Language Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ==Social contexts of use and transmission== [[File:Place des Abbesse (the plaque with the je t'aime=te iubesc in 311 laguages).jpg|thumb|''[[Wall of Love]]'' on [[Montmartre]] in Paris: "I love you" in 250 languages, by calligraphist Fédéric Baron and artist Claire Kito (2000)]] 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 [[speech community|communities of speakers]] in which children [[language acquisition|learn language]] from their elders and peers and themselves transmit language to their own children. Languages 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 specifically to these purposes.<ref name="Myths">{{harvcoltxt|Evans|Levinson|2009}}</ref> Owing to the way in which language is transmitted between generations and within communities, 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 modification leads to the formation of a [[phylogenetic tree]].<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Campbell|2004}}</ref> However, languages differ from biological organisms in that they readily incorporate elements from other languages through the process of [[diffusion]], as speakers of different languages come into contact. Humans also frequently speak more than one language, acquiring their [[first language]] or languages as children, or learning new languages as they grow up. Because of the increased language contact in the globalizing world, many small languages are becoming [[endangered language|endangered]] as their speakers shift to other languages that afford the possibility to participate in larger and more influential speech communities.<ref name="Handbook"/> ===Usage and meaning=== {{main|Pragmatics}} When studying the way in which words and signs are used, it is often the case that words have different meanings, depending on the social context of use. An important example of this is the process called [[deixis]], which describes the way in which certain words refer to entities through their relation between a specific point in time and space when the word is uttered. Such words are, for example, the word, "I" (which designates the person speaking), "now" (which designates the moment of speaking), and "here" (which designates the position of speaking). Signs also change their meanings over time, as the conventions governing their usage gradually change. The study of how the meaning of linguistic expressions changes depending on context is called pragmatics. Deixis is an important part of the way that we use language to point out entities in the world.<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Levinson|1983|pp=54–96}}</ref> Pragmatics is concerned with the ways in which language use is patterned and how these patterns contribute to meaning. For example, in all languages, linguistic expressions can be used not just to transmit information, but to perform actions. Certain actions are made only through language, but nonetheless have tangible effects, 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 act]]s, although they can also be carried out through writing or hand signing.<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Levinson|1983|pp=226–278}}</ref> The form of linguistic expression often does not correspond to the meaning that it actually has in a social context. 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 the one being addressed, but a request to pass the salt across the table. This meaning is implied by the context in which it is spoken; these kinds of effects of meaning are called [[conversational implicature]]s. These social rules for which ways of using language are considered appropriate in certain situations and how utterances are to be understood in relation to their context vary between communities, and learning them is a large part of acquiring [[communicative competence]] in a language.<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Levinson|1983|pp=100–169}}</ref> ===Acquisition=== {{main|Language acquisition|Second-language acquisition|Second language|Language education}} All healthy, [[Human development (biology)|normally developing]] human beings learn to use language. Children acquire the language or languages used around them: whichever languages they receive sufficient exposure to during childhood. The development is essentially the same for children acquiring [[sign language|sign]] or [[oral language]]s.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Bonvillian |first1=John D. |author2=Michael D. Orlansky |author3=Leslie Lazin Novack |title=Developmental milestones: Sign language acquisition and motor development |journal=Child Development |volume=54 |issue=6 |date=December 1983 |pages=1435–1445 |doi=10.2307/1129806|pmid=6661942 |jstor=1129806 }}</ref> This learning process is referred to as first-language acquisition, since unlike many other kinds of learning, it requires no direct teaching or specialized study. In ''[[The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex|The Descent of Man]]'', naturalist [[Charles Darwin]] called this process "an instinctive tendency to acquire an art".<ref name="Language Instinct"/> [[File:Kituwah Academy.png|thumb|A lesson at [[Kituwah Academy]], a school where English and the [[Cherokee language]] are [[mediums of instruction]]]] First language acquisition proceeds in a fairly regular sequence, though there is a wide degree of variation in the timing of particular stages among normally developing infants. Studies published in 2013 have indicated that unborn [[fetus]]es are capable of language acquisition to some degree.