Speak A Short History Of Languages
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Speak A Short History Of Languages
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Author : Tore Janson
language : en
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Release Date : 2002-03-14
Speak A Short History Of Languages written by Tore Janson and has been published by OUP Oxford this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2002-03-14 with Language Arts & Disciplines categories.
This book is a history of human speech from prehistory to the present. It charts the rise of some languages and the fall of others, explaining why some survive and others die. It shows how languages change their sounds and meanings, and how the history of languages is closely linked to the history of peoples. Writing in a lively, readable style, distinguished Swedish scholar Tore Janson makes no assumptions about previous knowledge. He takes the reader on a voyage of exploration through the changing patterns of the world's languages, from ancient China to ancient Egypt, imperial Rome to imperial Britain, Sappho's Lesbos to contemporary Africa. He discovers the links between the histories of societies and their languages; he shows how language evolved from primitive calls; he considers the question of whether one language can be more advanced than another. The author describes the history of writing and looks at the impact of changing technology. He ends by assessing the prospects for English world domination and predicting the languages of the distant future. Five historical maps illustrate this fascinating history of our defining characteristic and most valuable asset.
The Study Of Language
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Author : George Yule
language : en
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Release Date : 2010-03-04
The Study Of Language written by George Yule and has been published by Cambridge University Press this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2010-03-04 with Language Arts & Disciplines categories.
This best-selling textbook provides an engaging and user-friendly introduction to the study of language. Assuming no prior knowledge in the subject, Yule presents information in short, bite-sized sections, introducing the major concepts in language study – from how children learn language to why men and women speak differently, through all the key elements of language. This fourth edition has been revised and updated with twenty new sections, covering new accounts of language origins, the key properties of language, text messaging, kinship terms and more than twenty new word etymologies. To increase student engagement with the text, Yule has also included more than fifty new tasks, including thirty involving data analysis, enabling students to apply what they have learned. The online study guide offers students further resources when working on the tasks, while encouraging lively and proactive learning. This is the most fundamental and easy-to-use introduction to the study of language.
The History Of Languages
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Author : Tore Janson
language : en
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Release Date : 2012
The History Of Languages written by Tore Janson and has been published by Oxford University Press this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2012 with Language Arts & Disciplines categories.
Does not discuss the Semitic languages.
On The Origins Of Speaking
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Author : Lord Walsingham
language : en
Publisher: New Generation Publishing
Release Date : 2016-10-22
On The Origins Of Speaking written by Lord Walsingham and has been published by New Generation Publishing this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2016-10-22 with Language Arts & Disciplines categories.
This is a serious book examining the original sounds and meanings of languages right back to the Stone Age - up until now believed to be impossible. But it can also be seen as tracing the overwhelming sexual orientation of human thinking for the last six hundred thousand years or more - when we were only hominids, squatting round the camp fires at the mouths of our caves - to keep the sabre toothed tigers out. It was here that our original bare bottomed language committees first got to grips with meanings and their audible representation. The committees were convened as a result of the taming of fire, the high tech of the day. It was a cosy environment in a cold and hostile world, and the unaccustomed warmth led to an outburst of amorous inclinations, and the need to express them in words. Ka they thought echoic of the strike of flint on flint, and so striking, and so the tenderising of raw meat for which they had already been making "e;hand axes"e; for at least half a million years. It is from ka-ka for tenderising with a hand axe that our cooking comes! The flame did it for you. Flint knapping left a lot of "e;debetage"e; or waste flakes, whence ka-ka also came to mean waste - including today human waste. Metaphor led to odd bedfellows. All this evidence is decoded from an exhaustive forty year research into over a hundred languages, many of them dead ones, where like flies in amber our original Lithic (Stone Age) language roots are still embedded. There is nothing salacious in the tale. It simply tells it as it is and was, and it is not going to go away. This short version is abstracted from a major work of over 600 pages, and there is nothing in it which the ordinary man in the street (and his sister) can not easily follow. It ranks quite highly in the order of useless information, but it has its indirect usage. If you understand how all our languages have actually come about - the product of human whimsy - you will be that much less likely to believe some of the sillier alternative views put forward by ideologically inclined placemen. Lastly, how has Lithic Language been cracked? The answer lies in "e;semantic triangulation"e;. Believe it or not, all our languages today (over 6000) bear traces of the original meanings given to the sounds as we first learned to articulate them, and it is possible to work backwards using the current meanings in numerous languages to home in on the original source meanings which are common to the current ones. Then we can see if they make sense as a first guess by our Stone Age (hominid) forebears of what they thought of as the "e;natural"e; meanings of the sounds. They didn't do thinking very much. That is how they all guessed the same, or nearly the same. So we are probably on the right track: language was all spun by human whimsy, (over a few hundred millennia), from only a baker's dozen original articulated sounds. The English language alone reached a million words last year.
