Improve Language Learning
Language is the human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of
communication, and a language is any specific example of such a system. The
scientific study of language is called linguistics.
Estimates of the number of languages in the world vary between 6,000 and
7,000. However, any precise estimate depends on a partly arbitrary distinction
between languages and dialects. Natural languages are spoken or signed, but any
language can be encoded into secondary media using auditory, visual, or tactile
stimuli, for example, in graphic writing, braille, or whistling. This is because
human language is modality-independent. 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 with particular
meanings. Oral and sign 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.
Human language is unique because it has the properties of productivity,
recursivity, and displacement, and because it relies entirely on social
convention and learning. Its complex structure therefore affords a much wider
range of possible expressions and uses than any known system of animal
communication. Language is thought to have originated when early hominins
started gradually changing their primate communication systems, acquiring the
ability to form a theory of other minds and a shared intentionality. This
development is sometimes thought to have coincided with an increase in brain
volume, and many linguists see the structures of language as having evolved to
serve specific communicative and social functions. Language is processed in many
different locations in the human brain, but especially in Broca's and Wernicke's
areas. Humans acquire language through social interaction in early childhood,
and children generally speak fluently when they are approximately three years
old. The use of language is deeply entrenched in human culture. Therefore, in
addition to its strictly communicative uses, language also has many social and
cultural uses, such as signifying group identity, social stratification, as well
as for social grooming and entertainment.
Languages evolve and diversify over time, and the history of their evolution
can be reconstructed by comparing modern languages to determine which traits
their ancestral languages must have had in order for the later stages to have
occurred. A group of languages that descend from a common ancestor is known as a
language family. The languages that are most spoken in the world today belong to
the Indo-European family, which includes languages such as English, Spanish,
Portuguese, Russian, and Hindi; the Sino-Tibetan family, which includes Mandarin
Chinese, Cantonese, and many others; the Afro-Asiatic family, which includes
Arabic, Amharic, Somali, and Hebrew; and the Bantu languages, which include
Swahili, Zulu, Shona, and hundreds of other languages spoken throughout Africa.
The consensus is that between 50% and 90% of languages spoken at the beginning
of the twenty-first century will probably have become extinct by the year
2100
communication, and a language is any specific example of such a system. The
scientific study of language is called linguistics.
Estimates of the number of languages in the world vary between 6,000 and
7,000. However, any precise estimate depends on a partly arbitrary distinction
between languages and dialects. Natural languages are spoken or signed, but any
language can be encoded into secondary media using auditory, visual, or tactile
stimuli, for example, in graphic writing, braille, or whistling. This is because
human language is modality-independent. 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 with particular
meanings. Oral and sign 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.
Human language is unique because it has the properties of productivity,
recursivity, and displacement, and because it relies entirely on social
convention and learning. Its complex structure therefore affords a much wider
range of possible expressions and uses than any known system of animal
communication. Language is thought to have originated when early hominins
started gradually changing their primate communication systems, acquiring the
ability to form a theory of other minds and a shared intentionality. This
development is sometimes thought to have coincided with an increase in brain
volume, and many linguists see the structures of language as having evolved to
serve specific communicative and social functions. Language is processed in many
different locations in the human brain, but especially in Broca's and Wernicke's
areas. Humans acquire language through social interaction in early childhood,
and children generally speak fluently when they are approximately three years
old. The use of language is deeply entrenched in human culture. Therefore, in
addition to its strictly communicative uses, language also has many social and
cultural uses, such as signifying group identity, social stratification, as well
as for social grooming and entertainment.
Languages evolve and diversify over time, and the history of their evolution
can be reconstructed by comparing modern languages to determine which traits
their ancestral languages must have had in order for the later stages to have
occurred. A group of languages that descend from a common ancestor is known as a
language family. The languages that are most spoken in the world today belong to
the Indo-European family, which includes languages such as English, Spanish,
Portuguese, Russian, and Hindi; the Sino-Tibetan family, which includes Mandarin
Chinese, Cantonese, and many others; the Afro-Asiatic family, which includes
Arabic, Amharic, Somali, and Hebrew; and the Bantu languages, which include
Swahili, Zulu, Shona, and hundreds of other languages spoken throughout Africa.
The consensus is that between 50% and 90% of languages spoken at the beginning
of the twenty-first century will probably have become extinct by the year
2100