<ref>{{harvcoltxt|''Scientific American''|2015|p=24}}</ref><ref>{{ cite news | first = Beth | last= Skwarecki | title=Babies Learn to Recognize Words in the Womb | publisher=[[Science (journal)|Science]] | date=26 August 2013 | url =https://www.science.org/content/article/babies-learn-recognize-words-womb |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151104124655/http://news.sciencemag.org/brain-behavior/2013/08/babies-learn-recognize-words-womb |archive-date=4 November 2015 }}</ref> 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 different [[Phone (phonetics)|speech sounds]]. Around six months of age, a child will begin [[babbling]], producing the speech sounds or [[handshape]]s of the languages used around them. Words appear around the age of 12 to 18 months; the average [[vocabulary]] of an eighteen-month-old child is around 50 [[word]]s. A child's first [[utterance]]s are [[Holophrasis|holophrases]] (literally "whole-sentences"), utterances that use just one word to communicate some idea. Several months after a child begins producing words, the child will produce two-word utterances, and within a few more months will begin to produce [[telegraphic speech]], or short sentences that are less [[Grammar|grammatically]] complex than adult speech, but that do show regular syntactic structure. From roughly the age of three to five years, a child's ability to speak or sign is refined to the point that it resembles adult language.<ref name="OGrady-Cho">{{Cite book |last1=O'Grady |first1=William |last2=Cho |first2=Sook Whan |chapter=First language acquisition |title=Contemporary Linguistics: An Introduction |edition=4th |location=Boston |publisher=Bedford St. Martin's |year=2001}}</ref><ref name="Kennison">{{harvcoltxt|Kennison|2013}}</ref> 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 fluency than adults, but in general, it is very rare for someone speaking a second language to pass completely for a native speaker. An important difference between first language acquisition and additional language acquisition is that the process of additional language acquisition is influenced by languages that the learner already knows.<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Macaro|2010|pp=137–157}}</ref> ===Culture=== {{see also|Culture#Language_and_culture|l1=Culture|Speech community}} [[File:Arnold Lakhovsky Conversation.png|thumb|right|[[Arnold Lakhovsky]], ''The Conversation'' ({{Circa|1935}})]] Languages, understood as the particular set of speech norms of a particular community, are also a part of the larger culture of the community that speaks them. Languages differ not only in pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar, but also through having different "cultures of speaking." Humans use language as a way of signalling identity with one cultural group as well as difference from others. Even among speakers of one language, several different ways of using the language exist, and each is used to signal affiliation with particular subgroups within a larger culture. Linguists and anthropologists, particularly [[Sociolinguistics|sociolinguists]], [[Anthropological linguistics|ethnolinguists]], and [[Linguistic anthropology|linguistic anthropologists]] have specialized in studying how ways of speaking vary between [[Speech community|speech communities]].<ref name=Duranti2003>{{harvcoltxt|Duranti|2003}}</ref> Linguists use the term "[[Variety (linguistics)|varieties]]" to refer to the different ways of speaking a language. This term includes geographically or socioculturally defined [[dialect]]s as well as the [[register (sociolinguistics)|jargons]] or [[style shifting|styles]] of [[subculture]]s. Linguistic anthropologists and sociologists of language define communicative style as the ways that language is used and understood within a particular culture.<ref name="Foley">{{harvcoltxt|Foley|1997}}</ref> Because norms for language use are shared by members of a specific group, communicative style also becomes a way of displaying and constructing group identity. Linguistic differences may become salient markers of divisions between social groups, for example, speaking a language with a particular accent may imply membership of an ethnic minority or social class, one's area of origin, or status as a second language speaker. These kinds of differences are not part of the linguistic system, but are an important part of how people use language as a social tool for constructing groups.<ref>{{Harvcoltxt|Agha|2006}}</ref> However, many languages also have grammatical conventions that signal the social position of the speaker in relation to others through the use of registers that are related to social hierarchies or divisions. In many languages, there are stylistic or even grammatical differences between the ways men and women speak, between age groups, or between [[social class]]es, just as some languages employ different words depending on who is listening. For example, in the Australian language [[Dyirbal language|Dyirbal]], a married man must use a special set of words to refer to everyday items when speaking in the presence of his mother-in-law.<ref>{{Harvcoltxt|Dixon|1972|pp=32–34}}</ref> Some cultures, for example, have elaborate systems of "social [[deixis]]", or systems of signalling social distance through linguistic means.