Language

William Jones discovered the family relation between Latin and Sanskrit, laying the ground for the discipline of historical linguistics.

Ferdinand de Saussure developed the structuralist approach to studying language.

Noam Chomsky is one of the most important linguistic theorists of the 20th century.

Language Areas of the brain. The Angular Gyrus is represented in orange, Supramarginal Gyrus is represented in yellow, Broca's area is represented in blue, Wernicke's area is represented in green, and the Primary Auditory Cortex is represented in pink.

In addition to word classes, a sentence can be analyzed in terms of grammatical functions: "The cat" is the subject of the phrase, "on the mat" is a locative phrase, and "sat" is the core of the predicate.

Wall of Love on Montmartre in Paris: "I love you" in 250 languages, by calligraphist Fédéric Baron and artist Claire Kito (2000)

A lesson at Kituwah Academy, a school where English and the Cherokee language are mediums of instruction

Arnold Lakhovsky, The Conversation (c. 1935)

An inscription of Swampy Cree using Canadian Aboriginal syllabics, an abugida developed by Christian missionaries for Indigenous Canadian languages

The first page of the poem Beowulf, written in Old English in the early medieval period (800–1100 AD). Although Old English is the direct ancestor of modern English, it is unintelligible to contemporary English speakers.

Multi-lingual sign outside the mayor's office in Novi Sad, written in the four official languages of the city: Serbian, Hungarian, Slovak, and Pannonian Rusyn

Principal language families of the world (and in some cases geographic groups of families). For greater detail, see Distribution of languages in the world.

Structured system of communication.

- Language

500 related topics

Philosophy of language

In analytic philosophy, philosophy of language investigates the nature of language and the relations between language, language users, and the world.

Communication

Apparent answer to the painful divisions between self and other, private and public, and inner thought and outer world."

Berlo's Sender-Message-Channel-Receiver Model of Communication

Human communication is unique for its extensive use of abstract language.

Productivity (linguistics)

The monument for the mother tongue ("Ana dili") in Nakhchivan, Azerbaijan

In linguistics, productivity is the degree to which native speakers of a language use a particular grammatical process, especially in word formation.

Dialect

The term dialect (from Latin, , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena:

Map of the Arabic Dialects located in Africa and the Arabian Peninsula

The Books of Genesis of the Ukrainian Nation by Mykola Kostomarov

One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. Under this definition, the dialects or varieties of a particular language are closely related and, despite their differences, are most often largely mutually intelligible, especially if close to one another on the dialect continuum. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors, such as social class or ethnicity. A dialect that is associated with a particular social class can be termed a sociolect, a dialect that is associated with a particular ethnic group can be termed an ethnolect, and a geographical/regional dialect may be termed a regiolect (alternative terms include 'regionalect', 'geolect', and 'topolect' ). According to this definition, any variety of a given language can be classified as a "dialect", including any standardized varieties. In this case, the distinction between the "standard language" (i.e. the "standard" dialect of a particular language) and the "nonstandard" (vernacular) dialects of the same language is often arbitrary and based on social, political, cultural, or historical considerations or prevalence and prominence. In a similar way, the definitions of the terms "language" and "dialect" may overlap and are often subject to debate, with the differentiation between the two classifications often grounded in arbitrary or sociopolitical motives. The term "dialect" is however sometimes restricted to mean "non-standard variety", particularly in non-specialist settings and non-English linguistic traditions.

Vocabulary

Codex claromontanus latin (The S.S. Teacher's Edition-The Holy Bible - Plate XXVIII)

A vocabulary is a set of familiar words within a person's language.

Linguistics

Chronology of the universe as deduced by the prevailing Big Bang theory, a result from science and obtained knowledge

Linguistics is the scientific study of human language.

Language acquisition

Language acquisition is the process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive and comprehend language (in other words, gain the ability to be aware of language and to understand it), as well as to produce and use words and sentences to communicate.