Language

This article is about human language in general.

For other uses, see Language (disambiguation).

Two girls learning American Sign

Language A mural in Teotihuacan, Mexico (c. 2nd century)
depicting a person emitting a speech scroll from
his mouth, symbolizing speech

Braille writing represents language in a tactile form.

Language is the ability to acquire and use complex

sys- tems of communication, particularly the
human ability to do so, and a language is any
specic example of such a system. The scientic
study of language is called linguistics.
Questions concerning the philosophy of language,
such as whether words can represent experience,
have been debated since Gorgias and Plato in
Ancient Greece. Thinkers such as Rousseau have
argued that language originated from emotions
while others like Kant have held that it originated
from rational and logical thought. 20th- century
philosophers such as Wittgenstein argued that
philosophy is really the study of language.
Major g- ures in linguistics include Ferdinand de
Cuneiform is the rst known form of written Saussure, Noam Chomsky and William C. Stokoe.
language, but spoken language predates writing by
Estimates of the number of languages in the world
at least tens of thousands of years.
vary between 5,000 and 7,000. However, any
precise esti- mate 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 exam-
ple, in graphic writing, braille, or whistling. This is
be- cause human language is modality-independent.
Depend- ing on philosophical perspectives
regarding the denition of language and meaning,
when used as a general concept,
1
2 1 DEFINITIONS

probably have become extinct by the year 2100.

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 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 has the properties of
productivity, recursivity, and displacement, and
relies entirely on so- cial convention and
learning. Its complex structure af- fords a much
wider range of expressions than any known system
of animal communication. Language is thought
to have originated when early hominins started
gradually changing their primate communication
systems, acquir- ing the ability to form a theory
of other minds and a shared intentionality.[1][2]
This development is sometimes thought to have
coincided with an increase in brain vol- ume, and
many linguists see the structures of language as
having evolved to serve specic communicative and
so- cial functions. Language is processed in many
dierent locations in the human brain, but
especially in Brocas and Wernickes areas. Humans
acquire language through so- cial interaction in
early childhood, and children generally speak
uently when they are approximately three
years old. The use of language is deeply entrenched
in human culture. Therefore, in addition to its
strictly communica- tive uses, language also has
many social and cultural uses, such as signifying
group identity, social stratication, as well as social
grooming and entertainment.
Languages evolve and diversify over time, and
the his- tory of their evolution can be reconstructed
by comparing modern languages to determine
which traits their ances- tral languages must have
had in order for the later de- velopmental stages
to occur. A group of languages that descend from a
common ancestor is known as a language family.
The Indo-European family is the most widely spo-
ken and includes English, Spanish, Portuguese,
Russian, and Hindi; the Sino-Tibetan family,
which includes Mandarin Chinese, Cantonese, and
Standard Tibetan; the Afro-Asiatic family, which
includes Arabic, Amharic, Somali, and Hebrew;
the Bantu languages, which in- clude Swahili,
Zulu, Shona, and hundreds of other languages
spoken throughout Africa; and the Malayo-
Polynesian languages, which include Indonesian,
Malay, Tagalog, Malagasy, and hundreds of other
languages spoken throughout the Pacic. The
languages of the Dravidian family that are spoken
mostly in Southern India include Tamil, Telugu,
Kannada and Malayalam. Aca- demic consensus
holds that between 50% and 90% of languages
spoken at the beginning of the 21st century will
 whether language simply reects the objective
1 Denitions structure of the world, or whether it creates
concepts that it in turn imposes on our experience
of the objective world. This led to the question of
Main article: Philosophy of language
whether philosophical problems are really rstly
linguistic problems. The resurgence of the view
The English word language derives ultimately that language plays a signicant role in the creation
from Proto-Indo-European *dn whs tongue,
speech, lan- guage through Latin lingua,
language; tongue, and Old French language.[3]
The word is sometimes used to re- fer to codes,
ciphers, and other kinds of articially con-
structed communication systems such as
formally de- ned computer languages used for
computer program- ming. Unlike conventional
human languages, a formal language in this
sense is a system of signs for encoding and
decoding information. This article specically
con- cerns the properties of natural human
language as it is studied in the discipline of
linguistics.
As an object of linguistic study, language has
two primary meanings: an abstract concept,
and a specic linguistic system, e.g. "French".
The Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, who
dened the modern disci- pline of linguistics,
rst explicitly formulated the distinc- tion using
the French word langage for language as a con-
cept, langue as a specic instance of a language
system, and parole for the concrete usage of
speech in a particular language.[4]
When speaking of language as a general
concept, de- nitions can be used which stress
dierent aspects of the phenomenon.[5] These
denitions also entail dierent ap- proaches and
understandings of language, and they in- form
dierent and often incompatible schools of
linguis- tic theory.[6] Debates about the nature and
origin of lan- guage go back to the ancient world.
Greek philosophers such as Gorgias and Plato
debated the relation between words, concepts
and reality. Gorgias argued that lan- guage
could represent neither the objective
experience nor human experience, and that
communication and truth were therefore
impossible. Plato maintained that com-
munication is possible because language
represents ideas and concepts that exist
independently of, and prior to, language.[7]
During the Enlightenment and its debates about
human origins, it became fashionable to speculate
about the ori- gin of language. Thinkers such as
Rousseau and Herder argued that language had
originated in the instinctive ex- pression of
emotions, and that it was originally closer to
music and poetry than to the logical expression of
ratio- nal thought. Rationalist philosophers such
as Kant and Descartes held the opposite view.
Around the turn of the 20th century, thinkers
began to wonder about the role of language in
shaping our experiences of the world asking
1.3 Tool for 3
communication

and circulation of concepts, and that the study of transformational grammars.[14] Chomsky considers
philoso- phy is essentially the study of language, is these rules to be an innate feature of the human
associated with what has been called the linguistic mind and to constitute the rudiments of what
turn and philosophers such as Wittgenstein in language is.[15] By way of contrast, such transfor-
20th-century philosophy. These debates about
language in relation to meaning and refer- ence,
cognition and consciousness remain active today.[8]

1.1 Mental faculty, organ or instinct

One denition sees language primarily as the

mental fac- ulty that allows humans to undertake
linguistic behaviour: to learn languages and to
produce and understand utter- ances. This
denition stresses the universality of lan- guage
to all humans, and it emphasizes the biological ba-
sis for the human capacity for language as a unique
de- velopment of the human brain. Proponents of
the view that the drive to language acquisition is
innate in humans argue that this is supported by
the fact that all cogni- tively normal children
raised in an environment where language is
accessible will acquire language without for- mal
instruction. Languages may even develop
sponta- neously in environments where people live
or grow up to- gether without a common language;
for example, creole languages and spontaneously
developed sign languages such as Nicaraguan Sign
Language. This view, which can be traced back to
the philosophers Kant and Descartes, understands
language to be largely innate, for example, in
Chomskys theory of Universal Grammar, or
Amer- ican philosopher Jerry Fodor's extreme
innatist theory. These kinds of denitions are
often applied in studies of language within a
cognitive science framework and in
neurolinguistics.[9][10]

1.2 Formal symbolic system

Another denition sees language as a formal

system of signs governed by grammatical rules
of combination to communicate meaning. This
denition stresses that hu- man languages can be
described as closed structural sys- tems consisting
of rules that relate particular signs to par- ticular
meanings.[11] This structuralist view of language
was rst introduced by Ferdinand de Saussure,[12]
and his structuralism remains foundational for
many approaches to language.[13]
Some proponents of Saussures view of language
have ad- vocated a formal approach which studies
language struc- ture by identifying its basic
elements and then by present- ing a formal account
of the rules according to which the elements
combine in order to form words and sentences. The
main proponent of such a theory is Noam Chomsky,
the originator of the generative theory of grammar,
who has dened language as the construction of
sentences that can be generated using
1.3 Tool for 3
communication

mational grammars are also commonly used to Wittgensteins later works and with ordinary
provide formal denitions of language are lan- guage philosophers such as J. L. Austin, Paul
commonly used in formal logic, in formal theories Grice, John Searle, and W. O. Quine.[20]
of grammar, and in ap- plied computational
linguistics.[16][17] In the philosophy of language,
the view of linguistic meaning as residing in
the logical relations between propositions and
reality was developed by philosophers such as
Alfred Tarski, Bertrand Russell, and other formal
logicians.

1.3 Tool for communication

Two men and a woman having a conversation in

American Sign Language

Yet another denition sees language as a

system of communication that enables humans
to exchange ver- bal or symbolic utterances.
This denition stresses the social functions of
language and the fact that humans use it to
express themselves and to manipulate objects
in their environment. Functional theories of
grammar explain grammatical structures by
their communicative functions, and understand
the grammatical structures of language to be
the result of an adaptive process by which
grammar was tailored to serve the communica-
tive needs of its users.[18][19]
This view of language is associated with the
study of language in pragmatic, cognitive, and
interactive frame- works, as well as in
sociolinguistics and linguistic an- thropology.
Functionalist theories tend to study gram- mar
as dynamic phenomena, as structures that are
al- ways in the process of changing as they are
employed by their speakers. This view places
importance on the study of linguistic typology, or
the classication of lan- guages according to
structural features, as it can be shown that
processes of grammaticalization tend to follow
tra- jectories that are partly dependent on
typology.[17] In the philosophy of language, the
view of pragmatics as be- ing central to
language and meaning is often associated with
4 2 ORIGIN

1.4 Unique status of human language modality.[26]

Human language is also unique in being able to refer
to abstract concepts and to imagined or hypothetical
Main articles: Animal language and Great ape
events as well as events that took place in the past or
language
may hap-

