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Topic Review
Ural–Altaic Languages
Ural–Altaic, Uralo-Altaic or Uraltaic is a linguistic convergence zone and former language-family proposal uniting the Uralic and the Altaic (in the narrow sense) languages. It is generally now agreed that even the Altaic languages most likely do not share a common descent: the similarities among Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic are better explained by diffusion and borrowing. The term continues to be used for the central Eurasian typological, grammatical and lexical convergence zone. Indeed, "Ural-Altaic" may be preferable to "Altaic" in this sense. For example, J. Janhunen states that "speaking of 'Altaic' instead of 'Ural-Altaic' is a misconception, for there are no areal or typological features that are specific to 'Altaic' without Uralic." Originally suggested in the 18th century, the genealogical and racial hypotheses remained debated into the mid-20th century, often with disagreements exacerbated by pan-nationalist agendas. It had many proponents in Britain. Since the 1960s, the proposed language family has been widely rejected. A relationship between the Altaic, Indo-European and Uralic families was revived in the context of the Nostratic hypothesis, which was popular for a time, with for example Allan Bomhard treating Uralic, Altaic and Indo-European as coordinate branches. However, Nostratic too is now mostly rejected.
  • 2.1K
  • 31 Oct 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).
  • 1.9K
  • 28 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Proto-Iroquoian
Proto-Iroquoian is the name given to the hypothetical proto-language of the Iroquoian languages. Lounsbury (1961) estimated from glottochronology a time depth of 3,500 to 3,800 years for the split of South and North Iroquoian. At the time of first European contact, speakers of Iroquoian languages ranged from the Cherokee in the Great Smoky Mountains, to the Tuscarora and Nottoway near the modern Virginia/North Carolina border, then further north the Five Nations in Upstate New York and the Huron and Neutral in modern-day Ontario.
  • 382
  • 27 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Subject–object–verb
In linguistic typology, a subject–object–verb (SOV) language is one in which the subject, object, and verb of a sentence always or usually appear in that order. If English were SOV, "Sam oranges ate" would be an ordinary sentence, as opposed to the actual Standard English "Sam ate oranges" which is subject–verb–object (SVO). The term is often loosely used for ergative languages like Adyghe and Basque that really have agents instead of subjects.
  • 8.9K
  • 27 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.
  • 2.0K
  • 26 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Yaghan Language
Yagán (originally Yahgan, but also now spelled Yaghan, Jagan, Iakan), also known as Yámana, Háusi Kúta, and Yagankuta, is one of the indigenous languages of Tierra del Fuego, spoken by the Yaghan people. It is regarded as a language isolate, although some linguists have attempted to relate it to Kawésqar and Chono. Yahgan was also spoken briefly on Keppel Island in the Falkland Islands at a missionary settlement. Following the death of 84-year-old Emelinda Acuña (1921 – October 12, 2005), only one native speaker remains, Cristina Calderón of Villa Ukika on Navarino Island, Chile . Calderón (often referred to as simply Abuela) is the sister-in-law of Acuña. In 2017, Chile's National Corporation of Indigenous Development convened a workshop to plan an educational curriculum in the Yagán language, and in June 2019 it plans to inaugurate a language nest in the community of Bahía Mejillones, near Puerto Williams. The government is also funding the publication of a "concise and illustrated dictionary" of the Yagán language.
  • 415
  • 26 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Old Spanish Language
Old Spanish, also known as Old Castilian (Spanish: castellano antiguo; Template:Lang-osp [roˈmantse kasteˈʎano]) or Medieval Spanish (Spanish: español medieval), was originally a colloquial Latin spoken in the provinces of the Roman Empire that provided the root for the early form of the Spanish language that was spoken on the Iberian Peninsula from the 10th century until roughly the beginning of the 15th century, before a consonantal readjustment gave rise to the evolution of modern Spanish. The poem Cantar de Mio Cid (The Poem of the Cid), published around 1200, remains the best known and most extensive work of literature in Old Spanish.
  • 2.7K
  • 26 Oct 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.
  • 1.5K
  • 25 Oct 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.
  • 1.5K
  • 25 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Sustainable Development of Chinese High School English Learners
Since the establishment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), countries all around the globe have been working together toward an inclusive, sustainable, and resilient future. However, there is still a long way to go before meeting the aim of sustainable development on time. Providing quality education and promoting gender equality are important tasks encompassed by the UN development goals. Quality education is a key component of the SDGs, yet little is known about how to accomplish the SDGs’ quality education targets. Second language learning plays an essential role in cultivating international innovators, and it is also an important way of achieving sustainable development. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has forced many countries to close schools, posing a huge challenge to the sustainability of quality education. Managing the relationship between quality education and sustainable development in this new era is our top priority. In this special period, it becomes particularly important to study students’ motivation to learn a second language.
  • 414
  • 25 Oct 2022
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