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Chinese characters have been an obstacle preventing the development of Chinese proficiency for learners of Chinese whose native language does not have characters. A substantial literature review identified linguistic, pedagogical, and political factors as causes of those difficulties. Tone changes represent different meanings of a word. Compound characters include the phonetic component radicals that do not always sound the same as the phonetic radicals. These unique linguistic features of the Chinese language add even more challenges for learning of Chinese as a foreign language (CFL).Technology integration has been found to facilitate the teaching and learning foreign languages in many efficient and effective ways.

This editorial explores and details the positives and subsequent draw backs of English being used nearly exclusively as the language of science. Discusses the present prejudices implicated against non native speakers of english, and how those within the science community can minimize these challenges.

This essay looks at the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which is that that the structure of a language determines a native speaker's perception and categorization of experience. This essay looks at how emotional differences in language are tied to the grammar and mechanics and they can't be shared borrowed across languages

Learning the intricacies of human languages is hard even for human children and non-native speakers - but it's particularly difficult for AI. Scientists have already taught computers how to do simple tasks, like translating one language to another or searching for keywords. Artificial intelligence has gotten better at solving these narrow problems. But now scientists are tackling harder problems, like how to build AI algorithms that can piece together bits of information to give a coherent answer for more complicated, nuanced questions. "Language is the ultimate frontier of AI research because you can express any thought or idea in language," states Stanford computer science professor Yoav Shoham. "It's as rich as human thinking." For Shoham, the excitement about artificial intelligence lies not only in what it can do - but also in what it can't. "It's not just mimicking the human brain in silicon, but asking what traits are so innately human that we don't think we can emulate them on a computer," Shoham said. "Our creativity, fairness, emotions, all the stuff we take for granted - machines can't even come close."

Straddling the imaginary border between the Balkans and Central Europe, Slovenia is home to two million citizens united by a common language. But this wasn't always the case. For about six hundred years, the Slovene lands were the domain of the Habsburgs, with the occasional appearance by the French, Italians, Hungarians, and Serbs. The Slovene language-and with it the core of Slovene identity-should by all rights have disappeared long ago, subsumed by the much stronger languages and political powers surrounding it. The language survived thanks to the efforts of many people, from the 16th-century protestants who first wrote it down to the 18th- and 19th-century intellectuals who coaxed it out of the church and spread it among the people. Among their arsenal of weapons: a cookbook, wielded by one relentlessly determined priest, Valentin Vodnik. Vodnik was a man of boundless energy, curiosity, and drive: Besides his work as a priest and later a high-school teacher and headmaster, he was fluent in half a dozen languages, wrote some of the first Slovene poetry, published the first Slovene newspaper, and began corresponding with intellectuals in Slovene. Vodnik's mission was popularizing and elevating the reputation of the language at a time when educated Slovenes mostly spoke German, considering their native tongue to be the vernacular of poor illiterate farmers, unfit for polite society and incapable of expressing complex ideas.

This article discusses a study that explored the average rate that people read in their native languages. Through this study, it is evident that the various aspects that make up a language play a large role when it comes to the speed that a person reads at. Spanish speakers read the fastest syllables at 526 syllables per minute.

Omniglot is a fun site, created by Simon Ager, who's a language enthusiast: an encyclopedia of writing systems and languages. You can use it to learn about languages, alphabets and other writing systems, and phrases, numbers and other things in many languages (the site embeds native speaker sound files). The site also provides advice on how to learn languages.

Babies only hours old are able to differentiate between sounds from their native language and a foreign language, scientists have discovered. The study indicates that babies begin absorbing language while still in the womb, earlier than previously thought.

President Joe Biden and Dr. Anthony Fauci mispronounced the new COVID variant at a recent White House speech, calling the variant "omnicron" instead of the Greek letter "omicron." However, linguists explain that this is an expected error, as it is common for humans to take words from other languages and 'nativize' foreign sounds to make it more natural-sounding in their mother tongue. The abundance of English words with the prefix omni- seems to serve like a magnet, drawing in speakers to the similar set of letters and tempting speakers to mispronounce the omi- prefix as "omnicron."

This article discusses how a new cell tower in Oklahoma could help young people preserve their culture and language. Before the cell tower, the Cherokee Nation had to struggle to make phone calls and send messages. Cherokee Nation leaders hope that this new addition will spread the Cherokee language by connecting to native speakers.

This post (a 2021 update of a 2018 post) contains several useful infographics and charts, including a visualization of the top 23 most-spoken languages in the world, distribution of those languages by country, a family tree of Indo-European languages.