Human language is unique in comparison to other

forms of communication, such as those used by
non-human animals. Communication systems used
by other animals such as bees or apes are closed
systems that consist of a nite, usually very limited,
number of possible ideas that can be expressed.[21]
In contrast, human language is open-ended
and productive, meaning that it allows humans
to produce a vast range of utterances from a nite
set of elements, and to create new words and
sentences. This is possible because human
language is based on a dual code, in which a
nite number of elements which are meaningless in
themselves (e.g. sounds, letters or gestures)
can be combined to form a theoretically innite
number of larger units of meaning (words and
sentences).[22] Furthermore, the symbols and
grammatical rules of any particular language are
largely arbitrary, so that the sys- tem can only be
acquired through social interaction.[23] The known
systems of communication used by animals, on the
other hand, can only express a nite number of
utterances that are mostly genetically
determined.[24]
Several species of animals have proved to be able to
ac- quire forms of communication through social
learning: for instance a bonobo named Kanzi
learned to express it- self using a set of symbolic
lexigrams. Similarly, many species of birds and
whales learn their songs by imi- tating other
members of their species. However, while some
animals may acquire large numbers of words and
symbols,[note 1] none have been able to learn as
many dif- ferent signs as are generally known by an
average 4 year old human, nor have any acquired
anything resembling the complex grammar of
human language.[25]
Human languages also dier from animal
communica- tion systems in that they employ
grammatical and se- mantic categories, such as
noun and verb, present and past, which may be
used to express exceedingly complex meanings.[25]
Human language is also unique in having the
property of recursivity: for example, a noun phrase
can contain another noun phrase (as in "[[the
chim- panzee]'s lips]") or a clause can contain
another clause (as in "[I see [the dog is
running]]").[2] Human language is also the only
known natural communication system whose
adaptability may be referred to as modality inde-
pendent. This means that it can be used not only for
com- munication through one channel or medium,
but through several. For example, spoken
language uses the audi- tive modality, whereas
sign languages and writing use the visual
modality, and braille writing uses the tactile
4 2 ORIGIN

hominids to early man. These theories can be

pen in the future. This ability to refer to events
dened as discontinuity- based. Similarly, theories
that are not at the same time or place as the
based on Chomskys generative view of language
speech event is called displacement, and while
see language mostly as an innate faculty that is
some animal communication sys- tems can use
displacement (such as the communication of largely genetically encoded, whereas functionalist
bees that can communicate the location of sources
of nectar that are out of sight), the degree to which
it is used in human language is also considered
unique.[22]

2 Origin
Main articles: Origin of language and Origin of
speech

75,000- to 80,000-year-old artefacts from

Blombos cave, South Africa, including a piece of
ochre engraved with diagonal cross-hatch
patterns, perhaps the oldest known example of
symbols.

"The Tower of Babel" by Pieter Bruegel the Elder.

Oil on board, 1563.
Humans have speculated about the origins of
language throughout history. The Biblical myth
of the Tower of Babel is one such account; other
cultures have dierent stories of how language
arose.[27]

Theories about the origin of language dier in

regard to their basic assumptions about what
language is. Some theories are based on the idea
that language is so com- plex that one cannot
imagine it simply appearing from nothing in its
nal form, but that it must have evolved from
earlier pre-linguistic systems among our pre-
human ancestors. These theories can be called
continuity-based theories. The opposite viewpoint
is that language is such a unique human trait that
it cannot be compared to anything found among
non-humans and that it must therefore have
appeared suddenly in the transition from pre-
 5

theories see it as a system that is largely cultural, in great apes in general, but scholarly opinions
learned through social interaction.[28] vary as to the developments since the appearance of
the genus Homo some 2.5 million years ago.
The only prominent proponent of a Some scholars assume the development of prim-
discontinuity-based theory of human language itive language-like systems (proto-language) as
origins is linguist and philoso- pher Noam early as
Chomsky.[28] Chomsky proposes that some random
mutation took place, maybe after some strange
cosmic ray shower, and it reorganized the brain,
implant- ing a language organ in an otherwise
primate brain.[29] Though cautioning against taking
this story too literally, Chomsky insists that it
may be closer to reality than many other fairy
tales that are told about evolutionary processes,
including language.[29]
Continuity-based theories are held by a majority of
schol- ars, but they vary in how they envision this
development. Those who see language as being
mostly innate, for ex- ample psychologist Steven
Pinker, hold the precedents to be animal
cognition,[10] whereas those who see language as a
socially learned tool of communication, such as psy-
chologist Michael Tomasello, see it as having
developed from animal communication in primates:
either gestural or vocal communication to assist in
cooperation.[24] Other continuity-based models see
language as having devel- oped from music, a view
already espoused by Rousseau, Herder, Humboldt,
and Charles Darwin. A prominent proponent of
this view is archaeologist Steven Mithen.[30] Stephen
Anderson states that the age of spoken languages is
estimated at 60,000 to 100,000 years[31] and that:

Researchers on the evolutionary

origin of language generally nd it
plausible to suggest that language was
invented only once, and that all modern
spoken languages are thus in some way
related, even if that relation can no longer
be recovered ... because of limitations on
the methods available for
reconstruction.[32]

Because language emerged in the early prehistory

of man, its early development has left no
historical traces, and it is believed that no
comparable processes can be ob- served today.
Theories that stress continuity often look at
animals to see if, for example, primates display
any traits that can be seen as analogous to what
pre-human language must have been like. And
early human fossils can be inspected for traces of
physical adaptation to lan- guage use or pre-
linguistic forms of symbolic behaviour. Among the
signs in human fossils that may suggest lin- guistic
abilities are the size of the brain relative to body
mass, the presence of a larynx capable of advanced
sound production and the nature of tools and
other manufac- tured artifacts.[33]
It is mostly undisputed that pre-human
australopithecines did not have communication
systems signicantly dif- ferent from those found
 5

Homo habilis (2.3 million years ago) while others purposes informing in turn the
place the development of primitive symbolic
communication only with Homo erectus (1.8
million years ago) or Homo heidelbergensis (0.6
million years ago), and the devel- opment of
language proper with Anatomically Modern
Homo sapiens with the Upper Paleolithic
revolution less than 100,000 years ago.[34][35]

3 The study of language

William Jones discovered the family relation between

Latin and Sanskrit, laying the ground for the discipline of
Historical linguis- tics.

Main articles: Linguistics and History of linguistics

The study of language, linguistics, has been

developing into a science since the rst
grammatical descriptions of particular languages
in India more than 2000 years ago. Modern
linguistics is a science that concerns itself with all
aspects of language, examining it from all of the
the- oretical viewpoints described above.[36]

3.1 Subdisciplines
The academic study of language is conducted
within many dierent disciplinary areas and from
dierent the- oretical angles, all of which inform
modern approaches to linguistics. For example,
descriptive linguistics examines the grammar of
single languages, theoretical linguistics develops
theories on how best to conceptualize and de-
ne the nature of language based on data from the
various extant human languages, sociolinguistics
studies how lan- guages are used for social
6 3 THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE

theoretical and descriptive linguistics to

construct com- putational models of language often
aimed at processing natural language or at testing
linguistic hypotheses, and historical linguistics
relies on grammatical and lexical de- scriptions of
languages to trace their individual histories and
reconstruct trees of language families by using
the comparative method.[37]

3.2 Early history

The formal study of language is often considered to

have started in India with Pini, the 5th century BC
grammar- ian who formulated 3,959 rules of
Sanskrit morphology. However, Sumerian scribes
already studied the dier- ences between
Sumerian and Akkadian grammar around 1900 BC.
Subsequent grammatical traditions developed in all
of the ancient cultures that adopted writing.[38]
In the 17th century AD, the French Port-Royal
Gram- marians developed the idea that the
grammars of all languages were a reection of
the universal basics of thought, and therefore
that grammar was universal. In the 18th century,
the rst use of the comparative method by British
Ferdinand de Saussure developed the structuralist philologist and expert on ancient India William
approach to studying language. Jones sparked the rise of comparative linguistics.[39]
The scientic study of language was broadened
from Indo- European to language in general by
Wilhelm von Hum- boldt. Early in the 20th century,
Ferdinand de Saussure introduced the idea of
language as a static system of inter- connected
units, dened through the oppositions between
them.[12]
By introducing a distinction between diachronic
and synchronic analyses of language, he laid the
foundation of the modern discipline of linguistics.
Saussure also introduced several basic
dimensions of linguistic analy- sis that are still
fundamental in many contemporary lin- guistic
theories, such as the distinctions between syntagm
and paradigm, and the Langue-parole distinction,
distin- guishing language as an abstract system
(langue), from language as a concrete manifestation
of this system (pa- role).[40]

3.3 Contemporary linguistics

Noam Chomsky is one of the most important linguistic In the 1960s, Noam Chomsky formulated the
theorists of the 20th century. generative theory of language. According to this
theory, the most basic form of language is a set of
syntactic rules that is universal for all humans and
study of the social functions of language and
which underlies the gram- mars of all human
grammati- cal description, neurolinguistics studies
languages. This set of rules is called Universal
how language is processed in the human brain and
Grammar; for Chomsky, describing it is the
allows the experimen- tal testing of theories,
primary objective of the discipline of linguistics.
computational linguistics builds on
Thus, he considered that the grammars of
individual languages are only of importance to
linguistics insofar as they allow us to deduce the
universal underlying rules from which the
6 3 THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE
observable linguistic variability is generated.[41]
In opposition to the formal theories of the
generative
4.2 Anatomy of 7
speech

school, functional theories of language propose that Cortex is represented in pink.

since language is fundamentally a tool, its
structures are best analyzed and understood by ity; it controls both the production of linguistic
reference to their functions. Formal theories of cognition and of meaning and the mechanics of
grammar seek to dene the dierent elements of speech production.
language and describe the way they relate to
each other as systems of formal rules or
operations, while functional theories seek to dene
the functions per- formed by language and then
relate them to the linguistic elements that carry
them out.[17][note 2] The framework of cognitive
linguistics interprets language in terms of the
concepts (which are sometimes universal, and
sometimes specic to a particular language) which
underlie its forms. Cognitive linguistics is primarily
concerned with how the mind creates meaning
through language.[42]

4 Physiological and neural

archi- tecture of language and
speech
Speaking is the default modality for language in all
cul- tures. The production of spoken language
depends on sophisticated capacities for
controlling the lips, tongue and other
components of the vocal apparatus, the abil- ity
to acoustically decode speech sounds, and the
neu- rological apparatus required for acquiring and
producing language.[43] The study of the genetic
bases for human language is at an early stage: the
only gene that has de- nitely been implicated in
language production is FOXP2, which may cause a
kind of congenital language disorder if aected by
mutations.[44]

