Linguistics is the scientific study of language and languages. It encompasses their nature, the function of the human mind during the formation of their words and their meanings, and their reception and resulting effects on the listener.
Until now, the definitive origin of the language has been elusive, although several theories exist, all of which point to its earliest use. Hand signals, for example, emanated from thoughts and it is believed that thoughts eventually adopted sound, while other studies indicate that objects were given names to reflect their appearance. Still other theories posit that primitive growls and similar sounds, made during the hunt and in the midst of hard work, became distinct words.
However, there are several sub-branches of linguistics, including historical, comparative, grammatical, theoretical, neuro, psycho, anthropological, ethno, socio, computational, and stylistic.
Speech can be defined as the utterance of an individual, while writing is considered a displacement of that speech or a form of symbolization. Although language is a conventional system of habitual vocal behavior by which members of the community communicate and can therefore be considered primary, only a small percentage of languages took written form, as most cultures were only oral.
The writing itself can be considered voluntary, since it is a set of habits, which can be modified at will, and its form is arbitrary to what is communicated verbally.
Subdivided, linguistics can be considered to encompass two definitions: “langue”, meaning any language in general, and “discourse”, or any language involving a set of operations.
Synchronic linguistics is the study of any language at a given time, such as English during the 16th century, while diachronic linguistics is the study of a language through different historical periods.
Language is not static. In fact, it is constantly changing, which explains the proliferation of dialects, which in turn result from socially modified conditions, such as those of occupation, distance, and time in history.
Language also has various properties. Phonemes, for example, are a small inventory of different sounds, usually between 30 and 40, organized in a certain way, called phonology. Syntax is the complex of words and phrases that form meanings. Both result in the bilateral structure of language.
All languages are open, that is, an infinite number of sentences can be generated due to the infinite number of ways words can be grouped and used collectively. Consequently, its extent cannot be determined.
Language creates and reflects. In the first case, it creates the culture in which modern man lives and by which he defines himself. In the latter, it reflects the social structure of the society in which it is spoken. The terminology of kinship, or related words, is limited in English, for example, and encompasses kinship such as mother to father and brother to sister. However, there is no base term to express the parents of the bride in relation to those of the groom, and therefore this concept needs to be explained.
This lack does not exist in Yiddish. A single term, “machuten” (masculine), “machutaneste” (feminine) and “machutenim” (plural, both genders), means “in laws”. In Niamal, the language of an Australian tribe, simple terms express degrees and bonds of relationships.
The Navajo language offers an example of how oral communication reflects its culture. In European languages, man is part of the ongoing processes of the universe, as sentences such as “I write”, “I drive”, “I walk” indicate. The man is in charge, and sentences are made up of the actor, the action, and what is being acted upon, such as “I shoot the arrow.” Navajo, however, is noun-centered, and man is part of natural processes. His sentences are built with the actor, the action and its reflexive expansion. , such as “I have participated in ‘arrowing'”.
Culture can also be reflected in the number of words that exist in a language to express what is important to its people. English, for example, has only one word for “camel”, while Arabic has more than a thousand. English, again, has few nouns to express “snow”; but the Alaskan Indians have hundreds. In contrast, English has numerous words for automobiles and their makes and types.
Grammatical strategies also reflect culture. Verb links indicating past, present, future, and conditional tense, for example, are numerous in English, while in Hopi, time is not expressed at all, with its verbal links built around validity, duration, intensity and trend. . His grammar exists without concepts of time and space, but still manages to adequately describe the universe.
Language, as stated above, is constantly changing and there are various methods by which it does so.
One of them is conquest. During the Norman conquest of England, for example, the two languages then spoken, Anglo-Saxon (Old English) and Norman French, were combined.
Another result of this dynamic is the substratum, that is, a language, which forms a sublayer, temporarily disappears and then emerges in a modified form. Latin, for example, underwent phonological or sound changes when it was introduced in Spain, which explains why the “v” was later pronounced as a “b”.
Phonological variations also occur when one area of a country becomes more important than another, due, for example, to economic conditions. Before 1600 the “r” was pronounced like Italian, trite, but from then on it was spoken more like French, further back in the throat.
Several other phenomena trigger the language switch.
Adstratum occurs when the language of one or two contiguous linguistic communities exerts an influence on the other, as happened between Bulgarian and Romanian or between American English and Latin American Spanish. In the latter case, expressions of the other were adopted. Latin American Spanish, for example, borrowed the expression “Have a good weekend” from American English: “Have a good weekend.”
Superstratum, perhaps as a result of a more forced event, is introduced into a speech community for reasons of military conquest, cultural superiority, or colonization, affecting the language before it disappears, as happened with Norman French.
Language can be viewed as offering five functions to the culture it expresses.
The inquiry question, the first of them, consists of the standard “who”, “what”, “when” and similar parameters that generally structure the first paragraph of a newspaper or news article, and entail inflectional modifications, or the change of voice. tone. Spanish places a backwards question mark at the beginning of a written sentence to indicate that it is a question and thus alert the reader to silently employ this inflection in their mind.
The second function is the ostensible question, in which commands are replaced by queries. “Close the door”, for example, becomes “Would you mind closing the door?” Interjections like “Wow” do not convey meaning.
The third is argumentation or contention. In trying to convince, as lawyers do in their arguments, language is used to persuade the other person to adopt the views or ways of the persuader. This is the main engine of a debate.
The fourth is ritual use. Used in prayers, sermons, and official documents, it is predictable, repetitive, and often intellectually empty.
Finally, the fifth function of language is to establish contact, in which case it is considered “contact language”, and includes such frequently used greetings as “Hello”, “Hello” and “How are you?”. Generally meaningless, they seldom expect or attract meaningful responses, particularly if one person is pressed for time, and only indicate another’s acknowledgment, as when two students pass each other in the hallway at school, or become the prelude of actual and intended conversation. As such, they do not convey any message.
There are also two important terms related to language: dialect and ideolect.
The first, dialect, is a subvariation of the main language and may share as little as 51 percent intelligibility with it, introducing modified phonology (sound), morphology (words), and syntax (grammar). In the United States, American English is infinitely more unified than the languages spoken in comparatively smaller countries such as Germany and Italy, though even here dialects exist, such as those between Standard and Black American English and between the American standard and the black. British standard.
The “standard” designation is used to indicate primary structure, vocabulary, and grammar, but does not necessarily imply “correct” or “correct.” Because the purpose of language is to communicate orally, if this intention has been achieved between two or more people using the jargon, then it has succeeded, despite what grammarians or Harvard English professors may protest that it is. mixed with “wrong” components.
The ideolect, the second subvariation, is the characteristic speech of an individual. Although two siblings may be raised by the same parents in the same town, for example, their ideolects will change as they attend school, make different friends, immerse themselves in clubs and activities, and eventually leave their home area.
Morphemes (words), like language as a whole, can also change, acquiring new meanings that eradicate or even invert others. “Deer” in Modern English, for example, refers to a specific animal, but in Old English it meant any animal species, since it originated from the Old German word, “Tier.” “Silly” used to mean “blessed” in Old English, because it comes from the Old German word for exactly that, “selig.”
In modern times, the distinction between “good” and “bad” has been blurred and, in some cases, completely inverted. “Hey, you’re a bad man” can mean, in slang, that someone is really good and esteemed, because he may have employed unconventional or covert tactics and ways to accomplish something good.
Some words may disappear altogether, such as “ado” and “swell,” because they have become archaic or no longer serve their original purposes.
However, language serves as the oral cohesion of humanity, its culture and its society.
