I. Some interesting facts about language

1
Introduction

• I. Some interesting facts about language
• II. What is linguistics?
• III. Why study linguistics?
• IV. Emphasis on spoken language
• V. Basic attributes of language (1) (2)

2
Some Interesting Facts About Language

• Number of languages about 6,809 languages in the
  world (or about 4,000 8000 languages? because
  its hard to define what counts as a language),
  about 50 of theses are dying out
• Ten most widely spoken languages (based on info.
  from www.sil.org in Sept. 2000.)
• 1. Mandarin Chinese 2. Spanish 3. English 4.
  Bengali 5. Hindi/Urdu 6. Portuguese 7.
  Russian 8. Japanese 9. German 10.
  Chinese-Wu

3
Ten Most Widely Spoken Languages

• According to David Crystal The Cambridge
  Encyclopedia of Language (1987, p. 287)mother
  tongue speakers
• 1. Chinese (Mandarin) 2. English 3. Spanish 4.
  Hindi 5. Arabic 6. Bengali 7. Russian 8.
  Portuguese 9. Japanese 10. German

4
Reasons for the Uncertainty over Numbers of
language (1)

• New discoveries new people (and therefore
  languages) continue to be discovered in the
  unexplored regions of the world (esp. in the
  Amazon basin, Central Africa, and New Guinea).
• Alive or dead language?
• Political decisions
• Economic reason
• Diseases
• others

5
Reasons for the Uncertainty over Numbers of
language (2)

• Language or dialect?
• Five types of relationship between dialect and
  language
• Type 1
• community A
  community B
• e.g. British Eng. same language American
  Eng.

Mutually intelligible common cultural history
6
Reasons for the Uncertainty over Numbers of
language (3)

• Type 2
• community A community B
• e.g. English different languages Hindi
• Type 3
• community A community B
• e.g. Norwegian ? Danish

Mutually unintelligible different cultural
history
Mutually intelligible different cultural history

7
Reasons for the Uncertainty over Numbers of
language (4)

• Type 4
• community A
  community B
• e.g. Cantonese
  Hakka
• (Chinese) ? (Chinese)
• Type 5
• Community A community B
• e.g. Turkish ? Uzbek

Mutually unintelligible same cultural history
Partially (un)intelligible overlapping cultural
history
8
Reasons for the Uncertainty over Numbers of
language (5)

• Language names
• Many communities have no specific name for their
  language (especially in Africa and South
  America). e.g. Bantu, refers to a whole family of
  languages, and means simply people.
• Or a community whose language has too many names
• Or same name is applied to two different
  languages (e.g., Mexicano used in Mexico to refer
  to Spanish and to the main Indian language
  Nahuatl).

9
What Is Linguistics?

• Definition
• the systematic scientific study of language
• Purpose to learn the different aspects of
  language
• How it is structured how we produce understand
  it in ongoing time how we learn it how it
  developed in humans how we use it every day
  what we use it for how it works in our minds and
  in society.
• Study range of linguistics
• 1. Phonology (Phonetics Phonemics)
• 2. Syntax (Morphology Grammar)
• 3. Semantics (Meaning)
• 4. Pragmatics (the interpretation in context)

10
Why Study Linguistics? (1)

• To improve your English through study of subject
  in English
• Exploiting a languages total resources to create
  literature
• To learn something about psychology
• Lang. is very important to everything you do.
• To examine your own belief about lang. in
  general, lang. in particular, and especially,
  speakers.
• To learn to observe analyze

11
Why Study Linguistics? (2)

• More reasons . . .
• Might keep you out of prison
• To improve language teaching learning
• Language rights
• Technology

12
Emphasis on Spoken Language

• Speech primary
• History
• individual
• Writing is not always present.
• Change reflected slowly in writing
• Similar writing system can be used for very
  different languages, or more than one system for
  one language.

13
Basic Attributes of Language (1)

• Unique properties
• Language is random (and not so random). (Nash
  45)
• Arbitrariness (Yule 2122)
• Displacement (Yule 2021)
• Language is a body of (very productive and
  creative) knowledge. (Nash 3)
• Productivity (creativity or
  open-endedness) (Yule 2223)
• Language is social and cultural. (Nash 56)
• Cultural transmission (Yule 24)
• Language has a series of levels, governed by
  rules. (Nash 34)
• Duality (or double articulation) (Yule
  25)
• Discreteness (Yule 24)

14
Duality (or Double Articulation)

• A series of levels
• Sounds, no meaning
• Sound meaning
• Sentence structure
• Discourse
• Duality
• Sound
• Meaning

15
Basic Attributes of Language (2)

• Language uses sounds (Nash) Vocal-auditory
  channel (Yule)
• Reciprocity (Yule)
• Specialization (Yule)
• Non-directionality (Yule)
• Rapid fade (Yule)
• Language is communication (Nash)
• Language is human (Nash)
• Language is a system (Nash)
• Languages are more similar than they are
  different (Nash)
• Language changes (Nash)
• Language is accompanied by gestures (Nash)