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Language

Language is a structured system of communication that allows humans to communicate through spoken, signed, or written language. It has properties like productivity and displacement and relies on social conventions and learning. There are estimated to be between 5,000 to 7,000 human languages. Language evolved from primate communication systems as early humans developed the ability for theory of mind and shared intentionality. Languages evolve and diversify over time, and related languages descend from a common ancestor to form language families.

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56 views

Language

Language is a structured system of communication that allows humans to communicate through spoken, signed, or written language. It has properties like productivity and displacement and relies on social conventions and learning. There are estimated to be between 5,000 to 7,000 human languages. Language evolved from primate communication systems as early humans developed the ability for theory of mind and shared intentionality. Languages evolve and diversify over time, and related languages descend from a common ancestor to form language families.

Uploaded by

Josephine Ross Arce
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Language 

is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and


the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by
which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of methods,
including spoken, sign, and written language. Many languages, including the most widely-spoken
ones, have writing systems that enable sounds or signs to be recorded for later reactivation. Human
language is highly variable between cultures and across time.[1]
Human languages have the properties of productivity and displacement, and rely on social
convention and learning.
Estimates of the number of human languages in the world vary between 5,000 and 7,000. Precise
estimates depend on an arbitrary distinction (dichotomy) established between languages
and dialects.[2] Natural languages are spoken, signed, or both; however, any language can
be encoded into secondary media using auditory, visual, or tactile stimuli – for example, writing,
whistling, signing, or braille. In other words, human language is modality-independent, but written or
signed language is the way to inscribe or encode the natural human speech or gestures.
Depending on philosophical perspectives regarding the definition of language and meaning, when
used as a general concept, "language" may refer to the cognitive ability to learn and use systems of
complex communication, or to describe the set of rules that makes up these systems, or the set of
utterances that can be produced from those rules. All languages rely on the process of semiosis to
relate signs to particular meanings. Oral, manual and tactile 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.
The scientific study of language is called linguistics. Critical examinations of languages, such
as philosophy of language, the relationships between language and thought, etc., such as how
words represent experience, have been debated at least since Gorgias and Plato in ancient Greek
civilization. Thinkers such as Rousseau (1712–1778) have argued that language originated from
emotions, while others like Kant (1724–1804) have argued that languages originated from rational
and logical thought. Twentieth century philosophers such as Wittgenstein (1889–1951) argued that
philosophy is really the study of language itself. Major figures in contemporary linguistics of these
times include Ferdinand de Saussure and Noam Chomsky.
Language is thought to have gradually diverged from earlier primate communication systems when
early hominins acquired the ability to form a theory of mind and shared intentionality.[3][4] This
development is sometimes thought to have coincided with an increase in brain volume, and many
linguists see the structures of language as having evolved to serve specific communicative and
social functions. Language is processed in many different locations in the human brain, but
especially in Broca's and Wernicke's areas. Humans acquire language through social interaction in
early childhood, and children generally speak fluently by approximately three years old. Language
and culture are codependent. Therefore, in addition to its strictly communicative uses, language has
social uses such as signifying group identity, social stratification, as well as use for social
grooming and entertainment.
Languages evolve and diversify over time, and the history of their evolution can
be reconstructed by comparing modern languages to determine which traits their ancestral
languages must have had in order for the later developmental stages to occur. A group of languages
that descend from a common ancestor is known as a language family; in contrast, a language that
has been demonstrated to not have any living or non-living relationship with another language is
called a language isolate. There are also many unclassified languages whose relationships have not
been established, and spurious languages may have not existed at all. Academic consensus holds
that between 50% and 90% of languages spoken at the beginning of the 21st century will probably
have become extinct by the year 2100.[5][6][7]

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