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Native Tongues (1982) is a book written by Charles Berlitz, a linguist and polyglot, known for his language teaching courses. It is primarily made up of a list of words in various languages, their etymology, and questions of a speculative nature about these words. It explores whether animals have language and the role of gender in language. It makes the claim that language cannot be separated from culture.
Native Tongues explains how languages started and follows their spread and decline. It demonstrates how similar many languages are using the example of English and German. It also aims to demonstrate how gender-dependent language can be. It explains the origins of words and what they really mean to people, examining words of love and insults in different countries, languages and cultures.
Much of the book relates to listings of good and bad translations. It also shows differences between British and American English. The book goes beyond grammar, syntax and phonology, to present the idea that language is deeply rooted culture and modes of thinking.
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Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing. Human language is characterized by its cultural and historical diversity, with significant variations observed between cultures and across time. Human languages possess the properties of productivity and displacement, which enable the creation of an infinite number of sentences, and the ability to refer to objects, events, and ideas that are not immediately present in the discourse. The use of human language relies on social convention and is acquired through learning.
Profanity, also known as swearing, cursing, or cussing, involves the use of notionally offensive words for a variety of purposes, including to demonstrate disrespect or negativity, to relieve pain, to express a strong emotion, as a grammatical intensifier or emphasis, or to express informality or conversational intimacy. In many formal or polite social situations, it is considered impolite, and in some religious groups it is considered a sin. Profanity includes slurs, but there are many insults that do not use swear words.
Linguistic relativity asserts that language influences worldview or cognition. One form of linguistic relativity, linguistic determinism, regards peoples' languages as determining and influencing the scope of cultural perceptions of their surrounding world.
Linguistic anthropology is the interdisciplinary study of how language influences social life. It is a branch of anthropology that originated from the endeavor to document endangered languages and has grown over the past century to encompass most aspects of language structure and use.
Mohawk is an Iroquoian language currently spoken by around 3,500 people of the Mohawk nation, located primarily in current or former Haudenosaunee territories, predominately Canada, and to a lesser extent in the United States. The word "Mohawk" is an exonym. In the Mohawk language, the people say that they are from Kanien:ke and that they are Kanienʼkehá꞉ka "People of the Flint Stone Place" or "People of the Flint Nation".
SothoSesotho, also known as Southern Sotho or Sesotho sa Borwa is a Southern Bantu language of the Sotho–Tswana ("S.30") group, spoken in Lesotho, and South Africa where it is an official language.
Untranslatability is the property of text or speech for which no equivalent can be found when translated into another (given) language. A text that is considered to be untranslatable is considered a lacuna, or lexical gap. The term arises when describing the difficulty of achieving the so-called perfect translation. It is based on the notion that there are certain concepts and words that are so interrelated that an accurate translation becomes an impossible task. Some writers have suggested that language carries sacred notions or is intrinsic to national identity. Brian James Baer posits that untranslatability is sometimes seen by nations as proof of the national genius. He quotes Alexandra Jaffe: "When translators talk about untranslatable, they often reinforce the notion that each language has its own 'genius', an 'essence' that naturally sets it apart from all other languages and reflects something of the 'soul' of its culture or people".
Although English is a Germanic language, it has significant Latin influences. Its grammar and core vocabulary are inherited from Proto-Germanic, but a significant portion of the English vocabulary comes from Romance and Latinate sources. A portion of these borrowings come directly from Latin, or through one of the Romance languages, particularly Anglo-Norman and French, but some also from Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish; or from other languages into Latin and then into English. The influence of Latin in English, therefore, is primarily lexical in nature, being confined mainly to words derived from Latin and Greek roots.
Maasai or Maa is an Eastern Nilotic language spoken in Southern Kenya and Northern Tanzania by the Maasai people, numbering about 1.5 million. It is closely related to the other Maa varieties: Samburu, the language of the Samburu people of central Kenya, Chamus, spoken south and southeast of Lake Baringo ; and Parakuyu of Tanzania. The Maasai, Samburu, il-Chamus and Parakuyu peoples are historically related and all refer to their language as ɔl Maa. Properly speaking, "Maa" refers to the language and the culture and "Maasai" refers to the people "who speak Maa".
Kapingamarangi is a Polynesian language spoken in the Federated States of Micronesia. It had 3,000 native speakers in 1995. The language is closely related to the Nukuoro language.
Language teaching, like other educational activities, may employ specialized vocabulary and word use. This list is a glossary for English language learning and teaching using the communicative approach.
Linguistic purism in Icelandic is the policy of discouraging new loanwords from entering the Icelandic language by instead creating new words from Old Icelandic roots and, when the aforementioned is not possible, Old Norse roots. The effort began in the early 19th century, at the dawn of the Icelandic national movement, aiming at replacing older loanwords, especially from Danish, and it continues today, targeting English words. It is widely upheld in Iceland and it is the dominant language ideology. It is fully supported by the Icelandic government through the Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies, the Icelandic Language Council, the Icelandic Language Fund and an Icelandic Language Day.
Language preservation is the preservation of endangered or dead languages. With language death, studies in linguistics, anthropology, prehistory and psychology lose diversity. As history is remembered with the help of historic preservation, language preservation maintains dying or dead languages for future studies in such fields. Organizations such as 7000 Languages and the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages document and teach endangered languages as a way of preserving languages. Sometimes parts of languages are preserved in museums, such as tablets containing Cuneiform writing from Mesopotamia. Additionally, dictionaries have been published to help keep record of languages, such as the Kalapuya dictionary published by the Siletz tribe in Oregon.
Technical translation is a type of specialized translation involving the translation of documents produced by technical writers, or more specifically, texts which relate to technological subject areas or texts which deal with the practical application of scientific and technological information. While the presence of specialized terminology is a feature of technical texts, specialized terminology alone is not sufficient for classifying a text as "technical" since numerous disciplines and subjects which are not "technical" possess what can be regarded as specialized terminology. Technical translation covers the translation of many kinds of specialized texts and requires a high level of subject knowledge and mastery of the relevant terminology and writing conventions.
Two-spirit is a contemporary pan-Indian umbrella term used by some Indigenous North Americans to describe Native people who fulfill a traditional third-gender social role in their communities.
Globish is a name for a subset of the English language formalized in 2004 by Jean-Paul Nerrière. It uses a subset of standard English grammar and a list of 1500 English words. Nerrière claims that it is "not a language" in and of itself, but rather it is the common ground that non-native English speakers adopt in the context of international business.
An experimental language is a constructed language designed for linguistics research, often on the relationship between language and thought.
Bunuba is an Australian Aboriginal language spoken by some 41 older Bunuba adults, most of whom live in Junjuwa, an Aboriginal community in Fitzroy Crossing in Western Australia. Bunuba is not related to the Pama-Nyungan language family that spans the majority of Australia; however, it is a relative of Guniyandi. Both are subgroups of the Bunuban language family. Bunuba consists of two dialects, 'light' and 'heavy' Bunuba.
Ilocano is an Austronesian language spoken in the Philippines, primarily by Ilocano people and as a lingua franca by the Igorot people and also by the native settlers of Cagayan Valley. It is the third most-spoken native language in the country.
Revivalistics: From the Genesis of Israeli to Language Reclamation in Australia and Beyond is a scholarly book written by linguist and revivalist Ghil'ad Zuckermann. It was published in 2020 by Oxford University Press. The book introduces revivalistics, a trans-disciplinary field of enquiry exploring "the dynamics and problematics inherent in spoken language reclamation, revitalization, and reinvigoration".