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What is a language

What is a language?. 2. One or two individuals (languages)?. How can you tell if a person speaks the same language as yourself or if she speaks another, different language?? .... What is a language?. 3. But .... Do two speakers of the same language always speak alike?Is it always impossible to und

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What is a language

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    1. What is a language? 1 What is a language? A somewhat different view on the individuals that populate the ”universe of languages” ... There are 6000-8000 languages in the world. (Why are the figures not more specific than that?) There are 82 languages in Ethiopia. (How can we be sure of that? - Why not 80 or 85?)

    2. What is a language? 2 One or two individuals (languages)? How can you tell if a person speaks the same language as yourself or if she speaks another, different language? ? ...

    3. What is a language? 3 But ... Do two speakers of the same language always speak alike? Is it always impossible to understand a person who speaks another language?

    4. What is a language? 4 No, they don’t speak alike ... several domains (farming, computer science, medicine, …) dialects sociolects other sub-languages ...

    5. What is a language? 5 No, sometimes you understand ... (you know the language - from school, from social contacts, from your grandfather, …) the languages are more or less similar: long contact close relationship strong influence

    6. What is a language? 6 Conclusion: An army and a navy ... It may be hard to understand a speaker of the same language. It may be easy to understand a speaker of a different language. Mutual intelligibility and other linguistic factors are never enough if we are trying to establish whether a linguistic variety is a language or not.

    7. What is a language? 7 Conclusion: An army and a navy ... Political and cultural factors are often more important. ”A language is a dialect with an army and a navy.”

    8. What is a language? 8 So when you are counting languages ... ... eye inspection is not enough! You also need knowledge about ”the ecological niche” in which the language thrives!

    9. What is a language? 9 Powerful languages I: Number of speakers The world’s 6000-8000 languages ordered by the number of speakers ...

    10. What is a language? 10

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