Linguistics

How a language is put together and how to learn

Verbs evolve linguistically different Commonly used verbs are less likely to change A verb that is used often will change verb slowly, whilst a verb that is used less frequently will change less. This is according to a Harvard University team lead by Martin Nowak. Nowak is not a linguist but rather a professor of [...]

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Writing, reading or speaking to learn a language Historical context of the written word Many people focus on the written word in school when trying to learn a language. Their homework is written, they have reading assignments etc. But think about it, until a hundred years ago less than ten percent of population of most [...]

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Language extinction rate Languages are part of the human database of knowledge and tell us about or cultures and thinking processes. With the extinction of a language, a part of collective human knowledge is lost forever. It is on par with a museum full of ancient treasures being destroyed. National Geographic is studying this problem. [...]

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How long does it take to learn a language How long to learn a language The following is based on my estimates of how long it takes an adult who is learning by self study to bring themselves to a conversational level How long does it take to learn a language First how long does [...]

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How babies learn a language How babies learn languages I think how babies learn language is common sense. Many times linguists have crazy theories about how babies learn language. But the bottom line is babies systematically sort though sounds and categorizes them to create a structure which they can subsequently hang further linguistic information. It [...]

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There are 6,912 living languages according to the Ethnologue.   Of these there are 516 nearly extinct languages.  Once language death occurs it’s very hard to resurrect a language because you need real live native speakers.  Hebrew and perhaps Cornish are two successful examples of languages resurected.   A language is considered living if there are native [...]

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Generative grammar is the idea that although our brains are limited; and our experience with a language is always limited, as we have not herd all possible combinations of native or secondary language. However, we have an innate ability to generate and understand an infinite number of combinations of sentences.  This mean although I have [...]

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Universal grammar Linguists doubt exception to universal grammar by Robin H. Ray MIT-Controversies in the field of linguistics seldom make headlines, which is why the current imbroglio over an alleged counterexample to Universal Grammar (UG), made famous in the 1960s by Noam Chomsky, MIT professor of linguistics, is so unusual. On one side is Daniel [...]

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