4.1 The brain and language

Main article: Neurolinguistics

The brain is the coordinating center of all linguistic
activ-

Language Areas of the brain. The Angular Gyrus is

represented in orange, Supramarginal Gyrus is represented
in yellow, Brocas area is represented in blue, Wernickes
area is represented in green, and the Primary Auditory
4.2 Anatomy of 7
speech

Nonetheless, our knowledge of the neurological

bases for language is quite limited, though it has
advanced consid- erably with the use of modern Main articles: Speech production, Phonetics
imaging techniques. The discipline of linguistics and Articulatory phonetics
dedicated to studying the neuro- logical aspects of
language is called neurolinguistics.[45]
Early work in neurolinguistics involved the study
of lan- guage in people with brain lesions, to see
how lesions in specic areas aect language and
speech. In this way, neuroscientists in the 19th
century discovered that two areas in the brain
are crucially implicated in language processing.
The rst area is Wernickes area, which is
located in the posterior section of the superior
temporal gyrus in the dominant cerebral
hemisphere. People with a lesion in this area of
the brain develop receptive apha- sia, a condition
in which there is a major impairment of language
comprehension, while speech retains a natural-
sounding rhythm and a relatively normal sentence
struc- ture. The second area is Brocas area,
located in the pos- terior inferior frontal gyrus of
the dominant hemisphere. People with a lesion to
this area develop expressive apha- sia, meaning
that they know what they want to say, they just
cannot get it out.[46] They are typically able to
un- derstand what is being said to them, but
unable to speak uently. Other symptoms that
may be present in expres- sive aphasia include
problems with uency, articulation, word-nding,
word repetition, and producing and com-
prehending complex grammatical sentences, both
orally and in writing. Those with this aphasia also
exhibit un- grammatical speech and show
inability to use syntactic information to
determine the meaning of sentences. Both
expressive and receptive aphasia also aect the
use of sign language, in analogous ways to how
they aect speech, with expressive aphasia
causing signers to sign slowly and with incorrect
grammar, whereas a signer with recep- tive
aphasia will sign uently, but make little sense
to others and have diculties comprehending
others signs. This shows that the impairment is
specic to the ability to use language, not to the
physiology used for speech production.[47][48]
With technological advances in the late 20th
century, neurolinguists have also incorporated
non-invasive tech- niques such as functional
magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and
electrophysiology to study language process- ing
in individuals without impairments.[45]

4.2 Anatomy of speech

8 4 PHYSIOLOGICAL AND NEURAL ARCHITECTURE OF LANGUAGE AND SPEECH

any audible pauses between words. Segments

therefore are distinguished by their distinct sounds
which are a re- sult of their dierent articulations,
and they can be either vowels or consonants.
Suprasegmental phenomena en- compass such
elements as stress, phonation type, voice timbre,
and prosody or intonation, all of which may have
eects across multiple segments.[50]
Consonants and vowel segments combine to
form syllables, which in turn combine to form
utterances; these can be distinguished
phonetically as the space between two
inhalations. Acoustically, these dierent
The human vocal tract.
segments are characterized by dierent formant
structures, that are visible in a spectrogram of the
recorded sound wave (See illustration of
Spectrogram of the formant structures of three
English vowels). Formants are the amplitude peaks
in the frequency spectrum of a specic sound.[50][51]
Vowels are those sounds that have no audible
friction caused by the narrowing or obstruction of
some part of the upper vocal tract. They vary in
quality according to the degree of lip aperture and
Spectrogram of American English vowels [i, u, the placement of the tongue within the oral
] showing the formants f1 and f2
cavity.[50] Vowels are called close when the lips
are relatively closed, as in the pronunciation of
the vowel [i] (English ee), or open when the
lips are relatively open, as in the vowel [a] (English
ah). If the tongue is located towards the back of
the mouth, the qual- ity changes, creating vowels
such as [u] (English oo). The quality also
changes depending on whether the lips are
rounded as opposed to unrounded, creating
distinc- tions such as that between [i] (unrounded
front vowel such as English ee) and [y] (rounded
front vowel such as Ger- man "").[52]
Consonants are those sounds that have audible
Real time MRI scan of a person speaking in friction or closure at some point within the upper
Mandarin Chinese. vocal tract. Conso- nant sounds vary by place of
articulation, i.e. the place in the vocal tract where
Spoken language relies on human physical ability to the airow is obstructed, commonly at the lips,
teeth, alveolar ridge, palate, velum, uvula, or
pro- duce sound, which is a longitudinal wave
glottis. Each place of articulation produces a
propagated through the air at a frequency
dier- ent set of consonant sounds, which are
capable of vibrating the ear drum. This ability
further distin- guished by manner of articulation,
depends on the physiology of the human speech
or the kind of friction, whether full closure, in which
organs. These organs consist of the lungs, the voice
case the consonant is called occlusive or stop, or
box (larynx), and the upper vocal tract the
dierent degrees of aperture creating fricatives and
throat, the mouth, and the nose. By controlling the
approximants. Consonants can also be ei- ther
dif- ferent parts of the speech apparatus, the
voiced or unvoiced, depending on whether the vocal
airstream can be manipulated to produce dierent
cords are set in vibration by airow during the
speech sounds.[49]
production of the sound. Voicing is what separates
The sound of speech can be analyzed into a English [s] in bus (unvoiced sibilant) from [z] in
combina- tion of segmental and suprasegmental buzz (voiced sibilant).[53]
elements. The seg- mental elements are those that
Some speech sounds, both vowels and
follow each other in se- quences, which are
consonants, in- volve release of air ow through
usually represented by distinct let- ters in
the nasal cavity, and these are called nasals or
alphabetic scripts, such as the Roman script. In
nasalized sounds. Other sounds are dened by the
free owing speech, there are no clear
way the tongue moves within the mouth: such as
boundaries be- tween one segment and the next,
the l-sounds (called laterals, because the air ows
nor usually are there
along both sides of the tongue), and the r-sounds
8 4 PHYSIOLOGICAL AND NEURAL ARCHITECTURE OF LANGUAGE AND SPEECH

(called rhotics) that are characterized by how the

tongue is positioned relative to the air stream.[51]
By using these speech organs, humans can
produce hun- dreds of distinct sounds: some
appear very often in the
5.1 9
Semantics

worlds languages, whereas others are much more semantics.[56] The division of language into separate
com- mon in certain language families, language but connected systems of sign
areas, or even specic to a single language.[54]

5 Structure
When described as a system of symbolic
communication, language is traditionally seen as
consisting of three parts: signs, meanings, and a
code connecting signs with their meanings. The
study of the process of semiosis, how signs and
meanings are combined, used, and interpreted is
called semiotics. Signs can be composed of
sounds, gestures, letters, or symbols, depending
on whether the language is spoken, signed, or
written, and they can be combined into complex
signs, such as words and phrases. When used in
communication, a sign is encoded and
transmitted by a sender through a channel to a
receiver who decodes it.[55]

Ancient Tamil inscription at Thanjavur

Some of the properties that dene human

language as opposed to other communication
systems are: the ar- bitrariness of the linguistic
sign, meaning that there is no predictable
connection between a linguistic sign and its
meaning; the duality of the linguistic system,
mean- ing that linguistic structures are built by
combining ele- ments into larger structures that can
be seen as layered,
e.g. how sounds build words and words build
phrases; the discreteness of the elements of
language, meaning that the elements out of
which linguistic signs are con- structed are
discrete units, e.g. sounds and words, that can
be distinguished from each other and rearranged in
dierent patterns; and the productivity of the
linguistic system, meaning that the nite number of
linguistic ele- ments can be combined into a
theoretically innite num- ber of combinations.[55]
The rules by which signs can be combined to form
words and phrases are called syntax or grammar.
The meaning that is connected to individual signs,
morphemes, words, phrases, and texts is called
5.1 9
Semantics

and meaning goes back to the rst linguistic English word man, which is written
studies of de Saussure and is now used in phonetically as [mn]. Note that in owing
almost all branches of linguistics.[57] speech, there is no clear division

5.1 Semantics

Main articles: Semantics, Semiotics and

Meaning (linguistics)

Languages express meaning by relating a sign

form to a meaning, or its content. Sign forms
must be something that can be perceived, for
example, in sounds, images, or gestures, and
then related to a specic meaning by so- cial
convention. Because the basic relation of
meaning for most linguistic signs is based on
social convention, linguistic signs can be
considered arbitrary, in the sense that the
convention is established socially and historically,
rather than by means of a natural relation
between a spe- cic sign form and its meaning.
Thus, languages must have a vocabulary of signs
related to specic meaning. The English sign
dog denotes, for example, a member of the
species Canis familiaris. In a language, the array
of arbitrary signs connected to spe- cic
meanings is called the lexicon, and a single sign
con- nected to a meaning is called a lexeme. Not all
meanings in a language are represented by
single words. Often, semantic concepts are
embedded in the morphology or syntax of the
language in the form of grammatical cate-
gories.[58]
All languages contain the semantic structure
of predication: a structure that predicates a
property, state, or action. Traditionally, semantics
has been understood to be the study of how
speakers and interpreters assign truth values to
statements, so that meaning is understood to be
the process by which a predicate can be said
to be true or false about an entity, e.g. "[x [is
y]]" or "[x [does y]]". Recently, this model of
semantics has been complemented with more
dynamic models of meaning that incorporate
shared knowledge about the context in which a
sign is interpreted into the production of
meaning. Such models of meaning are explored
in the eld of pragmatics.[58]

5.2 Sounds and symbols

Main articles: Phonology and Writing

A spectrogram showing the sound of the spoken

10 5 STRUCTURE

between segments, only a smooth transition as the consid-

vocal apparatus moves.

The syllable wi in the Hangul script.

