Celtic Languages

I  INTRODUCTION 

Celtic Languages, subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages. Geographically and historically, this subfamily is divided into a Continental group (now extinct) and an Insular group. On linguistic grounds the Insular languages fall into two groups: the Brythonic (or British), including Breton, Cornish, and Welsh; and the Goidelic (or Gaelic), including Irish, Scottish Gaelic (or Erse), and Manx. Until the 5th century, Continental Celtic languages, among them, Gaulish, were spoken throughout western Europe, but little information survives about them. Only the Brythonic and Goidelic groups survive, limited to the British Isles, Brittany, and some North and South American communities.

Swedish Language

Swedish Language, language of Sweden and of Swedish settlers in other parts of the world, notably in Finland. Swedish belongs to the northern or Scandinavian branch of the Germanic languages, a subfamily of Indo-European languages. It is an eastern development of the language known as Dönsk tunga (“Danish tongue”), spoken not only in Denmark but in all of Scandinavia even before the early Middle Ages.

Norwegian Language

Norwegian Language, a member of the Western group of the Scandinavian branch of the Germanic languages, a subfamily of the Indo-European languages. It is the language of the people of Norway.

Danish Language

I  INTRODUCTION 

Danish Language, language belonging to the East Scandinavian branch of the Germanic subfamily of the Indo-European languages.

Dutch Language

I  INTRODUCTION 

Dutch Language, also Netherlandic, official language of the Netherlands and Suriname, and one of the official languages of Belgium, spoken by the inhabitants of the Netherlands, the northern half of Belgium, the northern part of Nord Department in France (near Belgium), Suriname, and the Netherlands overseas territories. In Belgium and France the language is sometimes called Flemish, an older name for the Dutch spoken in the historic principality of Flanders. Dutch is a member of the Netherlandic-German group in the western branch of the Germanic languages. Cape Dutch, or Afrikaans, spoken in South Africa, is an offshoot of Dutch that is now considered a separate language.

Germanic Languages

Germanic Languages, subfamily of the Indo-European languages. Germanic languages are spoken by more than 480 million people in northern and western Europe, North America, South Africa, and Australia. In their structure and evolution they fall into three branches:

Indo-European Languages

I  INTRODUCTION 

Indo-European Languages, the most widely spoken family of languages in the world, containing the following subfamilies: Albanian, Armenian, Baltic, Celtic, Germanic, Greek, Indo-Iranian, Italic (including the Romance languages), Slavic, and two extinct subfamilies, Anatolian (including Hittite) and Tocharian. About 1.6 billion people speak Indo-European languages today.

Indian Languages

I  INTRODUCTION 

Indian Languages, the indigenous languages spoken on the Indian subcontinent, the vast majority of which belong either to the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family (see Indo-European Languages) or to the non-Indo-European Dravidian family. A much smaller representation of languages belongs to the Austro-Asiatic and Sino-Tibetan language families. The number of languages varies depending on how they are counted. The government of India recognizes 112 mother tongues that have 10,000 more speakers. From 179 to 188 languages have been tabulated, and as many as 544 dialects identified.

German Language

I  INTRODUCTION 

German Language, language of the German people and other peoples akin to or at one time politically united with the Germans. German belongs to the Netherlandic-German group within the western branch of the Germanic languages, a subfamily of the Indo-European languages. It comprises two main groups of dialects, High German (including standard literary German) and Low German. Together, they form a continuum from Switzerland north to the sea; a local dialect can be understood by speakers of nearby dialects but not necessarily by speakers of far-away dialects.

Japanese Language

I  INTRODUCTION 

Japanese Language, official language of Japan, spoken by virtually all of the nation's approximately 130 million inhabitants, and by people of Japanese heritage living in Hawaii, the Americas, and elsewhere. It is also spoken as a second language by Chinese and Korean people who lived under Japanese occupation during the first half of the 20th century.

Russian Language

I  INTRODUCTION 

Russian Language, official language of Russia. Russian was the lingua franca of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union; it is still used as a second language in the other former Soviet republics. It is also known as Great Russian and forms, with Belarusian and Ukrainian, the eastern branch of the Slavic languages. Russian is spoken by about 170 million people in Russia, some former Soviet republics, Israel, the United States, China, and Mongolia. Russian includes three groups of dialects: northern, southern, and central, the last named a transitional group combining northern and southern features. The southern and central dialects are distinguished by the so-called akan’je, coalescence of certain vowels outside of stress. The standard Russian is based on a central dialect of Moscow. It is one of the five official languages of the United Nations.

