the most ancient Chinese characters are believed to link words that were pronounced similarly at that time. The oldest surviving Chinese verse, in the Classic of Poetry (Shijing), shows which words rhymed in that period. Scholars have compared these bodies of contemporary evidence with the much later Middle Chinese reading pronunciations listed in the Qieyun rhyme dictionary published in 601 AD, though this falls short of a phonemic analysis. Supplementary evidence has been drawn from cognates in other Sino-Tibetan languages and in Min Chinese, which split off before the Middle Chinese period, Chinese transcriptions of foreign names, and early borrowings from and by neighbouring languages such as Hmong–Mien, Tai and Tocharian languages.

Although many details are disputed, most recent reconstructions agree on the basic structure. It is generally agreed that Old Chinese differed from Middle Chinese in lacking retroflex and palatal obstruents but having initial consonant clusters of some sort, and in having voiceless sonorants. Most recent reconstructions also posit consonant clusters at the end of the syllable, developing into tone distinctions in Middle Chinese. (Full article...)

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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.