The sign for wi in Korean Sign Language

Depending on modality, language structure can be

based on systems of sounds (speech), gestures (sign
languages), or graphic or tactile symbols (writing).
The ways in which languages use sounds or signs
to construct meaning are studied in phonology.[59]
The study of how humans pro- duce and perceive
vocal sounds is called phonetics.[60] In spoken
language, meaning is produced when sounds be-
come part of a system in which some sounds
can con- tribute to expressing meaning and others
do not. In any given language, only a limited
number of the many dis- tinct sounds that can be
created by the human vocal ap- paratus contribute
to constructing meaning.[54]
Sounds as part of a linguistic system are
called phonemes.[61] Phonemes are abstract units of
sound, de- ned as the smallest units in a language
that can serve to distinguish between the meaning
of a pair of minimally dierent words, a so-called
minimal pair. In English, for example, the words bat
[bt] and pat [pt] form a min- imal pair, in
which the distinction between /b/ and /p/
dierentiates the two words, which have dierent
mean- ings. However, each language contrasts
sounds in dif- ferent ways. For example, in a
language that does not distinguish between voiced
and unvoiced consonants, the sounds [p] and [b] (if
they both occur) could be consid- ered a single
phoneme, and consequently, the two pro-
nunciations would have the same meaning.
Similarly, the English language does not distinguish
phonemically be- tween aspirated and non-
aspirated pronunciations of con- sonants, as many
other languages do: the unaspirated /p/ in spin
[spn] and the aspirated /p/ in pin [pn] are
10 5 STRUCTURE

ered to be merely dierent ways of pronouncing In order to represent the sounds of the worlds
the same phoneme (such variants of a single languages in writing, linguists have developed the
phoneme are called allophones), whereas in International Pho- netic Alphabet, designed to
Mandarin Chinese, the same dif- ference in represent all of the discrete sounds that are known
pronunciation distinguishes between the words to contribute to meaning in human languages.[69]
[p] 'crouch' and [p] 'eight' (the accent
above the means that the vowel is pronounced
with a high tone).[62]
All spoken languages have phonemes of at
least two dierent categories, vowels and
consonants, that can be combined to form
syllables.[50] As well as segments such as
consonants and vowels, some languages also use
sound in other ways to convey meaning. Many
lan- guages, for example, use stress, pitch,
duration, and tone to distinguish meaning.
Because these phenomena op- erate outside of
the level of single segments, they are called
suprasegmental.[63] Some languages have only a
few phonemes, for example, Rotokas and Pirah
language with 11 and 10 phonemes respectively,
whereas languages like Taa may have as many as
141 phonemes.[62] In sign languages, the
equivalent to phonemes (formerly called
cheremes) are dened by the basic elements of
gestures, such as hand shape, orientation,
location, and motion, which correspond to
manners of articulation in spoken
language.[64][65][66]
Writing systems represent language using visual
symbols, which may or may not correspond to the
sounds of spo- ken language. The Latin alphabet
(and those on which it is based or that have been
derived from it) was origi- nally based on the
representation of single sounds, so that words
were constructed from letters that generally
denote a single consonant or vowel in the
structure of the word. In syllabic scripts, such as
the Inuktitut syllabary, each sign represents a
whole syllable. In logographic scripts, each sign
represents an entire word,[67] and will gener-
ally bear no relation to the sound of that word in
spoken language.
Because all languages have a very large number of
words, no purely logographic scripts are known to
exist. Writ- ten language represents the way
spoken sounds and words follow one after
another by arranging symbols according to a
pattern that follows a certain direction. The
direc- tion used in a writing system is entirely
arbitrary and es- tablished by convention. Some
writing systems use the horizontal axis (left to
right as the Latin script or right to left as the
Arabic script), while others such as tradi- tional
Chinese writing use the vertical dimension (from
top to bottom). A few writing systems use
opposite di- rections for alternating lines, and
others, such as the an- cient Maya script, can be
written in either direction and rely on graphic
cues to show the reader the direction of
reading.[68]
5.3 11
Grammar
opposite, and new pronouns can be constructed,
5.3 Grammar
whereas the number of adjectives is xed.[73]
Main article: Grammar Word classes also carry out diering
functions in
Grammar is the study of how meaningful elements
called morphemes within a language can be
combined into utter- ances. Morphemes can either
be free or bound. If they are free to be moved
around within an utterance, they are usually called
words, and if they are bound to other words or
morphemes, they are called axes. The way in
which meaningful elements can be combined within
a language is governed by rules. The rules for the
internal structure of words are called morphology.
The rules of the internal structure of phrases and
sentences are called syntax.[70]

5.3.1 Grammatical categories

Main article: Grammatical category

Grammar can be described as a system of categories

and a set of rules that determine how categories
combine to form dierent aspects of meaning.[71]
Languages dier widely in whether they are
encoded through the use of categories or lexical
units. However, several categories are so
common as to be nearly universal. Such univer-
sal categories include the encoding of the
grammatical relations of participants and
predicates by grammatically distinguishing
between their relations to a predicate, the encoding
of temporal and spatial relations on predicates, and
a system of grammatical person governing
reference to and distinction between speakers and
addressees and those about whom they are
speaking.[72]

5.3.2 Word classes

Languages organize their parts of speech into

classes ac- cording to their functions and positions
relative to other parts. All languages, for instance,
make a basic distinc- tion between a group of words
that prototypically denotes things and concepts and
a group of words that prototyp- ically denotes
actions and events. The rst group, which includes
English words such as dog and song, are usu-
ally called nouns. The second, which includes run
and sing, are called verbs. Another common
category is the adjective: words that describe
properties or qualities of nouns, such as red or
big. Word classes can be open if new words can
continuously be added to the class, or relatively
closed if there is a xed number of words in a
class. In English, the class of pronouns is closed,
whereas the class of adjectives is open, since an
innite number of adjectives can be constructed
from verbs (e.g. sad- dened) or nouns (e.g. with
the -like sux, as in noun- like). In other
languages such as Korean, the situation is the
5.3 11
Grammar

existing one. In English, the verb sing has the

grammar. Prototypically, verbs are used to
inectional forms singing and sung, which are
construct predicates, while nouns are used as
both verbs, and the derivational form singer,
arguments of pred- icates. In a sentence such as
which is a noun derived from the verb with the
Sally runs, the predicate is runs, because it is
the word that predicates a spe- cic state about agentive sux "-er.[77]
its argument Sally. Some verbs such as curse
can take two arguments, e.g. Sally cursed John. A
predicate that can only take a single argument is
called intransitive, while a predicate that can take
two arguments is called transitive.[74]
Many other word classes exist in dierent
languages, such as conjunctions like and that
serve to join two sen- tences, articles that
introduce a noun, interjections such as wow!", or
ideophones like splash that mimic the sound of
some event. Some languages have positionals that
de- scribe the spatial position of an event or
entity. Many languages have classiers that
identify countable nouns as belonging to a
particular type or having a particular shape.
For instance, in Japanese, the general noun clas-
sier for humans is nin ( ), and it is used for
counting humans, whatever they are called:[75]

san-nin no gakusei ( ) lit. 3

human- classier of student three
students

For trees, it would be:

san-bon no ki ( ) lit. 3 classier-for-

long- objects of tree three trees

5.3.3 Morphology

In linguistics, the study of the internal structure of

com- plex words and the processes by which
words are formed is called morphology. In most
languages, it is possi- ble to construct complex
words that are built of sev- eral morphemes.
For instance, the English word unex- pected can
be analyzed as being composed of the three
morphemes un-", expect and "-ed.[76]
Morphemes can be classied according to whether
they are independent morphemes, so-called roots,
or whether they can only co-occur attached to
other morphemes. These bound morphemes or
axes can be classied ac- cording to their
position in relation to the root: prexes precede
the root, suxes follow the root, and inxes are
inserted in the middle of a root. Axes serve to
mod- ify or elaborate the meaning of the root.
Some languages change the meaning of words by
changing the phonolog- ical structure of a word,
for example, the English word run, which in
the past tense is ran. This process is called
ablaut. Furthermore, morphology distinguishes
between the process of inection, which modies
or elab- orates on a word, and the process of
derivation, which creates a new word from an
12 5 STRUCTURE

Languages dier widely in how much they rely on expressed by the -zu sux. The sentence could be
[79]
mor- phological processes of word formation. In directly transliterated as see you-did-me
some lan- guages, for example, Chinese, there are
no morphologi- cal processes, and all grammatical
information is encoded syntactically by forming
strings of single words. This type of morpho-syntax
is often called isolating, or analytic, because there
is almost a full correspondence between a single
word and a single aspect of meaning. Most lan-
guages have words consisting of several
morphemes, but they vary in the degree to which
morphemes are discrete units. In many languages,
notably in most Indo-European languages, single
morphemes may have several distinct meanings
that cannot be analyzed into smaller segments. For
example, in Latin, the word bonus, or good, con-
sists of the root bon-, meaning good, and the
sux - us, which indicates masculine gender,
singular number, and nominative case. These
languages are called fusional languages, because
several meanings may be fused into a single
morpheme. The opposite of fusional languages are
agglutinative languages which construct words by
string- ing morphemes together in chains, but
with each mor- pheme as a discrete semantic unit.
An example of such a language is Turkish, where
for example, the word ev- lerinizden, or from
your houses, consists of the mor- phemes, ev-ler-
iniz-den with the meanings house-plural- your-from.
The languages that rely on morphology to the
greatest extent are traditionally called polysynthetic
lan- guages. They may express the equivalent of an
entire En- glish sentence in a single word. For
example, in Persian the single word nafahmidamesh
means I didn't understand it consisting of
morphemes na-fahm-id-am-esh with the meanings,
negation.understand.past.I.it. As another
example with more complexity, in the Yupik word
tun- tussuqatarniksatengqiggtuq, which means He
had not yet said again that he was going to hunt
reindeer, the word consists of the morphemes
tuntu-ssur-qatar-ni-ksaite- ngqiggte-uq with the
meanings, reindeer-hunt-future- say-negation-
again-third.person.singular.indicative, and except
for the morpheme tuntu (reindeer) none of the
other morphemes can appear in isolation.[78]
Many languages use morphology to cross-
reference words within a sentence. This is
sometimes called agreement. For example, in
many Indo-European lan- guages, adjectives must
cross-reference the noun they modify in terms of
number, case, and gender, so that the Latin
adjective bonus, or good, is inected to agree with
a noun that is masculine gender, singular
number, and nominative case. In many
polysynthetic languages, verbs cross-reference their
subjects and objects. In these types of languages, a
single verb may include information that would
require an entire sentence in English. For exam-
ple, in the Basque phrase ikusi nauzu, or you saw
me, the past tense auxiliary verb n-au-zu (similar
to English do) agrees with both the subject (you)
expressed by the n- prex, and with the object (me)
12 5 STRUCTURE

