LING 132 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Grammatical Gender, Hopi, Hopi Language
Document Summary
Possession of language distinguishes humans from other animals. Some myths and religions states that language = source of human life + power: only learning a language can the child become a human being. Language more than just speech: deaf people sign languages, equivalent to spoken languages, differing only in their modality of expression. Five-year-old children are almost as proficient at speaking and understanding as their parents. Knowing a language = knowing the sounds in and not in that language. Including which sounds can start a word, end a word, and follow each other. Native speakers usually find native sound substitutions for foreign words. Certain sequences of sounds provide concepts and meanings. Most speech sounds and associated meanings are arbitrary: why difficult to learn a new language. Sound symbolism: words whose pronunciation suggests their meanings: onomatopoeic, buzz, murmur, cock-a-doodle-doo, even here, sounds differ from language to language, gobble gobble in english, glu-glu in turkey.