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Topic Review
Malayan Languages
The Malay or Malayan languages are a group of closely related languages spoken by Malays and related peoples across Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Southern Thailand and the far southern parts of the Philippines. They have traditionally been classified as Malay, Para-Malay, and Aboriginal Malay, but this reflects geography and ethnicity rather than a proper linguistic classification. The Malayan languages are mutually intelligible to varying extents, though the distinction between language and dialect is unclear in many cases. Para-Malay includes the Malayan languages of Sumatra. They are: Minangkabau, Central Malay (Bengkulu), Pekal, Musi (Palembang), Negeri Sembilan (Malaysia), and Duano’. Aboriginal Malay are the Malayan languages spoken by the Orang Asli (Proto-Malay) in Malaya. They are Jakun, Orang Kanaq, Orang Seletar, and Temuan. The other Malayan languages, included in neither of these groups, are associated with the expansion of the Malays across the archipelago. They include Malaccan Malay (Malaysian and Indonesian), Kedah Malay, Kedayan/Brunei Malay, Berau Malay, Bangka Malay, Jambi Malay, Kutai Malay, Loncong, Pattani Malay, and Banjarese. There are also several Malay-based creole languages, such as Betawi, Cocos Malay, Manado Malay and Sabah Malay, which may be more or less distinct from standard (Malaccan) Malay.
  • 2.6K
  • 13 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Phi Features
In linguistics, especially within generative grammar, phi features (denoted with the Greek letter φ 'phi') are the semantic features of person, number, gender, and case, as encoded in pronominal agreement with nouns and pronouns (the latter are said to consist only of phi-features, containing no lexical head). Several other features are included in the set of phi-features, such as the categorical features ±N (nominal) and ±V (verbal), which can be used to describe lexical categories and case features. Phi-features are often thought of as the "silent" features that exist on lexical heads (or, according to some theories, within the syntactic structure) that are understood for number, gender, person or reflexivity. Due to their silent nature, phi-features are often only understood if someone is a native speaker of a language, or if the translation includes a gloss of all these features. Many languages exhibit a pro-drop phenomenon which means that they rely on other lexical categories to determine the phi-features of the lexical heads.
  • 2.5K
  • 26 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Q’anjob’al Language
Q'anjob'al (also Kanjobal) is a Mayan language spoken primarily in Guatemala and part of Mexico. According to 1998 estimates compiled by SIL International in Ethnologue, there were approximately 77,700 native speakers, primarily in the Huehuetenango Department of Guatemala. Municipalities where the Q'anjob'al language is spoken include San Juan Ixcoy (Yich K'ox), San Pedro Soloma (Tz'uluma' ), Santa Eulalia (Jolom Konob' ), Santa Cruz Barillas (Yalmotx), San Rafael La Independencia, and San Miguel Acatán (Pedro Mateo Pedro 2010). Q'anjob'al is taught in public schools through Guatemala's intercultural bilingual education programs.
  • 2.5K
  • 06 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Embodied 'Basic' Emotions in Chinese and English Language
References to the body are one feature shared across languages, particularly when describing the mental processes of emotion, reflecting the embodiment of an emotional experience. Embodied emotion concepts encompass these categorized outcomes of bidirectional brain–body interactions yet can be differentiated further into afferent or interoceptive and efferent or autonomic processes. Between languages, a comparison of emotion words indicates the dominance of afferent or interoceptive processes in how embodied emotions are conceptualized in Chinese, while efferent or autonomic processes feature more commonly in English. Correspondingly, in linguistic expressions of emotion, Chinese-speaking people are biased toward being more receptive, reflective, and adaptive, whereas native English speakers may tend to be more reactive, proactive, and interactive. 