<ref name="Foley 1997 p">{{harvcoltxt|Foley|1997|pp=311–328}}</ref> In English, social deixis is shown mostly through distinguishing between addressing some people by first name and others by surname, and in titles such as "Mrs.", "boy", "Doctor", or "Your Honor", but in other languages, such systems may be highly complex and codified in the entire grammar and vocabulary of the language. For instance, in languages of east Asia such as [[Thai language|Thai]], [[Burmese language|Burmese]], and [[Old Javanese|Javanese]], different words are used according to whether a speaker is addressing someone of higher or lower rank than oneself in a ranking system with animals and children ranking the lowest and gods and members of royalty as the highest.<ref name="Foley 1997 p"/> ===Writing, literacy and technology=== {{main|Writing|Literacy}} [[File:Winnipeg Forks - Plains Cree Inscription.jpg|thumb|upright=1.35|An inscription of [[Swampy Cree language|Swampy Cree]] using [[Canadian Aboriginal syllabics]], an [[abugida]] developed by Christian missionaries for Indigenous Canadian languages]] Throughout history a number of different ways of representing language in graphic media have been invented. These are called [[writing systems]]. The use of [[writing]] has made language even more useful to humans. It makes it possible to store large amounts of information outside of the human body and retrieve it again, and it allows communication across physical distances and timespans that would otherwise be impossible. Many languages conventionally employ different genres, styles, and registers in written and spoken language, and in some communities, writing traditionally takes place in an entirely different language than the one spoken. There is some evidence that the use of writing also has effects on the cognitive development of humans, perhaps because acquiring literacy generally requires explicit and [[formal education]].<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Olson|1996}}</ref> The invention of the first writing systems is roughly contemporary with the beginning of the [[Bronze Age]] in the late [[4th millennium BC]]. The [[Sumerian language|Sumerian]] archaic [[cuneiform (script)|cuneiform script]] and the [[Egyptian hieroglyphs]] are generally considered to be the earliest writing systems, both emerging out of their ancestral proto-literate symbol systems from 3400 to 3200 BC with the earliest coherent texts from about 2600 BC. It is generally agreed that Sumerian writing was an independent invention; however, it is debated whether Egyptian writing was developed completely independently of Sumerian, or was a case of [[cultural diffusion]]. 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 script]]s) are generally believed to have had independent origins.<ref name="Coulmas"/> ===Change=== {{main|Language change|Grammaticalization}} [[File:Beowulf Cotton MS Vitellius A XV f. 132r.jpg|thumb|upright|The first page of the poem ''[[Beowulf]]'', written in [[Old English]] in the early medieval period (800–1100 AD). Although Old English is the direct ancestor of modern English, it is unintelligible to contemporary English speakers.]] 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 vocabulary, 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.<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Aitchison|2001}}; {{harvcoltxt|Trask|1999|p=70}}</ref> Changes may affect specific sounds or the entire [[Phonological change|phonological system]]. [[Sound change]] can consist of the replacement of one speech sound or [[distinctive feature|phonetic feature]] by another, the complete loss of the affected sound, or even the introduction of a new sound in a place where there had been 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'', affecting only one particular word or a few words, without any seeming regularity. Sometimes a simple change triggers a [[chain shift]] in which the entire phonological system is affected. This happened in the [[Germanic languages]] when the sound change known as [[Grimm's law]] affected all the stop consonants in the system. The original consonant *{{PIE|bʰ}} became /b/ in the Germanic languages, the previous *{{PIE|b}} in turn became /p/, and the previous *{{PIE|p}} became /f/. The same process applied to all stop consonants and explains why [[Italic languages]] such as Latin have ''p'' in words like '''''p'''ater'' and '''''p'''isces'', whereas Germanic languages, like English, have '''''f'''ather'' and '''''f'''ish''.<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Clackson|2007|pp=27–33}}</ref> Another example is the [[Great Vowel Shift]] in English, which is the reason that the spelling of English vowels do not correspond well to their current pronunciation. This is because the vowel shift brought the already established orthography out of synchronization with pronunciation. Another source of sound change is the erosion of words as pronunciation gradually becomes increasingly indistinct and shortens words, leaving out syllables or sounds. This kind of change caused Latin ''mea domina'' to eventually become the [[French language|French]] ''madame'' and American English ''ma'am''.<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Aitchison|2001|p=112}}</ref> Change also happens in the grammar of languages as discourse patterns such as [[idiom]]s 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 element. For example, in some varieties of [[Caribbean Spanish]] the final /s/ has eroded away. Since [[Standard Spanish]] uses final /s/ in the morpheme marking the [[grammatical person|second person]] subject "you" in verbs, the Caribbean varieties now have to express the second person using the pronoun ''tú''. This means that the sentence "what's your name" is ''¿como te llamas?'' {{ipa|[ˈkomo te ˈjamas]}} in Standard Spanish, but {{ipa|[ˈkomo ˈtu te ˈjama]}} in Caribbean Spanish. The simple sound change has affected both morphology and syntax.