5.3.4 Syntax complex sen- tences are structured by grouping

words together in units, called phrases, that can
Main article: Syntax occupy dierent places in a larger syntactic
Another way in which languages convey structure. Sentences can be described as con-
meaning is

Predicate /

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.

through the order of words within a sentence. The

gram- matical rules for how to produce new
sentences from words that are already known is
called syntax. The syn- tactical rules of a language
determine why a sentence in English such as I
love you is meaningful, but "*love you I is
not.[note 3] Syntactical rules determine how word
or- der and sentence structure is constrained, and
how those constraints contribute to meaning.[80]
For example, in En- glish, the two sentences the
slaves were cursing the mas- ter and the
master was cursing the slaves mean dif- ferent
things, because the role of the grammatical
sub- ject is encoded by the noun being in front
of the verb, and the role of object is encoded
by the noun appear- ing after the verb.
Conversely, in Latin, both Dominus servos
vituperabat and Servos vituperabat dominus mean
the master was reprimanding the slaves,
because servos, or slaves, is in the accusative
case, showing that they are the grammatical object
of the sentence, and dominus, or master, is in the
nominative case, showing that he is the subject.[81]
Latin uses morphology to express the distinction
between subject and object, whereas English uses
word order. An- other example of how syntactic
rules contribute to mean- ing is the rule of inverse
word order in questions, which exists in many
languages. This rule explains why when in
English, the phrase John is talking to Lucy is
turned into a question, it becomes Who is
John talking to?", and not John is talking to
who?". The latter example may be used as a
way of placing special emphasis on who,
thereby slightly altering the meaning of the ques-
tion. Syntax also includes the rules for how
 13

sisting of phrases connected in a tree structure, the same way, shown here by the nominative
connect- ing the phrases to each other at dierent pronoun
levels.[82] To the right is a graphic representation of I. Some languages, called ergative, Gamilaraay
the syntactic analysis of the English sentence the among them, distinguish instead between Agents
cat sat on the mat. The sen- tence is analyzed as and Patients. In ergative languages, the single
being constituted by a noun phrase, a verb, and a participant in an intran-
prepositional phrase; the prepositional phrase is
further divided into a preposition and a noun
phrase, and the noun phrases consist of an article
and a noun.[83]
The reason sentences can be seen as being
composed of phrases is because each phrase would
be moved around as a single element if syntactic
operations were carried out. For example, the
cat is one phrase, and on the mat is another,
because they would be treated as single units if a
decision was made to emphasize the location by
moving forward the prepositional phrase: "[And]
on the mat, the cat sat.[83] There are many
dierent for- malist and functionalist frameworks
that propose theories for describing syntactic
structures, based on dierent as- sumptions about
what language is and how it should be described.
Each of them would analyze a sentence such as this
in a dierent manner.[17]

5.4 Typology and universals

Main articles: Linguistic typology and Linguistic

univer- sal

Languages can be classied in relation to their

grammat- ical types. Languages that belong to
dierent families nonetheless often have features
in common, and these shared features tend to
correlate.[84] For example, lan- guages can be
classied on the basis of their basic word order, the
relative order of the verb, and its constituents in a
normal indicative sentence. In English, the basic or-
der is SVO: The snake(S) bit(V) the man(O)",
whereas for example, the corresponding sentence in
the Australian language Gamilaraay would be d
uyugu n ama d ayn yiy (snake man bit), SOV.[85]
Word order type is relevant as a typological
parameter, because basic word order type
corresponds with other syntactic parameters, such
as the relative order of nouns and adjectives, or
of the use of prepositions or postpositions. Such
correlations are called implicational universals.[86]
For example, most (but not all) languages that
are of the SOV type have postposi- tions rather
than prepositions, and have adjectives before
nouns.[87]
All languages structure sentences into Subject, Verb,
and Object, but languages dier in the way they
classify the relations between actors and actions.
English uses the nominative-accusative word
typology: in English transi- tive clauses, the
subjects of both intransitive sentences (I run) and
transitive sentences (I love you) are treated in
 13

sitive sentence, such as I run, is treated the same of a phylogenetic tree.[90]

as the patient in a transitive sentence, giving the However, languages dier from a biological
equivalent of me run and you love me. Only in organisms
transitive sentences would the equivalent of the
pronoun I be used.[85] In this way the semantic
roles can map onto the grammatical re- lations in
dierent ways, grouping an intransitive subject
either with Agents (accusative type) or Patients
(ergative type) or even making each of the three
roles dierently, which is called the tripartite
type.[88]
The shared features of languages which belong
to the same typological class type may have arisen
completely independently. Their co-occurrence
might be due to uni- versal laws governing the
structure of natural languages, language
universals, or they might be the result of
languages evolving convergent solutions to the
recurring communicative problems that humans
use language to solve.[18]

6 Social contexts of use and

trans- mission

The Wall of Love in Paris, where the phrase I love you is

fea- tured in 250 languages of the world.[89]

While humans have the ability to learn any

language, they only do so if they grow up in
an environment in which language exists and is
used by others. Language is therefore dependent
on communities of speakers in which children
learn language from their elders and peers and
themselves transmit language to their own
children. Lan- guages are used by those who speak
them to communicate and to solve a plethora of
social tasks. Many aspects of language use
can be seen to be adapted specically to these
purposes.[18] Due to the way in which language is
transmitted between generations and within
communi- ties, language perpetually changes,
diversifying into new languages or converging
due to language contact. The process is similar
to the process of evolution, where the process of
descent with modication leads to the forma- tion
14 6 SOCIAL CONTEXTS OF USE AND TRANSMISSION

in that they readily incorporate elements from utterances are to be understood in relation to their
other lan- guages through the process of con- text vary between communities, and
diusion, as speakers of dierent languages come learning them is a large part of acquiring
into contact. Humans also fre- quently speak more communicative competence in a language.[94]
than one language, acquiring their rst language
or languages as children, or learning new
languages as they grow up. Because of the increased 6.2 Language acquisition
lan- guage contact in the globalizing world, many
small lan- guages are becoming endangered as their Main articles: Language acquisition, Second-
speakers shift to other languages that aord the language acquisition, Second language and
possibility to participate in larger and more Language education
inuential speech communities.[91]
All healthy, normally developing human beings
6.1 Usage and meaning learn to use language. Children acquire the
language or lan- guages used around them:
Main article: Pragmatics whichever languages they re- ceive sucient
exposure to during childhood. The de-
The semantic study of meaning assumes that velopment is essentially the same for children
meaning is acquiring
[95]
located in a relation between signs and meanings sign or oral This learning process is
that are languages. referred
to as rst-language acquisition, since unlike many
rmly established through social convention. other
However, semantics does not study the way in kinds of learning, it requires no direct teaching
which social conven- tions are made and aect or spe- cialized study. In The Descent of Man,
language. Rather, when study- ing the way in which naturalist Charles Darwin called this process an
words and signs are used, it is often instinctive tendency to ac-
[10]
the case that words have dierent meanings, the one being addressed, but a request to pass the
depending on the social context of use. An salt across the table. This meaning is implied by the
important example of this is the process called context in which it is spoken; these kinds of eects of
deixis, which describes the way in which certain meaning are called conversational implica- tures.
words refer to entities through their rela- tion These social rules for which ways of using language
between a specic point in time and space when the are considered appropriate in certain situations and
word is uttered. Such words are, for example, the how
word, I (which designates the person speaking),
now (which designates the moment of speaking),
and here (which designates the time of speaking).
Signs also change their meanings over time, as the
conventions governing their usage gradually
change. The study of how the mean- ing of
linguistic expressions changes depending on con-
text is called pragmatics. Deixis is an important
part of the way that we use language to point out
entities in the world.[92] Pragmatics is concerned
with the ways in which language use is patterned
and how these patterns con- tribute to meaning.
For example, in all languages, lin- guistic
expressions can be used not just to transmit infor-
mation, but to perform actions. Certain actions are
made only through language, but nonetheless have
tangible ef- fects, e.g. the act of naming, which
creates a new name for some entity, or the act of
pronouncing someone man and wife, which
creates a social contract of marriage. These types
of acts are called speech acts, although they can of
course also be carried out through writing or hand
signing.[93]
The form of linguistic expression often does not
corre- spond to the meaning that it actually has in a
social con- text. For example, if at a dinner table a
person asks, Can you reach the salt?", that is, in
fact, not a question about the length of the arms of
14 6 SOCIAL CONTEXTS OF USE AND TRANSMISSION

quire an art.

All normal children acquire language if they are

exposed to it in their rst years of life, even in
cultures where adults rarely address infants and
toddlers directly.

A lesson at Kituwah Academy on the Qualla

Boundary in North Carolina, where the
Cherokee language is the medium of instruction
from pre-school on up and students learn it as a
rst language.