The Book Of Languages
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Author : Mick Webb
language : en
Publisher:
Release Date : 2013
The Book Of Languages written by Mick Webb and has been published by this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2013 with Language and languages categories.
This text is the perfect introduction to learning a language and learning about the different languages that are spoken around the world.
English As A Global Language
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Author : David Crystal
language : en
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Release Date : 2012-03-29
English As A Global Language written by David Crystal and has been published by Cambridge University Press this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2012-03-29 with Foreign Language Study categories.
Written in a detailed and fascinating manner, this book is ideal for general readers interested in the English language.
Historical Linguistics And The Comparative Study Of African Languages
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Author : Gerrit Jan Dimmendaal
language : en
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Release Date : 2011
Historical Linguistics And The Comparative Study Of African Languages written by Gerrit Jan Dimmendaal and has been published by John Benjamins Publishing this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2011 with Language Arts & Disciplines categories.
This advanced historical linguistics course book deals with the historical and comparative study of African languages. The first part functions as an elementary introduction to the comparative method, involving the establishment of lexical and grammatical cognates, the reconstruction of their historical development, techniques for the subclassification of related languages, and the use of language-internal evidence, more specifically the application of internal reconstruction. Part II addresses language contact phenomena and the status of language in a wider, cultural-historical and ecological context. Part III deals with the relationship between comparative linguistics and other disciplines. In this rich course book, the author presents valuable views on a number of issues in the comparative study of African languages, more specifically concerning genetic diversity on the African continent, the status of pidginised and creolised languages, language mixing, and grammaticalisation.
Globally Speaking
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Author : Judith Rosenhouse
language : en
Publisher: Multilingual Matters
Release Date : 2008-05-22
Globally Speaking written by Judith Rosenhouse and has been published by Multilingual Matters this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2008-05-22 with Language Arts & Disciplines categories.
This volume accounts for the motives for contemporary lexical borrowing from English, using a comparative approach and a broad cross-cultural perspective. It investigates the processes involved in the penetration of English vocabulary into new environments and the extent of their integration into twelve languages representing several language families, including Icelandic, Dutch, French, Russian, Hungarian, Hebrew, Arabic, Amharic, Persian, Japanese, Taiwan Chinese, and several languages spoken in southern India. Some of these languages are studied here in the context of borrowing for the first time ever. All in all, this volume suggests that the English lexical 'invasion', as it is often referred to, is a natural and inevitable process. It is driven by psycholinguistic, sociolinguistic, and socio-historical factors, of which the primary determinants of variability are associated with ethnic and linguistic diversity.
Transdisciplinary Approach To Language Study
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Author : J. Filipovi?
language : en
Publisher: Springer
Release Date : 2015-04-29
Transdisciplinary Approach To Language Study written by J. Filipovi? and has been published by Springer this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2015-04-29 with Language Arts & Disciplines categories.
This book is about complexity-driven, trandsisciplinary approach to language study. It illustrates how complexity science can be applied in the research of language and society in order to create and sustain a transdisciplinary dialogue across interested communities of practice which may be beneficial in improving living conditions of real people.
Astrolinguistics
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Author : Alexander Ollongren
language : en
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Release Date : 2012-11-27
Astrolinguistics written by Alexander Ollongren and has been published by Springer Science & Business Media this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2012-11-27 with Science categories.
In linguistics, one of the main areas of modern research involves the capabilities and possibilities of there being a "lingua cosmica," a LINCOS, a universal language that could be used to communicate with non-human intelligences. This book touches on the area of the development and use of a "lingua universalis" for interstellar communication, but it also presents concepts that cover a broad area of linguistics. Chomsky's paradigm on universal properties of natural languages, for a long time a leading general theory of natural languages, includes the strong assumption that humans are born with some kind of universals stored in their brains. Are there universals of this kind of language used by intelligent beings and societies elsewhere in the universe? We do not know whether such languages exist. It seems to be impossible to determine, simply because the universe is too large for an exhaustive search. Even verification will be hard to obtain, without quite a bit of luck. This book uses astrolinguistic principles in message construction and is helpful in clarifying and giving perspective to discussions on existential questions such as these.