<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Zentella|2002|p=178}}</ref> Another common cause of grammatical change is the gradual petrification 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-fledged future tense (e.g. ''I'm gonna''). Language change may be motivated by "language internal" factors, such as changes in pronunciation motivated by certain sounds being difficult to distinguish aurally or to produce, or through patterns of change that cause some rare types of constructions to [[Drift (linguistics)|drift]] towards more common types.<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Labov|1994}}</ref> 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 [[Language ideology|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 effects on language structure.<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Labov|2001}}</ref> ===Contact=== {{main|Language contact}} [[File:Novi Sad mayor office.jpg|thumb|upright|left|[[Multilingualism|Multilingual]] sign outside the [[mayor]]'s office in [[Novi Sad]], written in the four official languages of the city: [[Serbian language|Serbian]], [[Hungarian language|Hungarian]], [[Slovak language|Slovak]], and [[Pannonian Rusyn language|Pannonian Rusyn]]]] One source of language change is contact and the resulting [[Trans-cultural diffusion|diffusion]] of linguistic traits between languages. Language contact occurs when speakers of two or more languages or [[Variety (linguistics)|varieties]] interact on a regular basis.<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Thomason|2001|p=1}}</ref> [[Multilingualism]] is likely to have been the norm throughout [[human history]] and most people in the modern world are multilingual. Before the rise of the concept of the [[Nation state|ethno-national state]], monolingualism was characteristic mainly of populations inhabiting small islands. But with the ideology that made one people, one state, and one language the most desirable political arrangement, monolingualism started to spread throughout the world. There are only 250 countries in the world corresponding to some 6,000 languages, which means that most countries are multilingual and most languages therefore exist in close contact with other languages.<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Romaine|2001|p=513}}</ref> When speakers of different languages interact closely, it is typical for their languages to influence each other. Through sustained language contact over long periods, linguistic traits diffuse between languages, and languages belonging to different families may converge to become more similar. In areas where many languages are in close contact, this may lead to the formation of [[Sprachbund|language areas]] in which unrelated languages share a number of linguistic 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 the widespread diffusion of specific [[areal feature (linguistics)|areal features]].<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Campbell|2002}}</ref><ref>{{harvcoltxt|Aikhenvald|2001}}</ref> [[File:Trilingual signboard in the Imphal International Airport (Tulihal International Airport) displaying in Meitei, Hindi and English languages.jpg|thumb|Multilingualism is also common in the [[Indian Republic]]. The signboard is displayed in the [[Imphal International Airport]] in [[Meitei language|Meitei]], [[Hindi]] and [[Indian English|English]], some of the [[official languages of the Indian Republic]].]] Language contact may also lead to a variety of other linguistic phenomena, including [[language convergence]], [[loanword|borrowing]], and [[relexification]] (the 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 language]]s that cannot be considered to belong to a single language family. One type of mixed language called [[pidgins]] occurs when adult speakers of two different languages interact on a regular basis, but in a situation where neither group learns to speak the language of the other group fluently. In such a case, they will often construct a communication form that has traits of both languages, and that has a simplified grammatical and phonological structure. The language comes to contain mostly the grammatical and phonological categories that exist in both languages. Pidgin languages are defined by not having any native speakers, but only being spoken by people who have another language as their first language. But if the Pidgin language becomes the main language of a speech community, then eventually children will grow up learning the Pidgin language as their first language. As the generation of child learners grows up, the pidgin will often be seen to change its structure 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 official language of [[Papua New Guinea]], which originally arose as a Pidgin based on English and [[Austronesian languages]]; others are [[Haitian Creole|Kreyòl ayisyen]], the French-based creole language spoken in [[Haiti]], and [[Michif language|Michif]], a mixed language of Canada, based on the Native American language [[Cree language|Cree]] and French.<ref>{{harvcoltxt|Thomason|Kaufman|1988}}; {{harvcoltxt|Thomason|2001}}; {{harvcoltxt|Matras|Bakker|2003}}</ref> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! 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