First language acquisition proceeds in a fairly

regular se- quence, though there is a wide degree
of variation in the timing of particular stages
among normally developing infants. From birth,
newborns respond more readily to human
speech than to other sounds. Around one month
of age, babies appear to be able to distinguish
between dierent speech sounds. Around six
months of age, a child will begin babbling,
producing the speech sounds or
6.4 Writing, literacy and 15
technology

handshapes of the languages used around them. Even among speakers of one language, several
Words appear around the age of 12 to 18 months; dierent ways of using the language exist, and
the average vocabulary of an eighteen-month-old each is
child is around 50 words. A childs rst utterances
are holophrases (literally whole-sentences),
utterances that use just one word to communicate
some idea. Several months after a child begins
producing words, she or he will produce two-
word utterances, and within a few more months
will be- gin to produce telegraphic speech, or short
sentences that are less grammatically complex
than adult speech, but that do show regular
syntactic structure. From roughly the age of
three to ve years, a childs ability to speak or
sign is rened to the point that it resembles
adult language.[96][97] Studies published in 2013
have indicated that unborn fetuses are capable of
language acquisition to some degree.[98][99]
Acquisition of second and additional languages can
come at any age, through exposure in daily life
or courses. Children learning a second language
are more likely to achieve native-like uency
than adults, but in general, it is very rare for
someone speaking a second language to pass
completely for a native speaker. An important
dierence between rst language acquisition and
addi- tional language acquisition is that the
process of addi- tional language acquisition is
inuenced by languages that the learner already
knows.[100]

6.3 Language and culture

See also: Culture and Speech community
Languages, understood as the particular set of
speech

Arnold Lakhovsky, The Conversation (circa 1935)

norms of a particular community, are also a part of

the larger culture of the community that speaks
them. Lan- guages dier not only in pronunciation,
vocabulary, and grammar, but also through having
dierent cultures of speaking. Humans use
language as a way of signalling identity with one
cultural group as well as dierence from others.
6.4 Writing, literacy and 15
technology

used to signal aliation with particular subgroups

within a larger culture. Linguists and Main articles: Writing and Literacy
anthropologists, particu- larly sociolinguists, Throughout history a number of dierent ways of
ethnolinguists, and linguistic anthro- pologists rep- resenting language in graphic media have been
have specialized in studying how ways of speak- invented. These are called writing systems.
ing vary between speech communities.[101]
Linguists use the term "varieties" to refer to
the dier- ent ways of speaking a language. This
term includes ge- ographically or socioculturally
dened dialects as well as the jargons or styles of
subcultures. Linguistic anthropol- ogists and
sociologists of language dene communicative
style as the ways that language is used and
understood within a particular culture.[102]
Because norms for language use are shared by
members of a specic group, communicative style
also becomes a way of displaying and constructing
group identity. Lin- guistic dierences may
become salient markers of divi- sions between
social groups, for example, speaking a lan- guage
with a particular accent may imply membership of
an ethnic minority or social class, ones area of
origin, or status as a second language speaker.
These kinds of dif- ferences are not part of the
linguistic system, but are an important part of
how people use language as a social tool for
constructing groups.[103]
However, many languages also have grammatical
conven- tions that signal the social position of the
speaker in rela- tion to others through the use of
registers that are related to social hierarchies or
divisions. In many languages, there are stylistic
or even grammatical dierences be- tween the
ways men and women speak, between age
groups, or between social classes, just as some
languages employ dierent words depending on
who is listening. For example, in the Australian
language Dyirbal, a mar- ried man must use a
special set of words to refer to every- day items
when speaking in the presence of his mother- in-
law.[104] Some cultures, for example, have
elaborate systems of social deixis", or systems of
signalling social distance through linguistic
means.[105] In English, social deixis is shown
mostly through distinguishing between
addressing some people by rst name and others
by sur- name, and in titles such as Mrs.,
boy, Doctor, or Your Honor, but in other
languages, such systems may be highly complex
and codied in the entire grammar and
vocabulary of the language. For instance, in
languages of east Asia such as Thai, Burmese,
and Javanese, dif- ferent words are used
according to whether a speaker is addressing
someone of higher or lower rank than one- self
in a ranking system with animals and children
rank- ing the lowest and gods and members of
royalty as the highest.[105]

6.4 Writing, literacy and technology

16 6 SOCIAL CONTEXTS OF USE AND TRANSMISSION
entire phonological system. Sound change can
consist of the replacement of one speech sound or
phonetic feature by another, the complete loss of the
aected sound, or even

An inscription of Swampy Cree using Canadian Aboriginal

syl- labics, an abugida developed by Christian missionaries
for In- digenous Canadian languages

The use of writing has made language even more

useful to humans. It makes it possible to store large
amounts of in- formation outside of the human body
and retrieve it again, and it allows communication
across distances that would otherwise be
impossible. Many languages conventionally employ
dierent genres, styles, and registers in written
and spoken language, and in some communities,
writing traditionally takes place in an entirely
dierent language than the one spoken. There is
some evidence that the use of writing also has
eects on the cognitive development of humans,
perhaps because acquiring literacy generally
requires explicit and formal education.[106]
The invention of the rst writing systems is roughly
con- temporary with the beginning of the Bronze
Age in the late 4th millennium BC. The Sumerian
archaic cuneiform script and the Egyptian
hieroglyphs are generally con- sidered to be the
earliest writing systems, both emerg- ing out of
their ancestral proto-literate symbol systems
from 34003200 BC with the earliest coherent texts
from about 2600 BC. It is generally agreed that
Sumerian writ- ing was an independent invention;
however, it is debated whether Egyptian writing
was developed completely in- dependently of
Sumerian, or was a case of cultural dif- fusion. A
similar debate exists for the Chinese script,
which developed around 1200 BC. The pre-
Columbian Mesoamerican writing systems
(including among others Olmec and Maya scripts)
are generally believed to have had independent
origins.[68]

6.5 Language change

Main articles: Language change and

Grammaticalization All languages change as
speakers adopt or invent new ways of speaking
and pass them on to other members of their speech
community. Language change happens at all levels
from the phonological level to the levels of vocab-
ulary, morphology, syntax, and discourse. Even
though language change is often initially evaluated
negatively by speakers of the language who often
consider changes to be decay or a sign of slipping
norms of language usage, it is natural and
inevitable.[107]
Changes may aect specic sounds or the
16 6 SOCIAL CONTEXTS OF USE AND TRANSMISSION
English vowels do not correspond well to their
current pronunciation. This

The rst page of the poem Beowulf, written in Old

English in the early medieval period (800 1100 AD).
Although Old En- glish is the direct ancestor of modern
English, it is unintelligible to contemporary English
speakers.

the introduction of a new sound in a place

where there previously was none. Sound changes
can be conditioned in which case a sound is
changed only if it occurs in the vicinity of certain
other sounds. Sound change is usually assumed to
be regular, which means that it is expected to
apply mechanically whenever its structural
conditions are met, irrespective of any non-
phonological factors. On the other hand, sound
changes can sometimes be sporadic, af- fecting
only one particular word or a few words, without
any seeming regularity. Sometimes a simple
change trig- gers a chain shift in which the entire
phonological system is aected. This happened
in the Germanic languages when the sound
change known as Grimms law aected all the stop
consonants in the system. The original con-
sonant *b became /b/ in the Germanic
languages, the previous *b in turn became /p/,
and the previous *p be- came /f/. The same
process applied to all stop consonants and
explains why Italic languages such as Latin have p
in words like pater and pisces, whereas Germanic
languages, like English, have father and fish.[108]
Another example is the Great Vowel Shift in
English, which is the reason that the spelling of
6.6 Language 17
contact

is because the vowel shift brought the already mainly of populations inhabiting small islands. But
established orthography out of synchronization with the ideology that made one people, one state,
with pronunciation. Another source of sound and one lan- guage the most desirable political
change is the erosion of words as pronunciation arrangement, monolin-
gradually becomes increasingly indis- tinct and
shortens words, leaving out syllables or sounds.
This kind of change caused Latin mea domina to
eventu- ally become the French madame and
American English ma'am.[109]
Change also happens in the grammar of languages
as dis- course patterns such as idioms or particular
constructions become grammaticalized. This
frequently happens when words or morphemes
erode and the grammatical system is unconsciously
rearranged to compensate for the lost ele- ment. For
example, in some varieties of Caribbean Span- ish
the nal /s/ has eroded away. Since Standard Span-
ish uses nal /s/ in the morpheme marking the
second person subject you in verbs, the
Caribbean varieties now have to express the
second person using the pro- noun t. This
means that the sentence whats your name is
como te llamas? ['komo te 'jamas] in Stan- dard
Spanish, but ['komo 'tu te 'jama] in Caribbean Span-
ish. The simple sound change has aected both
mor- phology and syntax.[110] Another common
cause of gram- matical change is the gradual
petrication of idioms into new grammatical forms,
for example, the way the English going to
construction lost its aspect of movement and in
some varieties of English has almost become a
full- edged future tense (e.g. I'm gonna).
Language change may be motivated by language
inter- nal factors, such as changes in pronunciation
motivated by certain sounds being dicult to
distinguish aurally or to produce, or through
patterns of change that cause some rare types of
constructions to drift towards more common
types.[111] Other causes of language change are
social, such as when certain pronunciations become
emblematic of membership in certain groups, such
as social classes, or with ideologies, and therefore
are adopted by those who wish to identify with
those groups or ideas. In this way, issues of identity
and politics can have profound eects on language
structure.[112]

6.6 Language contact

Main article: language contact

One important source of language change is contact

and resulting diusion of linguistic traits between
languages. Language contact occurs when speakers
of two or more languages or varieties interact on
a regular basis.[113] Multilingualism is likely to have
been the norm through- out human history and
most people in the modern world are multilingual.
Before the rise of the concept of the ethno-
national state, monolingualism was characteristic
6.6 Language 17
contact

gualism started to spread throughout the world. the Native American language Cree and French.[117]
Nonethe- less, there are only 250 countries in the
world correspond- ing to some 6000 languages,
which means that most coun- tries are
multilingual and most languages therefore exist in
close contact with other languages.[114]
When speakers of dierent languages interact
closely, it is typical for their languages to
inuence each other. Through sustained
language contact over long periods, linguistic
traits diuse between languages, and languages
belonging to dierent families may converge to
become more similar. In areas where many
languages are in close contact, this may lead to the
formation of language areas in which unrelated
languages share a number of linguis- tic features.
A number of such language areas have been
documented, among them, the Balkan language
area, the Mesoamerican language area, and the
Ethiopian language area. Also, larger areas such
as South Asia, Europe, and Southeast Asia have
sometimes been considered language areas,
because of widespread diusion of specic
areal features.[115][116]

Language contact may also lead to a variety of

other linguistic phenomena, including language
convergence, borrowing, and relexication
(replacement of much of the native vocabulary
with that of another language). In situations of
extreme and sustained language contact, it may
lead to the formation of new mixed languages that
cannot be considered to belong to a single
language fam- ily. One type of mixed language
called pidgins occurs when adult speakers of
two dierent languages interact on a regular
basis, but in a situation where neither group
learns to speak the language of the other group
uently. In such a case, they will often construct a
communication form that has traits of both
languages, but which has a simplied
grammatical and phonological structure. The
language comes to contain mostly the
grammatical and phonological categories that
exist in both languages. Pid- gin languages are
dened by not having any native speak- ers, but
only being spoken by people who have another
language as their rst language. But if a Pidgin
language becomes the main language of a speech
community, then eventually children will grow
up learning the pidgin as their rst language. As
the generation of child learners grow up, the
pidgin will often be seen to change its struc- ture
and acquire a greater degree of complexity.
This type of language is generally called a
creole language. An example of such mixed
languages is Tok Pisin, the ocial language of
Papua New-Guinea, which originally arose as a
Pidgin based on English and Austronesian lan-
guages; others are Kreyl ayisyen, the French-
based cre- ole language spoken in Haiti, and
Michif, a mixed lan- guage of Canada, based on
18 7 LINGUISTIC DIVERSITY

