LING 1000 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Arbitrariness, Universal Grammar, Paralanguage

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Linguistics
• Course: LING 1000
• Professor: Rosario Gomez

Document Summary

Lecture 3 - languages of the world & language. 50% of all languages are found in 8 countries. 90% of all languages = threatened w/ extinction! Ex: in mexico, there"s a language with only 2 speakers left! Especially in australia . 1 language dies every 2 weeks! -> ex: latin ==> french, spanish, english, italian, etc. Language in contact w/ another = infludnce ==> abandonment! Forced or soft (education_ assimilation to dominant languages (ex: canadian natives) Yes --> can get vocabulary from catch phrases / tend towards accent. No --> we need a real dialogue dfor language . Ex: i"m so not doing that! (from friends) Ex: hebrew was dying --> now: national language for 5 million+ people! Ex: hawaiian - from 1000 to 7000 speakers since 1983. But revived by scholars! (now 3500 ppl speaking as second language. For preservation / access / community support of language! Popularity vs influence = 2 different things!! (ex: english & latin)