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People have always spoken differently from how they write, and texting is actually talking with your fingers Texting has long been bemoaned as the downfall of the written word, "penmanship for illiterates," as one critic called it. To which the proper response is LOL.

This article explores the argument that texting might be ruining and defacing the importance behind the english language. It explains how texting has really become its own language. It has created a different type of grammar, conventions, and patterns to writing.

When you text someone, are you writing or talking? People have always spoken differently from the way they write. This article says that texting properly is actually closer to spoken language than it is to writing, and that it is a new kind of talking and is developing its own kind of grammar and conventions. It uses "LOL" to give an example of how the texting language is changing, just like spoken languages are constantly evolving.

Ben Blatt, _Slate_ journalist, shares and reports on some maps of the United States that incorporate data from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey regarding the languages spoken in American homes. One map shows what language, after English, is most commonly spoken in each of the 50 states (Spanish, for the most part), and another, the second most-spoken language. I personally question the veracity of the data for Hawai'i, which lists Tagalog as the second-most spoken language behind English. Surely it's Hawai'i Creole English (HCE), but perhaps it's because survey respondents don't know HCE= its own language. Also, Ilocano seems to be more commonly spoken than Tagalog in the 808, but maybe because Tagalog= the language of school instruction in the Philippines, it's universally spoken by everyone who speaks some Filipino variant. Some caveats on the construction of these maps. A language like Chinese is not counted as a single language, but is split into different dialects: Cantonese, Mandarin, Shanghaiese and treated as different languages. If those languages had been grouped together, the marking of many states would change. In addition, Hawaiian is listed as a Pacific Island language, so following ACS classifications, it was not included in the Native American languages map.

Spontaneous gesture can help children learn, whether they use a spoken language or sign language, according to a new report by Susan Goldin-Meadow, psychology professor at the University of Chicago. "Children who can hear use gesture along with speech to communicate as they acquire spoken language," a researcher said. "Those gesture-plus-word combinations precede and predict the acquisition of word combinations that convey the same notions. Gesture plays a role in learning for signers even though it is in the same modality as sign. As a result, gesture cannot aid learners simply by providing a second modality. Rather, gesture adds imagery to the categorical distinctions that form the core of both spoken and sign languages. Goldin-Meadow concludes that gesture can be the basis for a self-made language, assuming linguistic forms and functions when other vehicles are not available. But when a conventional spoken or sign language is present, gesture works along with language, helping to promote learning.

Like the title, this article talks about the future of language, but more specifically it focuses on the future of language through economics. It shares statistics showing each language and the number of native speakers. To know surprise, Chinese leads with 1.39 billion speakers. Yet, the most vastly spoken language is English. English is abundant in 101 countries around the world, almost double of the next leading language Hindu, which is spoken in a respectable 60 countries. English is the most universal language, but researchers have noticed that Hindu and Chinese are two rapidly emerging economies. So, it wouldn't be unwise to learn either of these languages to give yourself a helpful advantage in your career. For example, if you have a business meeting with foreigners who speak Chinese and know Mandarin, you are likely to be successful in your endeavors.

Previously, genetic analysis had indicated that the ancestors of Native Americans left Siberia to migrate across ancient Beringia (the strip of land that once connected Asia and what's now Alaska) about 25,000 years ago, but the earliest evidence of human habitation on North America dates to 15,000 years ago. With ice covering much of Alaska, the ancestors of Native Americans might've lived in Beringia for about 10,000 years before moving on. Now linguistic evidence may help support that theory. A pair of linguistics researchers, Mark Sicoli and Gary Holton, recently analyzed languages from North American Na-Dene family (traditionally spoken in Alaska, Canada and parts of the present-day U.S.) and the Asian Yeneseian family (spoken thousands of miles away, in central Siberia), using similarities and differences between the languages to construct a language family tree. As they note in an article published today in PLOS ONE, they found that the two language families are indeed related-and both appear to descend from an ancestral language that can be traced to the Beringia region. Both Siberia and North America, it seems, were settled by the descendants of a community that lived in Beringia for some time. In other words, Sicoli says, "this makes it look like Beringia wasn't simply a bridge, but actually a homeland-a refuge, where people could build a life."

A spoken language is more than just words and sounds. Speakers use changes in pitch and rhythm, known as prosody, to provide emphasis, show emotion, and otherwise add meaning to what they say. But a language does not need to be spoken to have prosody: sign languages, such as American Sign Language (ASL), use movements, pauses and facial expressions to achieve the same goals. In a study appearing in the September 2015 issue of Language, three linguists look at intonation (a key part of prosody) in ASL and find that native ASL signers learn intonation in much the same way that users of spoken languages do. Children learning ASL acquired prosodic features in three stages of "appearance, reorganization, and mastery": accurately replicating their use in simpler contexts, attempting unsuccessfully at first to use them in more challenging contexts, then using them accurately in all contexts as they fully learn the rules of prosody. Previous research has shown that native learners of spoken languages acquire intonation following a similar pattern.

"the researchers discovered, the more data-dense the average syllable is, the fewer of those syllables had to be spoken per second - and the slower the speech thus was. English, with a high information density of .91, is spoken at an average rate of 6.19 syllables per second. Mandarin, which topped the density list at .94, was the spoken slowpoke at 5.18 syllables per second. ... Despite those differences, at the end of, say, a minute of speech, all of the languages would have conveyed more or less identical amounts of information."

This article discusses the use of grammar in vocal conversation vs written. They analyzed the use of "are" and "is" properly and stated that it applied to written language, but doesn't really apply to spoken conversation. This is because in the middle of a conversation, we don't have the time to set up everything to be grammatically correct every time. The brain formulates the simplest and quickest response to continue the conversation.