7 Linguistic diversity
See also: Lists of languages and List of
languages by total number of speakers

SIL Ethnologue denes a living language as Linguists recognize many hundreds of language
one that has at least one speaker for whom it families, although some of them can pos- sibly be
is their rst lan- guage. The exact number of grouped into larger units as more evidence be-
known living languages varies from 6,000 to 7,000,
depending on the precision of ones denition of
language, and in particular, on how one denes
the distinction between languages and dialects.
As of 2015, Ethnologue cataloged 7,102 liv- ing
human languages.[119] The Ethnologue establishes
lin- guistic groups based on studies of mutual
intelligibility, and therefore often includes more
categories than more conservative classications.
For example, the Danish language that most
scholars consider a single language with several
dialects is classied as two distinct languages
(Danish and Jutish) by the Ethnologue.[118]
According to the Ethnologue, 389 languages (nearly
6%) have more than a million speakers. These
languages together account for 94% of the
worlds population, whereas 94% of the worlds
languages account for the re- maining 6% of the
global population. To the right is a table of the
worlds 10 most spoken languages with pop- ulation
estimates from the Ethnologue (2009 gures).[118]

7.1 Languages and dialects

Main article: Dialect Dialect or language
There is no clear distinction between a language
and a dialect, notwithstanding a famous aphorism
attributed to linguist Max Weinreich that "a
language is a dialect with an army and navy".[120]
For example, national bound- aries frequently
override linguistic dierence in deter- mining
whether two linguistic varieties are languages or
dialects. Cantonese and Mandarin are, for
example, often classied as dialects of Chinese,
even though they are more dierent from each
other than Swedish is from Norwegian. Before the
Yugoslav civil war, Serbo- Croatian was considered
a single language with two di- alects, but now
Croatian and Serbian are considered dif- ferent
languages and employ dierent writing systems. In
other words, the distinction may hinge on political
con- siderations as much as on cultural dierences,
distinctive writing systems, or degree of mutual
intelligibility.[121]

7.2 Language families of the world

Main articles: Language family, Dialectology,
Historical linguistics and List of language families
The worlds languages can be grouped into
language fam- ilies consisting of languages that
can be shown to have common ancestry.
Multi-lingual sign outside the mayor's oce in Novi Sad,
written in the four ocial languages of the city:
Serbian, Hungarian, Slovak, and Pannonian Rusyn.

Principal language families of the world (and in some

cases ge- ographic groups of families). For greater detail,
see Distribution of languages in the world.

comes available and in-depth studies are carried

out. At present, there are also dozens of language
isolates: lan- guages that cannot be shown to
be related to any other languages in the world.
Among them are Basque, spo- ken in Europe,
Zuni of New Mexico, Purpecha of Mex- ico, Ainu
of Japan, Burushaski of Pakistan, and many
others.[122]
The language family of the world that has the
most speakers is the Indo-European languages,
spoken by 46% of the worlds population.[123]
This family includes ma- jor world languages like
English, Spanish, Russian, and Hindustani
(Hindi/Urdu). The Indo-European family
achieved prevalence rst during the Eurasian
Migration Period (c. 400800 AD), and
subsequently through the
7.3 Language 19
endangerment

European colonial expansion, which brought the language. Language loss occurs when the language
Indo- European languages to a politically and often has no more native speakers, and becomes a dead
numerically dominant position in the Americas and language. If eventually no one speaks the language
much of Africa. The Sino-Tibetan languages are
spoken by 20%[123] of the worlds population and
include many of the languages of East Asia,
including Mandarin Chinese, Cantonese, and
hundreds of smaller languages.[124]
Africa is home to a large number of language
families, the largest of which is the Niger-Congo
language fam- ily, which includes such languages as
Swahili, Shona, and Yoruba. Speakers of the Niger-
Congo languages account for 6.9% of the worlds
population.[123] A similar number of people speak
the Afroasiatic languages, which include the
populous Semitic languages such as Arabic, Hebrew
language, and the languages of the Sahara region,
such as the Berber languages and Hausa.[124]
The Austronesian languages are spoken by
5.5% of the worlds population and stretch from
Madagascar to maritime Southeast Asia all the
way to Oceania.[123] It includes such languages as
Malagasy, Mori, Samoan, and many of the
indigenous languages of Indonesia and Taiwan.
The Austronesian languages are consid- ered to
have originated in Taiwan around 3000 BC and
spread through the Oceanic region through
island- hopping, based on an advanced nautical
technology. Other populous language families are
the Dravidian lan- guages of South Asia (among
them Kannada Tamil and Telugu), the Turkic
languages of Central Asia (such as Turkish), the
Austroasiatic (among them Khmer), and Tai
Kadai languages of Southeast Asia (including
Thai).[124]
The areas of the world in which there is the
greatest linguistic diversity, such as the
Americas, Papua New Guinea, West Africa, and
South-Asia, contain hundreds of small language
families. These areas together ac- count for the
majority of the worlds languages, though not the
majority of speakers. In the Americas, some of the
largest language families include the Quechumaran,
Arawak, and Tupi-Guarani families of South
Amer- ica, the Uto-Aztecan, Oto-Manguean, and
Mayan of Mesoamerica, and the Na-Dene and
Algonquian lan- guage families of North America.
In Australia, most in- digenous languages belong to
the Pama-Nyungan family, whereas Papua-New
Guinea is home to a large number of small families
and isolates, as well as a number of Aus- tronesian
languages.[122]

7.3 Language endangerment

Main articles: Endangered language, Language

loss, Language shift and Language death
Language endangerment occurs when a
language is at risk of falling out of use as its
speakers die out or shift to speaking another
7.3 Language 19
endangerment

loss by revitalizing endangered languages and

promoting educa- tion and literacy in minority
languages. Across the world, many countries have
enacted specic legislation to protect

Together, the eight countries in red contain more than

50% of the worlds languages. The areas in blue are the
most linguistically diverse in the world, and the
locations of most of the worlds endangered languages.

at all, it becomes an extinct language. While

languages have always gone extinct throughout
human history, they have been disappearing at an
accelerated rate in the 20th and 21st centuries
due to the processes of globalization and neo-
colonialism, where the economically powerful
languages dominate other languages.[125]
The more commonly spoken languages
dominate the less commonly spoken languages,
so the less commonly spoken languages
eventually disappear from populations. The total
number of languages in the world is not known.
Estimates vary depending on many factors. The
consen- sus is that there are between 6,000[126]
and 7,000 lan- guages currently spoken (as of
2010), and that between 5090% of those will
have become extinct by the year 2100.[125] The
top 20 languages, those spoken by more than
50 million speakers each, are spoken by 50% of
the worlds population, whereas many of the other
languages are spoken by small communities, most
of them with less than 10,000 speakers.[125]
The United Nations Educational, Scientic and
Cultural Organization (UNESCO) operates with
ve levels of lan- guage endangerment: safe,
vulnerable (not spoken by children outside the
home), denitely endangered (not spoken by
children), severely endangered (only spoken by
the oldest generations), and critically
endangered (spoken by few members of the
oldest generation, often semi-speakers).
Notwithstanding claims that the world would
be better o if most adopted a single common
lingua franca, such as English or Esperanto,
there is a consensus that the loss of languages
harms the cultural diversity of the world. It is a
common belief, going back to the biblical
narrative of the tower of Babel, that lin- guistic
diversity causes political conict,[27] but this is
contradicted by the fact that many of the
worlds ma- jor episodes of violence have taken
place in situations with low linguistic diversity,
such as the Yugoslav and American Civil War, or
the genocide of Rwanda, whereas many of the
most stable political units have been highly
multilingual.[127]
Many projects aim to prevent or slow this
20 9
NOTES

and stabilize the language of indigenous speech 9.2 Citations

commu- nities. A minority of linguists have argued
that language loss is a natural process that should [1] Tomasello (1996)
not be counteracted, and that documenting
[2] Hauser, Chomsky & Fitch (2002)
endangered languages for posterity is sucient.[128]
[3] language. The American Heritage Dictionary of the
En- glish Language (3rd ed.). Boston: Houghton
Miin Com- pany. 1992.
8 See also
[4] Lyons (1981:2)
Category:Lists of languages [5] Lyons (1981:18)

Human communication [6] Trask (2007:12931)

[7] Bett 2010.

International auxiliary language
[8] Devitt & Sterelny 1999.
List of language regulators
[9] Hauser & Fitch (2003)
List of ocial languages
[10] Pinker (1994)
Outline of linguistics [11] Trask 2007, p. 93.

