BRANCHES OF LINGUISTICS

Linguistics is the scientific study of language.

General or theoretical linguistics -tries to determine universal principles for

studying languages and to describe the general features of language.

Contrastive linguistics-Concentrates upon the differences between

languages. Its findings are often applied in the context of Language teaching.

Comparative linguistics studies different languages looking for similar

characteristics. These languages may have common historical origin though
the main emphasis of the analysis is usually placed on the structural
correspondences between languages under Investigation.

Historical linguistics analyses the development of language in time,

registering the changes that have taken place in it.

Applied linguistics is concerned with the application of linguistic theories and

their findings in solving various language problem, mostly in the teaching of
foreign languages, studying language disorders, in translation, lexicography,
and stylistics.

Sociolinguistics- studies the relationship between language and society,

taking into consideration standard and non-standard forms of language,
regional and social varieties with reference to such concepts as ethnicity,
social status, sex, age, etc.

Psycholinguistics- Is a branch of linguistics which studies the relationship

between linguistic behavior and the mental processes. It is interested in how
mental processes influence the production and perception of speech.

Computational linguistics uses computer techniques and applies them in

automatic translation and speech analysis using corpora for large-scale
statistical investigation and computational processing of spoken and written
texts.

Developmental linguistics is concerned with the study of the acquisition of

language by children, describing the stages and patterns of development
and explaining the typical features and variations.

Anthropological linguistics -studies language variation and usage in relation

to culture. Emphasis is often placed on the analysis of the so- called non-
western languages.
8 Oldest Languages In The World Still Widely Used!

Tamil (5000 years old) – Oldest Living Language in India. Spoken by 78

million people and official language in Sri Lanka and Singapore.

Sanskrit (5000 years old) – Oldest Language in India. Unlike Tamil, which is
still a widely spoken language, Sanskrit is the ancient Indian language that
fell out of common usage around 600 B.C and is now a liturgical language.
Found in the scriptures of Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism, this classical
language is one of the oldest known languages in the world.

Egyptian (5000 years old) Egypt is considered to be one of the oldest

civilizations in the world, and Egyptian Coptic is the oldest indigenous
language of Egypt. Written records of its usage date back to 3400 BC,
making it an ancient language. Coptic was the most widely spoken language
in Egypt till the late 17th century AD until it was replaced by Egyptian Arabic,
post-Muslim invasion.

Hebrew (3000 years old) Hebrew lost common usage around 400 CE and is
now preserved as a liturgical language for Jews across the world.

Greek (2900 years old)

Greek is the official language of Greece and Cyprus and was first spoken in
Greece and Asia Minor, which is now a part of Turkey. Greek has an
uninterrupted history of being used as a written language for over 3,000
years, which is longer than any other Indo-European languages spoken today.

Basque is spoken natively by a small population of people residing in Spain

and France.

Lithuanian forms a part of the Indo-European languages group, which gave

birth to various modern languages like German, Italian and English.
Lithuanian is closely related to Sanskrit, Latin and Ancient Greek, and has
retained the sounds and grammar rules from the ancient era in a far better
way than any of its linguistic cousins.

Farsi (2500 years old) Farsi is the common language spoken in modern day
Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan. Farsi is the direct descendant of Old Persian
language, which was the official language of the Persian Empire.

a)all languages have vowels and consonants;

b) all languages have words;

c) all languages can create new words when required and modify their
meanings;

d) all languages are open-ended in the sense that they can produce totally
new utterances which are understood by the users of the language;

e) all languages can form questions;

f) in all languages it is possible to talk about things and situations that are
removed from the immediate situation of the speaker (this is called
displacement);

g) in all languages we can use hypothetical, unreal, and fictional utterances.

Creativity is a very important feature of all natural human languages.

Noam Chomsky was one of the first to speak about this human ability to
understand new sentences as part of the creative aspect of language use.

Redundancy may be external, i.e. indicated through gestures and facial

expressions.

Redundancy may be internal, i.e. expressed just through language.

All languages are systematic- In other words, they consist of patterns, which
recur in various combinations, and rules, which are applied to produce these
patterns. Without rules, it would be impossible to learn and use languages.

All languages change. Of course, they may change I different ways

depending on social, political and other circumstances. Thus their histories
are individual and different. English, for example, has borrowed words,
especially from French and Latin, to such an extent that purely native Anglo-
Saxon words hardly constitute the majority of present-day English.

