A language is a structured system of communication used by humans, based on speech and gesture (spoken language), sign, or often writing. The structure of language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Many languages, including the most widely-spoken ones, have writing systems that enable sounds or signs to be recorded for later reactivation.
The scientific study of language is called linguistics. Critical examinations of languages, such as philosophy of language, the relationships between language and thought, etc, such as how words represent experience, have been debated at least since Gorgias and Plato in ancient Greek civilization. Thinkers such as Rousseau (1712 – 1778) have debated that language originated from emotions, while others like Kant (1724 –1804), have held that languages originated from rational and logical thought. Twentieth century philosophers such as Wittgenstein (1889 – 1951) argued that philosophy is really the study of language itself. Major figures in contemporary linguistics of these times include Ferdinand de Saussure and Noam Chomsky.
Estimates of the number of human languages in the world vary between 5,000 and 7,000. However, any precise estimate depends on the arbitrary distinction (dichotomy) between languages and dialect. Natural languages are spoken or signed (or both), but any language can be encoded into secondary media using auditory, visual, or tactile stimuli – for example, in writing, whistling, signing, or braille. In other words, human language is modality-independent, but written or signed language is the way to inscribe or encode the natural human speech or gestures. Depending on philosophical perspectives regarding the definition of language and meaning, when used as a general concept, "language" may refer to the cognitive ability to learn and use systems of complex communication, or to describe the set of rules that makes up these systems, or the set of utterances that can be produced from those rules. All languages rely on the process of semiosis to relate signs to particular meanings. Oral, manual and tactile languages contain a phonological system that governs how symbols are used to form sequences known as words or morphemes, and a syntactic system that governs how words and morphemes are combined to form phrases and utterances.
Human language is unique among known systems of animal communication in that it is not dependent on a single mode of transmission (sight, sound etc.), it is highly variable between cultures and across time, and affords a much wider range of expression than other systems. It has the properties of productivity and displacement, and relies on social convention and learning. Language is thought to have gradually diverged from earlier primate communication systems when early hominins acquired the ability to form a theory of mind and shared intentionality. This development is sometimes thought to have coincided with an increase in brain volume, and many linguists see the structures of language as having evolved to serve specific communicative and social functions. Language is processed in many different locations in the human brain, but especially in Broca's and Wernicke's areas. Humans acquire language through social interaction in early childhood, and children generally speak fluently by approximately three years old. Language and culture are codependent. Therefore, in addition to its strictly communicative uses, language has social uses such as signifying group identity, social stratification, as well as use for social grooming and entertainment.
Languages evolve and diversify over time, and the history of their evolution can be reconstructed by comparing modern languages to determine which traits their ancestral languages must have had in order for the later developmental stages to occur. A group of languages that descend from a common ancestor is known as a language family; in contrast, a language that has been demonstrated to not have any living or non-living relationship with another language is called a language isolate. There are also many unclassified languages whose relationships have not been established, and spurious languages may have not existed at all. Academic consensus holds that between 50% and 90% of languages spoken at the beginning of the 21st century will probably have become extinct by the year 2100.
I've done a very small amount of C++, but I don't want to spend the time I have to prepare on learning a language when it would have been more preferable to learn another (even though it seems you may use several language, and learning one helps to learn another.)
But are there any language...
Dennis Ritchie died on the 8th, but I didn't find out until today. He created the C programming language.
http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2011/10/dennis-ritchie/"
Can anyone please explain what is EOF in C programming language.
Is it a value (numeric, character) or something else ??
While reading the book "The C programming language", by Ritchie I came across this term. The code was :
#include <stdio.h>
/* copy input to output; 1st version */...
hi
i wish everyone in good health
this semester I am studying Assembly language ..
and our lecturer in my university is not good at teaching ..
so i hope some one helps me to online ppt lectures or videos or any website .. that i can study assembly language step by step ...
thanx alot
Hi
I am a UK student and I'll be applying for undergrad physics courses in the UK and hopefully mainland Europe to start next September - just in time for the £9000/year fees to kick in! Most of my chosen UK courses are "Year in Europe" courses anyway, since I would like to study abroad...