Problem of religious language [12] Saussure (1983)

[13] Campbell (2001:96)

Psycholinguistics
[14] Trask 2007, p. 130.
Speech-language pathology
[15] Chomsky (1957)

[16] Trask (2007:93, 130)

9 Notes
[17] Newmeyer (1998:36)

9.1 Commentary notes [18] Evans & Levinson (2009)

[19] Van Valin (2001)

[1] The gorilla Koko reportedly uses as many as 1000
words in American Sign Language, and understands [20] Nerlich 2010, p. 192.
2000 words of spoken English. There are some
doubts about whether her use of signs is based on [21] Hockett (1960); Deacon (1997)
complex understanding or simple conditioning;
[22] Trask (1999:15)
Candland (1993).
[23] Trask (1999:9)
[2] Functional grammar analyzes grammatical
structure, as do formal and structural grammar; but [24] Tomasello (2008)
it also analyzes the entire communicative situation:
the purpose of the speech event, its participants, its [25] Deacon (1997)
discourse context. Functional- ists maintain that the [26] Trask (2007:16566)
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explains, or otherwise determines grammati- cal [27] Haugen (1973)
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approaches not merely limited to an articially [28] Ulbaek (1998)
restricted data base, but is inadequate even as a
[29] Chomsky 2000, p. 4.
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diers from formal and structural gram- mar in that [30] Fitch 2010, pp. 466507.
it purports not to model but to explain; and the
explanation is grounded in the communicative [31] Anderson (2012:107)
situation"; Nichols (1984)
[32] Anderson (2012:104)
[3] The prexed asterisk * conventionally indicates
[33] Fitch 2010, pp. 25092.
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[4] Ethnologues gure is based on numbers from [35] Fitch 2010, pp. 2923.
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el British Council sobre el peso internacional del
espaol y del ingls. Instituto Cer- vantes
(www.cervantes.es).
9.2 21
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[37] Trask (2007) [70] Lyons (1981:103)

[38] Campbell (2001:8283) [71] Allerton (1989)

[39] Bloomeld 1914, p. 310 [72] Payne (1997)

[40] Clarke (1990:143144) [73] Trask (2007:208)

[41] Foley (1997:8283) [74] Trask (2007:305)

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[61] International Phonetic Association (1999:27) [93] Levinson (1983:22678)

[62] Trask (2007:214) [94] Levinson (1983:100169)

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11 External links
World Atlas of Language Structures:
26 12 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

12 Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

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Notheruser, Angela, Brettz9, Kingturtle, Andrewa, , Mikkel R. Jakobsen, Shoecream, Pan nelson~enwiki, Poor
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Stansifer, Terse, DonPaolo, Heorot, Fuzheado, Wik, Selket, DJ Clayworth, Markhurd, Tpbradbury, Maximus Rex, Furrykef,
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Enviroboy, Cnilep, Doc James, Jarodtang, Nagy, Symane, Logan, Sfmammamia, Newbyguesses, SieBot, Alessgrimal, Tresiden,
Nihil novi, Euryalus, Jauerback, Krawi, Theopapada, Dawn Bard, Caltas, Matthew Yeager, Yintan, Woodrrg, Pmjjj, Numbersin-
stitute, Djayjp, Davpar1, Happysailor, Yerpo, Antonio Lopez, AnonGuy, Helikophis, Jrfartfanatik, Funkimon, Dr drsh,
Rowdymiriam, Afernand74, Mr. Stradivarius, Felizdenovo, Denisarona, Tgpqaz, Floorwalker, WikipedianMarlith,
Ratemonth, B J Bradford, ClueBot, Robbiemun, Stancy.abraham, GorillaWarfare, The Thing That Should Not Be, Alksentrs,
WMCEREBELLUM, Derekorah, Gaia Oc- tavia Agrippa, Arakunem, Mild Bill Hiccup, Uncle Milty, Xander990, SuperHamster,
Regibox, Niceguyedc, Neverquick, Ronkenator, Johnstar3345, Denstet, Excirial, Jusdafax, Ziko, Polaron Language Services,
Jordans92, Jayantanth, Mary96, Fullmoon7722, Tnxman307, Tahmasp, Royalmate1, Soccerguy7735, Jimanderson123, Aleksd,
Calor, Jakedasnakerules, Thingg, Sxbrown, Aitias, 7, Versus22, Tezero, SoxBot III, Abusharjeel, Bcherwrmlein, Heironymous
Rowe, XLinkBot, Olvegg, Snowmonster, Eliyahoa, LogisticsMarmoset1729,
12.2 27
Images

Galzigler, Alexius08, Ejosse1, Substitutesc, HexaChord, Chinese language is the bubonic plague, M4390116, Ramesses191,
Kamicase, Ar- was, Danielaustinhall12, AVand, TheFlyingApe, Non-dropframe, Captain-tucker, Bc2d00, Fgnievinski, Shillog,
Fieldday-sunday, Parrama, Fluernutter, Cazwilson, CarsracBot, Ccacsmss, Glane23, FCSundae, Ehrenkater, Supriyya, Ely ely82,
Erutuon, Haydenjrules, Tide rolls, Lightbot, Llakais, Teles, Jarble, Legobot, Luckas-bot, Yobot, BillGates12345, BillGates1234,
Fraggle81, Sparkspill, Amirobot, Mensfortis, Pcap, THEN WHO WAS PHONE?, Nallimbot, Rogerb67, KamikazeBot, Universal Life,
TestEditBot, AnomieBOT, Rjanag, IRP, Galou- bet, LlywelynII, Aeortiz, Ulric1313, Materialscientist, RobertEves92, Citation
bot, Taeshadow, Amit6, Maxis ftw, Kaoruchan21, Twri, ArthurBot, Colorsontrial, Gsmgm, Kyshakk, MauritsBot, Xqbot,
Atoall, Dwyermas214, Jerey Mall, Vidshow, Jmundo, Locos epraix, Maddie!, Qwenty345, Fotisaros, Dr Oldekop,
GrouchoBot, Nayvik, Frosted14, , Kang1164, Frankie0607, Instantramen92, Ribot- BOT, Basharh, Dragon Slayer c.aily, The
Wiki ghost, Traord09, GhalyBot, Shadowjams, Eugene-elgato, Novem Linguae, Cj.currie007, Ahmed Nisar, Frozenevolution,
FrescoBot, LoveYourLanguage, Srini au eee, Hmisland, Tobby72, Altg20April2nd, Hobsonlane, BDFD2, JS950910, Peza92,
Jamesooders, Mathushan09, Airborne84, Pathwrote, Cannolis, Citation bot 1, A818, Pekayer11, Pinethicket, Shad-
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Impala2009, Kaiyr, , Tunisia360tunisia, Rajsamb, Koakhtzvigad, Lucole, FoxBot, TobeBot, Trappist the monk,
HelenOnline, Sulhan, Suusion of Yellow, A193280, Tbhotch, Reach Out to the Truth, Reubenator18, 7kingis, Kelsie006,
RjwilmsiBot, TjBot, Alph Bot, Ebones, Touch, Peel and Stand, Batistontain, Salvio giuliano, Alison22, Nyxaus, Caleb999999999,
DASHBot, EmausBot, John of Reading, WikitanvirBot, Elusker, Allformweek, MrRandomPerson, Gcastellanos, Montgolre,
AlphaGamma1991, Dewritech, Faolin42, GoingBatty, RA0808, Cammc007, Winner 42, K6ka, Pigs677, Shanamifsudzelbst,
ZroBot, F, Josve05a, Chunky7, Gene Fox P2, Blue.man.blue, Henry Gray, 123abc432def, Petralpa, Averaver, Neddy1234,
Znth, Pokemon1234321, Mahdi.sm.k, Jay-Sebastos, Jesanj, Brandmeister, Iqbalselvan, Donner60, Wikiloop, ChuispastonBot,
Dinesh Chander Kapoor, Ownervital, Mjbmrbot, ClueBot NG, Gareth Grith-Jones, CocuBot, LogX, A520, Tim PF, Movses-
bot, Vacation9, Jgships, Fliu, Slave of Truth, Bastianperrot, Frietjes, Moneya, Chavrusah, Widr, Cognate247, Salie34,
North Atlanticist Usonian, Oblomov2, Gzx0000, Ramaksoud2000, Denovoid, BG19bot, Pine, TheTrainEnthusi- ast,
RoughOutline, Keraka, Bismaydash, Gomada, Sumnahh, Eia95, PhnomPencil, MusikAnimal, Stalve, Jhn735, Noel 105,
Cgx8253, DPL bot, The Savagedry, Willow1718, Minsbot, Jonadin93, BattyBot, WiXWiXTM, Scott Delaney, Ling.Nut3,
Stausifr, Cyberbot II, Gansam12, Lonewarrior12, IceBrotherhood, JYBot, The User 567, Lilapple234, Dexbot, SLFAW, Inayity,
Reformationisnotenough, Zal- dax, Frosty, Daugvapils, Tim dorf, MrsCaptcha, Jackthepriest, Auditus~enwiki, Emaregretable,
Heatherj16, Reatlas, Yorubatashi, Eas- ton4516, DahTroll123432213134597657, Epicgenius, , JohnTrollMan,
Lfdder, Taniquab2014, DFilia, Sol1, JoshuaKGarner, PeterChildress, Ravidiwaker, Finnusertop, Gloriousglib, Ilmir89,
StevenD99, Luke778902, Crow, Allthekidsinthestreet, Theparties, Fe- lixRosch, Fluent.dysphasia, JujitsuJohn, Crossswords,
WikiNonBon, Monkbot, John Santana, Hedieh Taraghi, Coolman333, Titsarosal, LawrencePrincipe, Yousuck908, R88D88,
Mythicfridge, BAHuord, Rockandblues15, James343e, Jxhst130, KcBessy, Tralala0, Gener- alizationsAreBad, KasparBot,
Language-Lover1, PolkadotMustache869, Joel San George, Superman12345676765, Destroyer806, Gillian- rhys, Eldizzino, BU
Rob13, Spiral knights is the best game ever, Ein69stein, CRHeck, Satti361 and Anonymous: 1216

12.2 Images
File:ASL_family.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c6/ASL_family.jpg License: CC BY 2.0
Contributors:
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Lakhovsky
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12.2 27
Images
File:Girls_learning_sign_language.jpg Source:
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28 12 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

File:Globelang.png Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2f/Globelang.png License: Public

domain Contrib- utors: <a href='//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Globe_of_letters.svg' class='image'><img alt='Globe of
letters.svg' src='https:// upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/de/Globe_of_letters.svg/128px-
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srcset='https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/de/Globe_of_letters.svg/192px-Globe_of_letters.svg.png 1.5x,
https:
//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/de/Globe_of_letters.svg/256px-Globe_of_letters.svg.png 2x' data-le-
width='128' data-le-height='128' /></a> Original artist: User:Ikiroid
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SA-3.0
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Photograph of reading lesson at Kituwah Academy
Original artist:
Neddy1234
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Derivative of Language Original artist: Speaker: LjL
Authors of the article
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org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/Place_des_Abbesse_%28the_plaque_with_the_je_t%27aime%3Dte_iubesc_in_311_laguages%29.
jpg License: CC BY-SA 3.0 Contributors: Own work Original artist: Britchi Mirela
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28 12 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES
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backgrounds. Originally uploaded by Simon.
12.3 Content 29
license

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