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Descriptive
In the study of language, description or descriptive linguistics is the work of objectively analyzing and describing how language is actually used (or how it was used in the past) by a speech community. François & Ponsonnet (2013). All academic research in linguistics is descriptive; like all other scientific disciplines, it aims to describe reality, without the bias of preconceived ideas about how it ought to be. Modern descriptive linguistics is based on a structural approach to language, as exemplified in the work of Leonard Bloomfield and others. This type of linguistics utilizes different methods in order to describe a language such as basic data collection, and different types of elicitation methods. Descriptive versus prescriptive linguistics Linguistic description, as used in academic and professional linguistics, is often contrasted with linguistic prescription, — entry for "Descriptivism and prescriptivism" quotation: "Contrasting terms in linguistics." (p.286) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pāṇini
(; , ) was a Sanskrit grammarian, logician, philologist, and revered scholar in ancient India during the mid-1st millennium BCE, dated variously by most scholars between the 6th–5th and 4th century BCE. The historical facts of his life are unknown, except only what can be inferred from his works, and legends recorded long after. His most notable work, the ''Aṣṭādhyāyī,'' is conventionally taken to mark the start of Classical Sanskrit. His work formally codified Classical Sanskrit as a refined and standardized language, making use of a technical metalanguage consisting of a syntax, morphology, and lexicon, organised according to a series of meta-rules. Since the exposure of European scholars to his ''Aṣṭādhyāyī'' in the nineteenth century, Pāṇini has been considered the "first Descriptive linguistics, descriptive linguist",#FPencyclo, François & Ponsonnet (2013: 184). and even labelled as "the father of linguistics". His approach to grammar influenced such ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quechuan Languages
Quechua (, ), also called (, 'people's language') in Southern Quechua, is an indigenous language family that originated in central Peru and thereafter spread to other countries of the Andes. Derived from a common ancestral " Proto-Quechua" language, it is today the most widely spoken pre-Columbian language family of the Americas, with the number of speakers estimated at 8–10 million speakers in 2004,Adelaar 2004, pp. 167–168, 255. and just under 7 million from the most recent census data available up to 2011. Approximately 13.9% (3.7 million) of Peruvians speak a Quechua language. Although Quechua began expanding many centuries before the Incas, that previous expansion also meant that it was the primary language family within the Inca Empire. The Spanish also tolerated its use until the Peruvian struggle for independence in the 1780s. As a result, various Quechua languages are still widely spoken today, being co-official in many regions and the most spoken language in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leonard Bloomfield
Leonard Bloomfield (April 1, 1887 – April 18, 1949) was an American linguist who led the development of structural linguistics in the United States during the 1930s and the 1940s. He is considered to be the father of American distributionalism. His influential textbook ''Language'', published in 1933, presented a comprehensive description of American structural linguistics. He made significant contributions to Indo-European historical linguistics, the description of Austronesian languages, and description of languages of the Algonquian family. Bloomfield's approach to linguistics was characterized by its emphasis on the scientific basis of linguistics and emphasis on formal procedures for the analysis of linguistic data. The influence of Bloomfieldian structural linguistics declined in the late 1950s and 1960s as the theory of generative grammar developed by Noam Chomsky came to predominate. Early life and education Bloomfield was born in Chicago, Illinois, on April 1, 1887 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chinese Language
Chinese ( or ) is a group of languages spoken natively by the ethnic Han Chinese majority and List of ethnic groups in China, many minority ethnic groups in China, as well as by various communities of the Chinese diaspora. Approximately 1.39 billion people, or 17% of the global population, speak a variety of Chinese as their first language. Chinese languages form the Sinitic languages, Sinitic branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. The spoken varieties of Chinese are usually considered by native speakers to be dialects of a single language. However, their lack of mutual intelligibility means they are sometimes considered to be separate languages in a Language family, family. Investigation of the historical relationships among the varieties of Chinese is ongoing. Currently, most classifications posit 7 to 13 main regional groups based on phonetic developments from Middle Chinese, of which the most spoken by far is Mandarin Chinese, Mandarin with 66%, or around 800&nb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1547
Year 1547 ( MDXLVII) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar. Events January–March * January 8 – The first Lithuanian-language book, a ''Catechism'' (, Simple Words of Catechism), is published in Königsberg by Martynas Mažvydas. * January 13 – Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey is sentenced to death for treason in England. * January 16 – Grand Prince Ivan IV is crowned as Tsar of all Russia at the Dormition Cathedral in Moscow, thereby proclaiming the Tsardom of Russia. * January 28 – King Henry VIII of England dies in London, and is succeeded by his 9-year-old son Edward VI, as King of England. * February 20 – Edward VI of England is crowned at Westminster Abbey. * March 31 – King Francis I of France dies at the Château de Rambouillet and is succeeded by his eldest surviving son Henry II (on his 28th birthday) as King of France. April–June * April 4 – Catherine Parr, widow of King Henry ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nahuatl