Even though you're reading this article in English, there's a good chance it might not be your mother tongue. Of the billion-strong English speakers in the world, only 33% consider it their native language. The popularity of a language depends greatly on utility and geographic location. Additionally, how we measure the spread of world languages can vary greatly depending on whether you look at total speakers or native speakers. This detailed visualization from WordTips illustrates the 100 most spoken languages in the world, the number of native speakers for each language, and the origin tree that each language has branched out from. One reason these languages are popular is that they are actively and consistently used. Unfortunately, nearly 3,000 (about 40%) of all languages are at risk of being lost, or are already in the process of dying out today.

Research from Columbia Business School professors Adam Galinsky and Michael Slepian shows that merely saying a name aloud sparks an instant connection to a specific gender, evoking a cascading pattern of stereotypical judgments about the masculinity or femininity of an individual, often in the first second of hearing a spoken name. "Names give cues to social categories, which in turn, activate stereotypes," says Slepian. "By considering how names symbolically represent stereotypes, we link sounds to social perception. The most basic social category division is gender and the most distinction between phonemes (the sounds that make up words) is voiced versus unvoiced. We found that female and male names differ phonetically." The Columbia Business School researchers believe that names become established as for males or females through their spoken sounds. They conducted eleven studies focused on distinguishing the different sounds of spoken names. The findings provide consistent evidence that voiced names (those pronounced with vocal cord vibration which often sound "harder") such as "Gregory," "James," and "William" are given more frequently to males, and unvoiced names (those pronounced without vocal cord vibration which often sound "softer" and breathier) such as "Heather," "Sarah," and "Tiffany" are more frequently given to females. These name assignments fit stereotypical gender categories - men as "hard" and tough, and women as "soft" and tender. The researchers also noted other naming trends, namely 1. A rise in gender-neutral names. 2. Parents are more likely to give their baby a name that has recently grown in popularity. 3. Parents often give names that phonetically resemble their social category. 4. Female names go in and out of style faster than male names. 5. Current naming inspiration includes social media and technology, celestial themes, and royal birth announcements.

Some metaphors are common in spoken language but are inappropriate in sign, body-part metaphors are possible in sign metaphors but odd/uncommon in spoken metaphor. In spoken language, tone and body position determine when a metaphor is that and not literal. Sign metaphors also have similar markers such as change in facial expression but are more limited in expressing change in tone and body position (as the body is already the main mode of communication). There is a sign for "metaphor" or a way to slightly change the signs for common words in metaphor so that the "listener" knows that the "speaker" means something metaphorically as opposed to literally.

"Latin is a language as dead as dead can be; It killed the ancient Romans, and now it's killing me!" In the past, Latin teaching has emphasized grammar and translation. Yet, to paraphrase Monty Python, Latin might now well say, "But I'm not dead yet!" Read about this movement to revive spoken Latin, in order to make it a "living language" more relevant and engaging to a new generation of learners.

In this vibrant borough of Queens, NY, a street called Roosevelt Avenue cuts a cross-section through some of the most ethnically diverse neighborhoods on Earth. Spanish, Bengali, Punjabi, Mixtec, Seke, and Kuranko are among the hundreds of languages spoken here.

Copied from Youtube description: "How did humans acquire language? In this lecture, best-selling author Steven Pinker introduces you to linguistics, the evolution of spoken language, and the debate over the existence of an innate universal grammar. He also explores why language is such a fundamental part of social relationships, human biology, and human evolution. Finally, Pinker touches on the wide variety of applications for linguistics, from improving how we teach reading and writing to how we interpret law, politics, and literature."

Provides audio of spoken Globish and side-by-side comparisons.

New research suggests that dolphins may have a spoken language of their own; in a recent study by Russian researchers two dolphins communicated using a series of whistles and clicks (called pulses), and didn't ever interrupt each other. They also noted that the pulses sounded like sentences. With new recording technologies, the researchers were able to separate potential words from filler clicks, and the researchers hope to one day build a machine that will allow humans and dolphins to communicate.

An estimated 7,000 languages are being spoken around the world. But that number is expected to shrink rapidly in the coming decades. What is lost when a language dies? In 1992 a prominent US linguist stunned the academic world by predicting that by the year 2100, 90% of the world's languages would have ceased to exist.

An estimated 7,000 languages are being spoken around the world. But that number is expected to shrink rapidly in the coming decades. What is lost when a language dies? In 1992 a prominent US linguist stunned the academic world by predicting that by the year 2100, 90% of the world's languages would have ceased to exist.

The UN Atlas of Endangered Languages lists 18 languages with only one remaining speaker. With about one language disappearing every two weeks, some of these have probably already died off. The following 18 languages were last known to have one remaining speaker.

"Facebook, YouTube and even texting will be the salvation of many of the world's endangered languages, scientists believe. Of the 7,000 or so languages spoken on Earth today, about half are expected to be extinct by the century's end. ... Tuvan, an indigenous tongue spoken by nomadic peoples in Siberia and Mongolia, even has an iPhone app to teach the pronunciation of words to new students. 'It's what I like to call the flipside of globalisation' [said K David Harrison] ... 'Everything that people know about the planet, about plants, animals, about how to live sustainably, the polar ice caps, the different ecosystems that humans have survived in - all this knowledge is encoded in human cultures and languages, whereas only a tiny fraction of it is encoded in the scientific literature.'"

The vast majority of the 175 indigenous languages still spoken in the United States are on the verge of extinction. Linguist Elizabeth Little spent two years driving all over the country looking for the few remaining pockets where those languages are still spoken - from the scores of Native American tongues, to the Creole of Louisiana. (Audio Story is also given).