Structuralism is a term used in linguistics referring to a theoretical approach

to the analysis of language that describes linguistic items in terms of
structures. The basic claim of structuralism is that language is a structured
system.

Ferdinand de Saussure is known as the father of structuralism.

Linguistics is descriptive, not prescriptive it means that linguists describe the

rules and facts of language exactly as they find them without making
judgements. They do not try to impose norms of correctness and do not try
to change the actual usage of the language of the native speakers. This
contrasts with the previous view of traditional grammar which was very
strongly prescriptive

The task of a linguist is to describe the way people speak and write, not to
tell them how they ought to use language.

Diachronic linguistics is the study of languages from the viewpoint of their

historical development.

Synchronic linguistics studies languages at a single point of time. It may be

the present-day situation or any given period in the history of language
development. Both ways of describing languages are important.

Chomsky claims that human language is innate: a child is born with a

biological predisposition to learn language. This feature is species-specific,
that is, it discriminates humans and other living creatures.

Chomsky was amazed at how rapidly a little child acquires language. On the
whole, he emphasized the role of language as a basic means to investigate
the human mind.

Language is dynamic because it is constantly changing. New words are

coined and added to a language. Moreover, it is shared by a community of
users.

Phonetics (the sounds),

Syntax (the grammar), and

Semantics (the meaning).

THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE

1. The mama theory. Language started with the easiest syllables

connected to the most symbolic object.

2. The ta-ta theory. Language derived from gestures as products of

unconscious vocal imitation of body movements like we open our
mouth and say “Ahh” when feeding a child.
3. The bow-wow theory. Language started as an imitation of natural
sounds such as moo, buzz, bang, clang, splash, click, meow, whoosh,
hiss, Chirp, etc.

4. The pooh-pooh theory. Language began with emotive and strong cries
such as Ouch!,Wow!, Whoa!, Ahem!, Ahh!, Boo!, Phew! ,eh!, etc.

5. The ding-dong theory. Language corresponds between sounds and

meanings. Small, sharp, high things tend to have words with high front
vowels while big, round, and love things tend to have round back
vowels in many languages.

6. The yo-he-ho theory. Language started with the grunts of heavy work,
heave-ho!, that calls for cooperation accompanied by appropriate
gestures. This is similar to a ding-dong theory such as words as cut,
break, crush, and strike.

7. The sing-song theory. Language started with long and musical like the
sound that came out of laughter, cooing, emotional mutterings,
courtship, etc. instead of short grunts.

8. The hey you theory. Language began as sounds to signal from

interpersonal contact such as cry out in fear, anger, or hurt.

9. The hocus pocus theory. Language had some roots in a sort magical or
religious aspect of our ancestors’ lives that calls out to game animals
with magical sounds that eventually became their names.

10. The eureka! Theory. Language as perceived by our ancestors in

which it was consciously invented by assigning arbitrary sound to
mean certain things.

11. The Divine Source Theory. In Genesis 2:19, God creates Adam,
and “whatever Adam called every living creature that was the name
 thereof.” Adam already possessed the ability to use a language of his
own.

12. The Tower of Babel theory. In Genesis 11:9, people thought highly
of themselves and that they built a tower to reach God. What God did
was to confound the language in all the earth which resulted in
varieties of languages.

Syntax is the part of linguistics that studies the structure and formation of
sentences

Language is speech. Speech is language. The written report is but a

secondary representation of the language. Charles Fries

Language is a system of signals conforming to the rules which constitute its

grammar. It is a standard of culturally transmitted behavior shared by a
group of people. Joseph Greenberg

Language is a code: a set of elements composed of sounds, letters, their

combinations, into words, sentences, etc. used for communication between
individuals who share the same rules. Roger Bell

Language is a system that relates meanings to the substance. It is a mental

phenomenon that is innate. All children around the world acquire a native
tongue. Noam Chomsky

When we use language, we are not just saying something, we are doing
something as wellsuch as promising, asking information, etc. Searle and
Austin

Language has two elements. One is cognitive which consists of the linguistic
features of the language. The other is emotive or affective. Oller

Meaning does not reside in the words perse but the context of the
situation.Malinowski

The sender and receiver of the message should have shared presuppositions
for communication to take place. Widdowson