Nahuatl ( ; ), Aztec, or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about Nahuas, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have smaller populations Nahuatl language in the United States, in the United States. Nahuatl has been spoken in central Mexico since at least the seventh century CE. It was the language of the Mexica, who dominated what is now central Mexico during the Late Postclassic period of Mesoamerican chronology, Mesoamerican history. During the centuries preceding the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, the Aztecs had expanded to incorporate a large part of central Mexico. Their influence caused the variety of Nahuatl spoken by the residents of Tenochtitlan to become a prestige language in Mesoamerica. Following the Spanish conquest, Spanish colonists and missionaries introduced the Latin script, and Nahuatl became a literary language. Many chronicles, gram ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1586
Events January – March * January 3 – Augustus of Wettin, the Elector of Saxony, marries Agnes Hedwig of Anhalt, the 12-year-old daughter of Joachim Ernest, Prince of Anhalt. Augustus dies less than six weeks later. * January 18 – The 7.9 magnitude Tenshō earthquake strikes the Chubu region of Japan, triggering a tsunami and causing at least 8,000 deaths. * February 11 **After a two-day battle, an English assault force led by Francis Drake captures the South American port of Cartagena de Indias, part of Spain's colony, the Viceroyalty of Peru (now Cartagena in Colombia. **In Dresden, Christian I becomes the new Elector of Saxony, after the death of his father Augustus. * February 14 – In India, Yakub Shah Chak becomes the new Sultan of Kashmir after the death of his father, the Sultan Yousuf Shah. * February 16 – In what is now Buner District, Pakistan, Kalu Khan leads his Yousafzai-Afghan Lashkar to defeat the Mughal Army at the K ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
English Language
English is a West Germanic language that developed in early medieval England and has since become a English as a lingua franca, global lingua franca. The namesake of the language is the Angles (tribe), Angles, one of the Germanic peoples that Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, migrated to Britain after its End of Roman rule in Britain, Roman occupiers left. English is the list of languages by total number of speakers, most spoken language in the world, primarily due to the global influences of the former British Empire (succeeded by the Commonwealth of Nations) and the United States. English is the list of languages by number of native speakers, third-most spoken native language, after Mandarin Chinese and Spanish language, Spanish; it is also the most widely learned second language in the world, with more second-language speakers than native speakers. English is either the official language or one of the official languages in list of countries and territories where English ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1532
Year 1532 ( MDXXXII) was a leap year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar. Events January–March * January 22 – São Vicente is established as the first permanent Portuguese settlement in Brazil. Rachel Lawrence: 2010, Page 183 * February 12 – '' The Deceived Ones'' (''Gl'ingannati''), a stage comedy written collectively by the '' Accademia degli Intronati'' in Siena, makes its debut as part of the festivities of the Italian city's annual carnival. * February 24 – William Warham, the 81-year-old Roman Catholic Archbishop of Canterbury, publicly declares that he is disasocciating himself from all acts of the English Parliament that are prejudicial to papal authority.Jonathan Gray, ''Oaths and the English Reformation'' (Cambridge University Press, 2013) p.100 * March 18 – The Supplication against the Ordinaries is presented to Henry VIII by Thomas More the Speaker of the House of Commons. Henry responds by stating that the Commons could ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
French Language
French ( or ) is a Romance languages, Romance language of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European family. Like all other Romance languages, it descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire. French evolved from Northern Old Gallo-Romance, a descendant of the Latin spoken in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other langues d'oïl—languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, which French (Francien language, Francien) largely supplanted. It was also substratum (linguistics), influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul and by the Germanic languages, Germanic Frankish language of the post-Roman Franks, Frankish invaders. As a result of French and Belgian colonialism from the 16th century onward, it was introduced to new territories in the Americas, Africa, and Asia, and numerous French-based creole languages, most notably Haitian Creole, were established. A French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Fra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1492
Year 1492 ( MCDXCII) was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Julian calendar. 1492 is considered to be a significant year in the history of the West, Europe, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Spain, and the New World, among others, because of the number of significant events that took place. The events which propelled the year into Western consciousness, listed below, include the completion of the Reconquista of Spain, Europe's (Spain) discovery of the New World, and the expulsion of Jews from Spain. Events Known dates * January 2 – Fall of Granada: Muhammad XII, the last Emir of Granada, surrenders his city to the army of the Catholic Monarchs (Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile) after a lengthy siege, ending the ten-year Granada War and the centuries-long Reconquista, and bringing an end to 780 years of Muslim control in Al-Andalus. * January 6 – Ferdinand and Isabella enter Granada. * January 15 – Christopher Columbus meets Ferdinan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spanish Language
Spanish () or Castilian () is a Romance languages, Romance language of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family that evolved from the Vulgar Latin spoken on the Iberian Peninsula of Europe. Today, it is a world language, global language with 483 million native speakers, mainly in the Americas and Spain, and about 558 million speakers total, including second-language speakers. Spanish is the official language of List of countries where Spanish is an official language, 20 countries, as well as one of the Official languages of the United Nations, six official languages of the United Nations. Spanish is the world's list of languages by number of native speakers, second-most spoken native language after Mandarin Chinese; the world's list of languages by total number of speakers, fourth-most spoken language overall after English language, English, Mandarin Chinese, and Hindustani language, Hindustani (Hindi-Urdu); and the world's most widely spoken Romance language ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