  • 2.5K
  • 05 Aug 2022
Topic Review
Old Azeri Language
Old Azeri (Persian: آذری‌ باستان‎), also referred to as Azeri or Azari (Persian: آذری‎ Āḏarī [ɑːzæri]), is the extinct Iranian language that was once spoken in Azerbaijan (historic Azerbaijan, also known as Iranian Azerbaijan) before the Turkification of the Azeris. Some linguists believe the southern Tati varieties of Iranian Azerbaijan around Takestan such as the Harzandi and Karingani dialects to be remnants of Azeri. In addition, Old Azeri is known to have strong affinities with Talysh. Azeri was the dominant language in Azerbaijan before it was replaced by Azerbaijani, which is a Turkic language.
  • 2.5K
  • 30 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Taboo Language in Audiovisual Translation
Translating taboo language is a daunting task and solving it with spatial-temporal constraints makes it even more challenging. Taboo language, or emotionally charged language, is often toned down in audiovisual translation (AVT) by deleting the words and expressions, if space is limited, or by using euphemisms. Studies have focused on increasingly diverse subtitling strategies and techniques in rendering taboo language in professional and non-professional subtitling (NPS). Some scholars noted the fluidity, heterogeneity, and fuzziness of NPS. One of the main issues is that this NPS term implies the lack of professional training and thus poor translation quality, neglecting the creative and flexible nature of this kind of subtitling practice.
  • 2.3K
  • 23 Jun 2022
Topic Review
Proto-Norse Language
Proto-Norse (also called Proto-Scandinavian, Proto-Nordic, Ancient Scandinavian, Proto-North Germanic and a variety of other names) was an Indo-European language spoken in Scandinavia that is thought to have evolved as a northern dialect of Proto-Germanic in the first centuries CE. It is the earliest stage of a characteristically North Germanic language, and the language attested in the oldest Scandinavian Elder Futhark inscriptions, spoken from around the 2nd to the 8th centuries CE (corresponding to the late Roman Iron Age and the Germanic Iron Age). It evolved into the dialects of Old Norse at the beginning of the Viking Age around 800 CE, which later themselves evolved into the modern North Germanic languages (Faroese, Icelandic, the three Continental Scandinavian languages, and their dialects).
  • 2.1K
  • 28 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Family Language Policy
Family and its language are one of the most important domains when it comes to acquiring a language as a mother tongue. 
  • 2.1K
  • 24 Aug 2022
Topic Review
Classification of Indigenous Peoples of the Americas
Classification of Indigenous peoples of the Americas is based upon cultural regions, geography, and linguistics. Anthropologists have named various cultural regions, with fluid boundaries, that are generally agreed upon with some variation. These cultural regions are broadly based upon the locations of Indigenous peoples of the Americas from early European and African contact beginning in the late 15th century. When Indigenous peoples have been forcibly removed by nation-states, they retain their original geographic classification. Some groups span multiple cultural regions.
  • 2.0K
  • 25 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Romansh Language
Romansh is a Romance language spoken in the Graubünden canton of eastern Switzerland, and is one of the official languages of the country. It is the native language of about 40,000 Swiss people and, of the major Romance languages, is most closely related to French. However, the accent and writing system of its speakers appear to the casual observer to more closely resemble Italian and German – a significant fact in historical conflicts over the region. Romansh is actually an umbrella term for several dialects, with each speech community in the region using different names for them. The term ‘Romansh’ is itself an anglicisation of the various local language names, including Romansch in German, and Rumantsch in Romansh itself. It is most closely related to Ladin and Friulian, varieties spoken in northern Italy, and together these form the Rhaeto-Romance sub-family of Gallo-Romance, a larger group that includes French and various varieties of northern Italy. These are only distantly related to standard Italian. 'Rhaeto-Romance' is sometimes considered a single language, and its three varieties dialects, and on occasions, 'Ladin' has been used to mean any or all of these.
