Study of Tongues

How many Chinese Words are there?

Well, a common chinese dictionary has somewhere around 13,500 words. The Qing Dynasty made a comprehensive collection of 46,500. A elementary schooler knows an average of 1,500 to 2,000 (depends how often that kid hits the books). A more educated person knows about 6,000 words. English has over 6 M words. Very impressive.

How many languages are there?

By 1911, there were 1,000 known. Since then, the number has been raising. By 1997, the Bible were translated in 2,197 diff. languages. http://www.ethnologue.com (an authoritative source) gathered 7,299.

What is a language made of?

At the core, it is made up of symbols. These symbols are linked together by grammar, a structural relationship. Symbols are mapped to meaning and sound arbitrarily. They are merely agreed upon.

Where did language come from, and why do we need it?

Language is often coupled tightly with reason. And reason has been argued as part of the human nature (T. Hobbes & J. Locke).

Language is a tool in the communication between two autonomous beings. It requires one's delibrate expression of intent and the other's understanding. Thoughtless words cannot bring out a person's true intention, while careless listening misinterprets what is said. Thus, even well-expressed words may not be well-received. There are many places the communication channel can be broken, or compromised by noise. Learning and using language is a diligent task for us to constantly observe and control.

How and When is language used?

To teach, encourage, .....

In a classroom, signal instructions, .... a hard question to answer thoroughly.


Something cool to know:

Linguistics divides into grammarical and semantic study. Grammarical study furthers branches to morphology (formation and composition of words), syntax (rules that determine how words combine), and phonology (sound). Applied linguistics attempts to put linguistic theories into practice through areas like translation, stylistics, literary criticism and theory, discourse analysis, speech therapy, speech pathology and foreign language teaching.

There is the notion of dead and modern (living) language.

Sociolinguistics studies how the interaction of social groups fuse their languages. The concept of language continuum is used to described the merging or undefinable boundaries between a certain languages or dialects.

A woman uses about 20,000 words per day while a man uses about 7,000 (this has been found a problematic result). The latest findings show men and women spent about the same amount of words per day.