Language - Migration, Dialects, Variation

language

Table of Contents

Introduction
Characteristics of language
- Definitions of language
- Historical attitudes toward language
- Ways of studying language
  - Phonetics and phonology
  - Grammar
  - Semantics
Language variants
- Dialects
- Jargon
- Pidgins and creoles
- Nonverbal language
  - Sign language
  - Paralinguistics
  - Symbolic and computer language
Physiological and physical basis of speech
- Speech production
- Language acquisition
Meaning and style in language
- Types of meaning
  - Structural, or grammatical, meaning
  - Lexical meaning
- Semantic flexibility
  - General and specific designations
  - Neologisms
- Language and conceptualization
- Style
Language and culture
- Transmission of language and culture
- Language and social differentiation and assimilation
- The control of language for cultural ends
  - Second-language learning
  - Nationalistic influences on language
  - Translation
  - Messages and codes
- Language learning
  - Bilingualism
  - Literacy
- Written language
  - Evolution of writing systems
  - Spelling
  - Written versus spoken languages
Linguistic change
- Diversification of languages
  - Changes through time
  - Changes through geographical movement
  - Tendencies against change
- Language typology

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The fundamental cause of linguistic change and hence of linguistic diversification is the minute deviations occurring in the transmission of language from one generation to another. But other factors contribute to the historical development of languages and determine the spread of a language family over the world’s surface. Population movements naturally play a large part, and movements of peoples in prehistoric times carried the Indo-European languages from a relatively restricted area into most of Europe and into northern India, Persia, and Armenia. The spread of the Indo-European languages resulted, in the main, from the imposition of the languages on the ...(100 of 25352 words)

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