Innateness Hypothesis Consider the fact that any neurologically normal child born in any part of the world can learn any language natively.  Many learn two or three languages simultaneously. In fact, studies have shown that infants are born with the ability to distinguish between all of the different sounds of any language.  For example, infants of any linguistic background can recognize the … [Read more...]

Although a considerable amount of languages around the world seem to have nothing in common with each other on the surface, the majority of linguists propose that all languages share certain universal principles. These principles are a set of rules referred to as a Universal Grammar.   It is true that the formation of sentences in Hungarian (an agglutinative language) seems to have very little, if … [Read more...]

What is Linguistics? Have you ever wondered why speakers of English are permitted to say White House but not House White, or why Southerners in the US say “pah” for pie? And even more strangely, consider the fact that in English the plural form of the singular noun monkey is monkeys, and yet the plural form of child is children. Why don’t we say monkren or childs? Why do French speakers pronounce … [Read more...]

Language Families Language families are groups of languages said to be "genetically" related on the basis of having a common ancestor, or protolanguage. Such languages share several features and vocabulary items, although these similarities are hardly apparent when comparing two languages as seemingly distinct as say, English and Hindi (both of the Indo-European family). As speakers move apart, … [Read more...]