Language

A language is a collection of symbols (called vocabulary or lexicon) and rules for connecting these symbols (called grammar) that facilitates communication.

Origin[edit]

The origin of language has been debated for long time among linguists, biologists, cognitive scientists, theologians, anthropologists, along with many other disciplines. Currently, the most wide held belief is that language has evolutionary origins (Pinker, 1997). However, this has not been proven definitively.

Language differs from call signs used by primates and other animals in that language can be used without prompting or a stimulus and is necessary for higher thinking. Call signs are regarded merely as forms of communication rather than abstract symbol use.

Although linguists have been able to allocate most languages to a small number of language "families", they have been unable to find a common origin of these language families. A few of the largest and oldest families include: Indo-European, Afro-Asiatic and Niger-Congo families (Campbell, 98).

Creationist view[edit]

Main article:Tower of Babel
Since the end of the Great Flood all humans spoke the same language. The survivors started to build a Tower, called Tower of Babel. God thought that the people would become high-spirited and stopped the construction, by creating several languages. The tower was not completed and the people travelled through the world, where they spread their languages.^[1]

Languages of the World, Past and Present[edit]

• Abkhaz
• Afrikaans
• Ainu
• Akkadian
• Albanian
• American sign language (ASL), an American-originated system of gesture-based communication for the deaf and hard-of-hearing
• Amharic
• Arabic, a major language throughout the Middle East
• Aramaic
• Armenian, the primary language of Armenia
• Atayal
• Avar
• Aymara
• Aztec, the historic language of the Aztec peoples in Mesoamerica
• Babylonian
• Balinese
• Bangla, the primary language of Bangladesh
• Basque, the historic language of the Basques, who lived in the Pyrenees mountains bordering Spain and France
• Belarusian, the primary language of Belarus
• Belgian, the primary language of Belgium
• Bomok
• Bosnian, the primary language of Bosnia
• Bulgarian, the primary language of Bulgaria
• Burmese, the primary language of Burma
• Cantonese, one of two primary languages of China
• Carib, a Native American language in the Caribbean
• Catalan
• Cebuano, a major language of the Philippine Islands
• Cherokee, a Native American language
• Chumash, a Native American language
• Coptic, a historic language of Egypt
• Corsican, a regional language in France and Italy
• Cree, a Native American language
• Crimean Tatar
• Croatian, the primary language of Croatia
• Czech, the primary language of the Czech Republic
• Danish, the primary language of Denmark
• Dari
• Dutch, the primary language of the Netherlands
• Ebonics, aka African American Vernacular English (AAVE), a regional dialect of American English originating in African American communities
• Elvish, a fictional language from fantasy novelist J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy
• English, the primary language of the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Falkland Islands, and elsewhere; also a major language in India, Jamaica, the Philippine Islands, and elsewhere
• Esperanto, a constructed language combining Romance and Germanic vocabulary with Slavic grammar
• Estonian, the primary language of Estonia
• Filipino (aka Tagalog), a major language of the Philippine Islands
• Finnish, the primary language of Finland
• Flemish
• French, the primary language of France; also a major language in Canada and various former French colonies in Africa and Asia
• Galician
• Georgian, the primary language of Georgia
• German, the primary language of Germany; regional variants are spoken in neighboring countries like Austria and Switzerland
• Greek, the primary language of Greece
• Gujarati
• Haitian Creole
• Hausa
• Hawaiian, the historic language of Native Hawaiians
• Hebrew, the historic language of the Jewish people, spoken widely today in Israel and elsewhere
• Hindi, a major language in India
• Hiri Motu
• Hmong
• Hungarian, the primary language of Hungary
• Icelandic, the primary language of Iceland
• Igbo
• Indonesian, the primary language of Indonesia
• Inupiat
• Irish Gaelic, the historic language of Ireland
• Italian, the primary language of Italy
• Japanese, the primary language of Japan
• Javanese
• Kabardian
• Kannada
• Kazakh, the primary language of Kazakhstan
• Klingon, a fictional language of the Star Trek media franchise
• Korean, the primary langage of Korea
• Kurdish
• Lardil
• Latin, the historic language of the Romans
• Latvian, the primary language of Latvia
• Laz
• Lezgin
• Lithuanian, the primary language of Lithuania
• Luxembourgish, the primary language of Luxembourg
• Macedonian, the primary language of Macedonia
• Malagasy
• Malay, the primary language of Malaysia
• Malayalam
• Mandarin Chinese, one of two primary languages of China
• Maori, a historic language of the indigenous peoples of New Zealand
• Marathi
• Mexican Spanish, a regional dialect of Spanish spoken in Mexico
• Miccosukkee, a Native American language
• Mingrelian
• Mohawk, a Native American language
• Mongolian, the primary language of Mongolia
• Nahuatl
• Navajo, a Native American language
• Navarrese
• Nepali, the primary language of Nepal
• Norwegian, the primary language of Norway
• Nyanja
• Okinawan, the historic language of Okinawa, the southernmost prefecture of Japan
• Pashto
• Persian, the primary language of Iran
• Polish, the primary language of Poland
• Portuguese, the primary language of Portugal
• Punjabi, a major language in India
• Quechua
• Romanian, the primary language of Romania
• Romansh
• Russian, the primary language of Russia
• Samoan, the primary language of Samoa
• Sanskrit, a historic language of India
• Scottish Gaelic, the historic language of Scotland
• Serbian, the primary language of Serbia
• Shona
• Shindhi
• Sicilian, a regional variant of Italian and the primary language Sicily
• Sinhala
• Slovak, the primary language of Slovakia
• Slovenian, the primary language of Slovenia
• Somali, the primary language of Somalia
• Southern Sotho
• Spanish, the primary language of Spain and a prominent language throughout Central America, the Caribbean, and South America
• Sumerian
• Svan
• Swahili, a major language throughout eastern and southeastern Africa
• Swedish, the primary language of Sweden
• Tahitian, the primary language of Tahiti
• Tajik
• Tamil
• Telugu
• Thai, the primary language of Thailand
• Timucua
• Tok Pisin
• Tongan, the primary language of Tonga
• Turkish, the primary language of Turkey
• Ugaritic
• Ukrainian, the primary language of Ukraine
• Urdu
• Uzbek, the primary language of Uzbekistan
• Vietnamese, the primary language of Vietnam
• Welsh, the historic language of Wales
• Western Frisian
• Yiddish, the historic language of the Ashkenazi Jews
• Yolgnu, a historic language of the indigenous peoples of Australia
• Yoruba
• Yucatec Mayan, the historic language of the Mayan peoples in Mesoamerica
• Zulu

See also[edit]

• Category:Languages for language families and languages
• Information
• Essay:Best New Conservative Words
• Conservative Words Not Yet Recognized by the Dictionary‎
• Downgraded Conservative Terms
• Essay:New Liberal Terms
• Essay:Surprising Dates of Origin for Terms
• Linguistic Analysis of Candidates
• Essay:Conservapedia's Law
• Secularized Language‎
• Terms Difficult to Classify
• Language: Etymology, Vocabulary

References[edit]