teaching

A grammar is a description of how sentences go together in a language

But Alexander Vovin, a linguist at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences in France, contends that language doesn’t always spread with agriculture. He points to the case of the Finno-Ugric language group, which includes modern Estonian, Finnish and Hungarian. The speakers of these languages, he says, were fishermen who likely spread

1 The process of acquiring language is deeply affected by the process of becoming a competent member of society. 2 The process of becoming a competent member of society is realized to a large extent through language.

The ding-dong theory . Some people, including the famous linguist Max Muller, have pointed out that there is a rather mysterious correspondence between sounds and meanings. Small, sharp, high things tend to have words with high front vowels in many languages, while big, round, low things tend to have round back vowels! Compare itsy bitsy teeny wee

journey, tapestry, symphony, delve, explore, narrative, essence, unfold, embrace, weaving, transcend, manifest, ethereal, vibrant, tapestry, harmony, flourish, expansive, introspective, intricate, enigmatic, captivating, epiphany, unravel, immerse, boundless, captivating, allure, fleeting, evoke, quintessential, profound, unearth, kaleidoscope, ser

Chapter Twenty focuses on language and culture, beginning with a discussion of concepts such as categories and how certain linguistic items are lexicalized in different languages. Subsequently, linguistic relativity is discussed with a detailed account of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis and a mention of the example of snow terms to argue against it. Cog