  • 2.0K
  • 04 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Andalusian Arabic
Andalusian Arabic, also known as Andalusi Arabic, was a variety or varieties of Arabic spoken in Al-Andalus, the regions of the Iberian Peninsula (modern Spain and Portugal) under Muslim rule (and for some time after) from the 9th century to the 17th century. It became an extinct language in Iberia after the expulsion of the former Hispanic Muslims, which took place over a century after the Granada War by the Catholic Monarchs of Spain. Once widely spoken in Iberia, the expulsions and persecutions of Arabic speakers caused an abrupt end to the language's use on the peninsula. Its use continued to some degree in North Africa after the expulsion, although Andalusi speakers were rapidly assimilated by the Maghrebi communities to which they fled.
  • 2.0K
  • 10 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Proto-Philippine
The Proto-Philippine language is a reconstructed ancestral proto-language of the Philippine languages, a proposed subgroup of the Austronesian languages which includes all languages within the Philippines (except for the Sama–Bajaw languages) as well as those within the northern portions of Sulawesi in Indonesia. Proto-Philippine is not directly attested to in any written work, but linguistic reconstruction by the comparative method has found regular similarities among languages that cannot be explained by coincidence or word-borrowing.
  • 1.9K
  • 29 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Proto-Austronesian
Proto-Austronesian (commonly abbreviated as PAN or PAn) is a proto-language. It is the reconstructed ancestor of the Austronesian languages, one of the world's major language families. Lower-level reconstructions have also been made, and include Proto-Malayo-Polynesian, Proto-Oceanic, and Proto-Polynesian. Recently, linguists such as Malcolm Ross and Andrew Pawley have built large lexicons for Proto-Oceanic and Proto-Polynesian.
  • 1.8K
  • 25 Oct 2022
Topic Review
'Phags-Pa Script
The ‘Phags-pa script (Mongolian: дөрвөлжин үсэг "Square script") is an alphabet designed by the Tibetan monk and State Preceptor (later Imperial Preceptor) Drogön Chögyal Phagpa for Kublai Khan, the founder of the Yuan dynasty, as a unified script for the written languages within the Yuan. The actual use of this script was limited to about a hundred years during the Mongol Yuan dynasty, and it fell out of use with the advent of the Ming dynasty. The documentation of its use provides clues about the changes in the varieties of Chinese, the Tibetic languages, Mongolian and other neighboring languages during the Yuan era.
  • 1.8K
  • 09 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Avesta
The Avesta (/əˈvɛstə/) is the primary collection of religious texts of Zoroastrianism, composed in the Avestan language. The Avesta texts fall into several different categories, arranged either by dialect, or by usage. The principal text in the liturgical group is the Yasna, which takes its name from the Yasna ceremony, Zoroastrianism's primary act of worship, and at which the Yasna text is recited. The most important portion of the Yasna texts are the five Gathas, consisting of seventeen hymns attributed to Zoroaster himself. These hymns, together with five other short Old Avestan texts that are also part of the Yasna, are in the Old (or 'Gathic') Avestan language. The remainder of the Yasna's texts are in Younger Avestan, which is not only from a later stage of the language, but also from a different geographic region. Extensions to the Yasna ceremony include the texts of the Vendidad and the Visperad. The Visperad extensions consist mainly of additional invocations of the divinities (yazatas), while the Vendidad is a mixed collection of prose texts mostly dealing with purity laws. Even today, the Vendidad is the only liturgical text that is not recited entirely from memory. Some of the materials of the extended Yasna are from the Yashts, which are hymns to the individual yazatas. Unlike the Yasna, Visperad and Vendidad, the Yashts and the other lesser texts of the Avesta are no longer used liturgically in high rituals. Aside from the Yashts, these other lesser texts include the Nyayesh texts, the Gah texts, the Siroza, and various other fragments. Together, these lesser texts are conventionally called Khordeh Avesta or "Little Avesta" texts. When the first Khordeh Avesta editions were printed in the 19th century, these texts (together with some non-Avestan language prayers) became a book of common prayer for lay people. The term Avesta is from the 9th/10th-century works of Zoroastrian tradition in which the word appears as Zoroastrian Middle Persian abestāg, Book Pahlavi ʾp(y)stʾkʼ. In that context, abestāg texts are portrayed as received knowledge, and are distinguished from the exegetical commentaries (the zand) thereof. The literal meaning of the word abestāg is uncertain; it is generally acknowledged to be a learned borrowing from Avestan, but none of the suggested etymologies have been universally accepted. The widely repeated derivation from *upa-stavaka is from Christian Bartholomae (Altiranisches Wörterbuch, 1904), who interpreted abestāg as a descendant of a hypothetical reconstructed Old Iranian word for "praise-song" (Bartholomae: Lobgesang); but this word is not actually attested in any text.