English Language

I  INTRODUCTION 

English Language, primary language of the majority of people in the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, other former colonies of Britain, and territories of the United States. It is also an official or semiofficial language of many countries with a colonial past, such as India, Nigeria, Pakistan, and South Africa. Even in countries where English is not a primary or official language, it is taught as a foreign language and used as the language of technology and diplomacy. English is spoken in more parts of the world than any other language and by more people than any other language except Chinese.

Hindi

Hindi, major language of India and most important of the many languages spoken in India (see Indian Languages). Nearly half a billion people, or 40 percent of the population of India, speak some form of Hindi as their first language. No other Indian language is spoken as a first language by more than 10 percent of the nation’s people. Hindi is a second language for many more Indians. Among the world’s languages, only Chinese and Arabic are thought to have more speakers than Hindi. Hindi is widespread outside India as well. Sizeable Indian communities speak it in the Fiji Islands, Mauritius, South Africa, and parts of the Middle East and East Africa.

Arabic Language

I  INTRODUCTION 

Arabic Language, the language of written communication and of most formal, oral communication for speakers of Arabic dialects from Morocco to Iraq. Among Muslims, Arabic is considered sacred since it is the language through which the Qur'an (Koran) is believed to have been revealed. With the rise of Islam as a dominant religion after ad 622, Arabic became the most widespread of the living Semitic languages. Classified as South Central Semitic, Arabic is related to Hebrew, spoken in Israel, and Amharic, spoken in Ethiopia, as well as to the ancient Semitic languages. The earliest written inscriptions in Arabic are found in the Arabian Peninsula and date from the early 4th century ad. Today, Arabic is a unifying bond among Arabs, and it is the liturgical language of Muslims in Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Indonesia, parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.

Chinese Language

I  INTRODUCTION 

Chinese Language, language of the Han Chinese people, the majority ethnic group of China. It is the official language of China and one of the official languages of Singapore. Of China's more than 1 billion people, approximately 95 percent speak Chinese, as opposed to the non-Chinese languages—such as Tibetan, Mongolian, Lolo, Miao, and Tai—spoken by minorities. Chinese is also spoken by large emigrant communities, such as those in Southeast Asia, North and South America, and the Hawaiian Islands. More people speak Chinese than any other language in the world.

Pidgin

Pidgin, language based on another language, but with a sharply curtailed vocabulary (often 700 to 2000 words) and grammar; native to none of its speakers; and used as a lingua franca, or a language used as a means of communication between peoples with different native languages. Pidgins develop when people who speak different languages are brought together and forced to develop a means of communication without having sufficient time to learn each other's native languages. A pidgin usually derives its vocabulary from one principal language, but its grammar will either reflect the structures of each speaker's native tongue, or it will evolve a distinct grammar. Among languages that have given rise to pidgins are English, French, Spanish, Italian, Zulu, and Chinook. In a pidgin, words may change meaning—for example, the English word belong becomes blong (“is”) in Chinese Pidgin and bilong (“of”) in Tok Pisin, spoken in Papua New Guinea. Many concepts are expressed by phrases—for example, lait bilong klaut (“lightning,” literally “light of cloud”) in Tok Pisin. Borrowings from other languages may be added—Tok Pisin, for instance, has two forms of the word we: mipela,”I and others but not you” (from mi,”I,” plus plural ending -pela, derived from “fellow”); and yumi,”we, including you.” If a pidgin survives for several generations, it may displace other languages and become the tongue of its region; it is then called a creole, and its vocabulary is gradually reexpanded. Examples include the French-based Haitian Creole; Papiamento, based on Spanish, Portuguese, and Dutch, and spoken in the Netherlands Antilles; and the English-based Krio, spoken in Sierra Leone.

Jargon (language)

Jargon (language), vocabulary used by a special group or occupational class, usually only partially understood by outsiders. The special vocabularies of medicine, law, banking, science and technology, education, military affairs, sports, and the entertainment world all fall under the heading of jargon. Examples of occupational jargon include such formal technical expressions as perorbital hematoma (black eye, to the layperson), in medicine, and escrow and discount rate, in finance, and informal terms such as licorice stick (clarinet, among jazz musicians). Cant, sometimes defined as false or insincere language, also (like argot) refers to the jargon and slang used by thieves and beggars and the underworld. Colorful terms and phrases such as mug (either a police photograph or to attack a victim), payola (graft or blackmail), hooker (prostitute), and to rub out or to blow away (to kill) are examples of cant that eventually became commonly known to, and adopted as slang by society in general.