The immigration debate often centers on who should be welcomed into our country. Some even argue that multiculturalism dilutes our national character - that the very the essence of the country is somehow vanishing. But far from undermining the American experiment, immigrants enhance our culture by introducing new ideas, cuisines and art. They also enrich the English language. As newcomers master a new language, they lend words from their native lexicon to the rest of us. While American English can be perceived as a threat to the survival of other cultures around the world, within our country it is a force that helps to bind us together, even as ideological polarization pulls the other way. Immigrants help us reinvigorate our multitudinous language.

This article gives a history recap, a Ni'ihau dialect lesson, and a unique perspective on the differences between how Ni'ihau natives speak versus the modern Hawaiian language we hear more commonly. I've met the interviewee in this article and she's a very well-respected and well-known kumu in Hawai'i.

The critical period hypothesis is one of the reasons that some adults are hesitant to take on learning their heritage language. The theory essentially argues that there's a biological window where language learning is the most automatic, somewhere between the age of 2 and puberty. This theory has entered our popular consciousness as a rule that you can't learn a second-language fluently when you're older. However, scientists disagree with this notion because although it will take more conscious effort, it is still possible to become fluent in another language past the "critical window." Specifically, second language acquisition becomes more difficult with age because it requires rewiring your brain to break certain habits that relate to language learning. For example, pronunciation and accent requires breaking habits related to the way you move your mouth to speak, making it more difficult to have native-level pronunciation as you grow older. Beyond neuroscience, though, research has shown that other factors, such as exposure and education influence language learning.

Very interesting article on how English will change in the future. It includes clips of what Old English, Modern English, and Future English sound like compared to each other. It's interesting to see how English could start to sound like foreign languages as it picks up characteristics given by non-native speakers.

The Gitxsan Nation, an indigenous tribe, is located in northwestern British Columbia. Victoria software developer and linguist Aidan Pine used open source code to adapt the virally-popular online game Wordle for Gitxsan. While Pine recognizes that games like Wordle can support language learners, Pine said he's it's important to remember that technology is not what keeps languages alive. "People revitalize languages through hard work and determination. And if small games like this can help or make it easier, that's great." Stay tuned--word has it there's an `Ōlelo Hawai`i version in the works, and other coder linguists can find Pineʻs code here (itʻs adaptable to any language): github.com/roedoejet/AnyLanguage-Wordle

https://www.mauinews.com/news/local-news/2022/02/uh-maui-college-professor-releases-hawaiian-version-of-online-game-wordle/ Ka pepa uila: hulihua.net

An interesting scholarly sociolinguistic paper! Jane H. Hill, a University of Arizona linguist, examines the use of mock Spanish phrases In the southwestern United States. Hill wondered why English speakers of ``Anglo" ethnic affiliation make considerable use of Spanish in casual speech, in spite of the fact that the great majority of them are utterly monolingual in English under most definitions. However, these monolinguals both produce Spanish and consume it, especially in the form of Mock Spanish humor, and that use of Mock Spanish intensified during precisely the same period when opposition to the use of Spanish native speakers has grown, reaching its peak in the passage of ``Official English'' statutes in several states during the last decade. Hill argues that the use of Mock Spanish is, in fact, racist discourse.

The culture of Okinawa, Japan is quite distinct from other Japanese islands. It became a part of Japan in 1879, but has a strong American influence because of three decades of military occupation following WWII. Today, 20% of the island is made up of over 30 U.S. military bases. This history has resulted in the near extinction of the Okinawan language, called Uchinaguchi, which was systematically suppressed when the island was annexed by Japan. Because of ubiquitous U.S. presence, Okinawans perceive more of a need for English competence than for learning the language of their ancestors. Once the U.S. ceded control of the island back to Japan in the 1970's, the island underwent changes that many Okinawans perceived as another occupation, but this time instead of U.S. military projects, Japanese business took over the island. Japanese power over Okinawa can even be seen in the language politics: Uchinaguchi was long considered a dialect of Japanese despite the two languages having less than 60% in common. In 2009 UNESCO recognized Okinawan as its own language along with five others spoken in the region, all of which are endangered. Native speakers are aging and dying off. Efforts to revitalize Uchinaguchi on the island are regularly stifled by the local government's indifference towards the language. Nonetheless, the language is praised for its folkloric value and is featured in local theater. Some schools offer language classes, such as Okinawa Christian University. Because Uchinaguchi is a low priority in the political field, the cultural field is the site of language revitalization and resistance to its extinction. One benefit of promoting the language through culture is that, unlike the government, the culture can have influence overseas.

For intimate expressions - praying, lying, expressing anger, showing affection, even cursing - our native language is usually our strongest, says Boston University professor of psychology Catherine Harris. The language spoken primarily in the home or with loved ones develops a deeper emotional resonance than one learned in the classroom.

This article describes the situation of the language shift in Ireland from Irish Gaelic to English. It discusses the dilemma poets and writers face when choosing to write in the native tongue of the land or English.