  • 1.8K
  • 21 Nov 2022
Topic Review
English for Specific Purposes
English for Specific Purposes (ESP) is, undeniably, more challenging because it deals with the terms and jargon of the English language for a particular context. For instance, learning medical words in English requires specific vocabulary, which might not be part of common ESL. Despite learning ESL since a young age, most learners still face difficulties grasping the language, even more so for ESP learning.
  • 1.7K
  • 22 Oct 2021
Topic Review
Q'eqchi' Language
The Q'eqchi' language, also spelled Kekchi, K'ekchi', or kekchí, is one of the Mayan languages, spoken within Q'eqchi' communities in Guatemala and Belize.
  • 1.7K
  • 14 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Trique Language
The Triqui (/ˈtriːki/), or Trique, languages are Oto-Manguean languages of Mexico spoken by the Trique people of the state of Oaxaca and the state of Baja California (due to recent population movements). They belong to the Mixtecan branch together with the Mixtec languages and Cuicatec.
  • 1.6K
  • 21 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Proto-Slavic
Proto-Slavic is the unattested, reconstructed proto-language of all the Slavic languages. It represents Slavic speech approximately from the 2nd millennium B.C. through the 6th century A.D. As with most other proto-languages, no attested writings have been found; scholars have reconstructed the language by applying the comparative method to all the attested Slavic languages and by taking into account other Indo-European languages. Rapid development of Slavic speech occurred during the Proto-Slavic period, coinciding with the massive expansion of the Slavic-speaking area. Dialectal differentiation occurred early on during this period, but overall linguistic unity and mutual intelligibility continued for several centuries, into the 10th century or later. During this period, many sound changes diffused across the entire area, often uniformly. This makes it inconvenient to maintain the traditional definition of a proto-language as the latest reconstructable common ancestor of a language group, with no dialectal differentiation. (This would necessitate treating all pan-Slavic changes after the 6th century or so as part of the separate histories of the various daughter languages.) Instead, Slavicists typically handle the entire period of dialectally-differentiated linguistic unity as Common Slavic. One can divide the Proto-Slavic/Common-Slavic time of linguistic unity roughly into three periods: Authorities differ as to which periods should be included in Proto-Slavic and in Common Slavic. The language described in this article generally reflects the middle period, usually termed Late Proto-Slavic (sometimes Middle Common Slavic) and often dated to around the 7th to 8th centuries. This language remains largely unattested, but a late-period variant, representing the late 9th-century dialect spoken around Thessaloniki in Greek Macedonia, is attested in Old Church Slavonic manuscripts.
  • 1.6K
  • 11 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Ch’orti’ Language
The Ch'orti' language (sometimes also Chorti) is a Mayan language, spoken by the indigenous Maya people who are also known as the Ch'orti' or Ch'orti' Maya. Ch'orti' is a direct descendant of the Classic Maya language in which many of the pre-Columbian inscriptions using the Maya script were written. This Classic Maya language is also attested in a number of inscriptions made in regions whose inhabitants most likely spoke a different Mayan language variant, including the ancestor of Yukatek Maya. Ch'orti' is the modern version of the ancient Mayan language Ch'olan (which was actively used and most popular between the years of A.D 250 and 850).
  • 1.6K
  • 15 Nov 2022
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