Slang

I  INTRODUCTION 

Slang, informal, nonstandard words and phrases, generally shorter lived than the expressions of ordinary colloquial speech, and typically formed by creative, often witty juxtapositions of words or images. Slang can be contrasted with jargon (technical language of occupational or other groups) and with argot or cant (secret vocabulary of underworld groups), but the borderlines separating these categories from slang are greatly blurred, and some writers use the terms cant, argot, and jargon in a general way to include all the foregoing meanings. See also Jargon; Language.

Martha’s Vineyard

Martha’s Vineyard, island, Dukes County, southeastern Massachusetts, separated from Cape Cod by Vineyard Sound. It measures 280 sq km (110 sq mi) in area. It is noted as a summer resort. Edgartown, the chief town, was a whaling center. The island, which still shows traces of colonial life, was settled in 1642. Population of Dukes County (2003) 15,601.

France

I  INTRODUCTION 

France, major industrialized nation in western Europe. France is the third largest country in Europe, after Russia and Ukraine, and the fourth most populous. Officially the French Republic (République Française), the nation includes ten overseas possessions, most of them remnants of France’s former colonial empire. Paris is the nation’s capital and largest city.

Romanian Language

Romanian Language, Romance language derived mainly from the Latin language spoken in the ancient Roman province of Dacia, which coincides roughly with modern Romania. Romanian has four principal dialects. Daco-Romanian, or Romanian proper, is spoken by about 21 million people in Romania, in parts of Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Moldova, where it is officially called Moldovan (although widely considered identical to Romanian). Macedo-Romanian, or Aromanian, has about 300 thousand speakers in various Balkan countries. Some 12 thousand people still speak Megleno-Romanian, or Meglenitic, in Greece northwest of Thessaloníki, and Istro-Romanian, in Istria. These dialects are classified by some linguists as independent languages.

Italian Language

I  INTRODUCTION 

Italian Language, one of the Romance group of languages of the Indo-European language family. It is spoken principally in the Italian peninsula, southern Switzerland, San Marino, Sicily, Corsica, northern Sardinia, and on the northeastern shore of the Adriatic Sea, as well as in North and South America. Considered a single language with numerous dialects, Italian, like the other Romance languages, is the direct offspring of the Latin spoken by the Romans and imposed by them on the peoples under their dominion. Of all the major Romance languages, Italian retains the closest resemblance to Latin. The struggle between the written but dead language and the various forms of the living speech, most of which were derived from Vulgar Latin, was nowhere so intense or so protracted as in Italy.

Portuguese Language

I  INTRODUCTION 

Portuguese Language, one of the Romance languages, which developed from Latin, and the official language of Portugal as well as of former Portuguese colonies and territories, including Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, and São Tomé and Princípe. Portuguese also is spoken in Goa (now part of India) and Macao (now part of China) and is one of two official languages in East Timor. With about 191 million speakers, Portuguese is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world.

Spanish Language

I  INTRODUCTION 

Spanish Language, official language of Spain and the native language of 322 million to 358 million people in the world. Many of those people live in the other countries where Spanish is the official language: Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela. Spanish is also the official language of the commonwealth of Puerto Rico and is widely spoken in several other nations, including Canada, Morocco, the Philippines, and the United States.

French Language

I  INTRODUCTION 

French Language, a member of the Romance language group of the Italic subfamily of the Indo-European languages. It is the language of the people of France and is also spoken in parts of Belgium and Switzerland, and in present and former French colonies, including French Guiana, northwestern Africa, Indochina, Haiti, Madagascar, and parts of Canada. (For Breton, a Celtic language also spoken in parts of France, see Celtic Languages.)

Romance Languages

Romance Languages, group of modern languages derived from the ancient Latin language and spoken by about 700 million people. These languages form a major group in the Indo-European languages, belonging to that family's subfamily of Italic languages. They developed from the colloquial Latin of late Roman times, their separation from Latin becoming evident in the 5th to 9th centuries.

Latin Language

I  INTRODUCTION 

Latin Language, language of ancient Rome and the neighboring territory of Latium. With the spread of Roman power Latin was carried to every part of the known ancient world and became the dominant tongue of western Europe. It was the language of scholarship and diplomacy until the 18th century and of the Roman Catholic liturgy until the late 20th century.

Papua New Guinea

I  INTRODUCTION 

Papua New Guinea, independent nation in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, located north of Australia and east of Indonesia. Papua New Guinea occupies the eastern half of the island of New Guinea, called the mainland, and several hundred smaller islands. The western part of New Guinea forms the Indonesian province of Papua (formerly Irian Jaya). Most Papua New Guineans live in rural villages along the coast or in the rugged interior. High mountains and rain forests isolate many villages, although a network of roads and airstrips serves mines and plantations. Since the country’s independence from Australia in 1975, town and city life has expanded as villagers have migrated to urban areas in search of employment. Port Moresby, located on the mainland’s southeastern coast, is Papua New Guinea’s capital and largest city.

Semantics

I  INTRODUCTION 

Semantics (Greek semantikos, “significant”), the study of the meaning of linguistic signs— that is, words, expressions, and sentences. Scholars of semantics try to answer such questions as “What is the meaning of (the word) X?” They do this by studying what signs are, as well as how signs possess significance—that is, how they are intended by speakers, how they designate (make reference to things and ideas), and how they are interpreted by hearers. The goal of semantics is to match the meanings of signs—what they stand for—with the process of assigning those meanings.

Phonetics

I  INTRODUCTION 

Phonetics, branch of linguistics concerned with the production, physical nature, and perception of speech sounds. The main fields of study are experimental phonetics, articulatory phonetics, phonemics, acoustical phonetics, and auditory phonetics. Auditory phonetics is the field involved in determining how speech sounds are perceived by the human ear.

African Languages

I  INTRODUCTION 

African Languages, group of languages that are native to Africa. Scholars estimate that the number of distinctive languages spoken on the African continent totals at least 2,000—more languages than are spoken on any other continent. Some experts place that number even higher. Of these languages, about 50 have 500,000 or more speakers. The majority of African languages are spoken by relatively few people. Hadza, spoken in Tanzania, ranks among the languages with the fewest speakers—about 200 people.

Linguistics

I  INTRODUCTION 

Linguistics, the scientific study of language. It encompasses the description of languages, the study of their origin, and the analysis of how children acquire language and how people learn languages other than their own. Linguistics is also concerned with relationships between languages and with the ways languages change over time. Linguists may study language as a thought process and seek a theory that accounts for the universal human capacity to produce and understand language. Some linguists examine language within a cultural context. By observing talk, they try to determine what a person needs to know in order to speak appropriately in different settings, such as the workplace, among friends, or among family. Other linguists focus on what happens when speakers from different language and cultural backgrounds interact. Linguists may also concentrate on how to help people learn another language, using what they know about the learner’s first language and about the language being acquired.

Communication

I  INTRODUCTION 

Communication, the process of sharing ideas, information, and messages with others in a particular time and place. Communication includes writing and talking, as well as nonverbal communication (such as facial expressions, body language, or gestures), visual communication (the use of images or pictures, such as painting, photography, video, or film), and electronic communication (telephone calls, electronic mail, cable television, or satellite broadcasts). Communication is a vital part of personal life and is also important in business, education, and any other situation where people encounter each other.

Honey Bee

I  INTRODUCTION 

Honey Bee, common name for any of several species of highly social bees known for their honey-hoarding behavior and their use as a domesticated species (see Beekeeping). The European honey bee is important in modern agriculture and in nature, providing pollination for many valuable crops and wild plants. It is native to Asia and the Middle East and was introduced to North America by early European colonists. By the mid-1800s honey bees had become widespread. Today, they are naturalized on every continent except Antarctica. Honey bees can be easily reared, are adaptable to many climates and to laboratory conditions, and have a complex social life. They are among the most studied and best known insects.

Sign Language

I  INTRODUCTION

Sign Language, communication system using gestures that are interpreted visually. Many people in deaf communities around the world use sign languages as their primary means of communication. These communities include both deaf and hearing people who converse in sign language. But for many deaf people, sign language serves as their primary, or native, language, creating a strong sense of social and cultural identity. (see Deaf Culture)

Language

I  INTRODUCTION 

Language, the principal means used by human beings to communicate with one another. Language is primarily spoken, although it can be transferred to other media, such as writing. If the spoken means of communication is unavailable, as may be the case among the deaf, visual means such as sign language can be used. A prominent characteristic of language is that the relation between a linguistic sign and its meaning is arbitrary: There is no reason other than convention among speakers of English that a dog should be called dog, and indeed other languages have different names (for example, Spanish perro, Russian sobaka, Japanese inu). Language can be used to discuss a wide range of topics, a characteristic that distinguishes it from animal communication. The dances of honey bees, for example, can be used only to communicate the location of food sources (see Honey Bee: Communication). While the language-learning abilities of apes have surprised many—and there continues to be controversy over the precise limits of these abilities—scientists and scholars generally agree that apes do not progress beyond the linguistic abilities of a two-year-old child (see Communication: Communication Among Animals).