I am a boy from nepal. i am in my grade 12 and 15 years old. my language skills are below satisfactory but my physics is good. due to certain circumstances i was forced to take biology instead of mathematics. i am good at mathematics too . i want to study physics in my undergrad. in nepal...
Hi, I'm having a little trouble understand the idea of closure as so many places seem to describe it differently.
I'm working on an example problem that states "L* is the closure of language L under which relations?"
From what I gather, for a language to be closed over a relation, it means...
What really irks me is reading/hearing gendered language in science - or ANYWHERE for that matter! But especially in science, as it should use strictly non-gendered language, I strongly feel, to preserve objective scientific accuracy. "He" the observer, "he" the scientist, the "manned" space...
I'm interested in learning a new language simply for the sake of knowing one apart from English. I've heard much about French and Spanish, but cannot choose which one to learn.
I'm guessing that Spanish would be more useful in the US seeing that there are so many who speak it. I'm tempted to...
Hey everyone...I am poised in which foreign language would be best since I want to work in the aerospace industry when I eventually get my doctorate (research aspect, such as space exploration)
I have heard many good suggesions, such as: French, Russian, German, Portugues
I already speak...
Here is a part of a statement, it might be incorrect, I don't remember the exact statement. Please tell me what the double exclamation marks means and what about the double percentages.
Here is the code.
if (!(!d = %%d))
else ... ( not spot-on, don't remember)
I think...
Can you explain the working mechanism of extern keyword in C language? I have tried wiki and other sites but couldn't follow. Please explain in simple english.
My professor wanted us to create a program that will automate the computations for our leveling practices, e.g. Computing height of the instrument when elevation and backsight is given etc. that may be tabulated. I believe excel would be the best bet for that. But he also included that we must...
Wikipedia does a pretty good job at explaining how different calculators treat percentage differently. For example Google or Excel will say:
50 + 10% = 50.1 ... (== 50 + (10/100))
...but Soulver or Microsoft Calculator will say:
50 + 10% = 55 ... (== 50 + (50*10/100))
I understand the...
Dunno if anyone have played a massive successful game called "Altitude", it's a multiplayer game, I have no idea what language it is coded, but I want to know is it possible to code a cheap mock up of the game with Java? And distribute it on Android?
I don't know much about this subject, so this is probably a very basic question.
If I want to understand/explain something, I use inductive or deductive reasoning, which are parts of logic. For example, take this inductive reasoning:
Every life form we know of depends on liquid water to exist...
Hi guys, I'm Brazilian I started studying aeronautical engineering, now I'm still learning English too.
I am a great-grandson of Italian, and I'm behind the Italian citizenship, it's good for me to learn Italian in aerospace engineering?
or I have to learn another language?
I'm in my first year of theoretical physics master and I'm considering of following the path of scientific simulations. At the moment I use C for my simulations. I would additionally like to learn an object oriented language. I followed a course in Java about 2 years ago, so that would be easier...
Hello, I am currently a Junior in high school and am interested in majoring in Physics when I go off to college. I have looked online and saw that many people have suggested learning a programming language and was wondering which language would be a good one for me to learn saying I would be...
I am just finishing up grade 11 and thought it would be worthwhile to learn a programming language over the summer. However, I'm unsure which language I would do best to learn. I can already code in Turing, HTML, and Java. I am most likely going to pursue an education in science or engineering...
I am new to programing in general, and I want to learn a language that will be useful to me as a physicist. I am currently looking mostly at C++, but Java and C# also seem like useful tools. I don't want to waste my time studying anything that I won't use. Any suggestions from those of you who...
Hello,
I am a second year Mech Engineering student. I was co-oping this past spring and was introduced to programming/embedded systems in real life situations. Among this, simulation caught my attention as well. Have decided that it would be great to learn a language so that I can use it for...
"End the R-word"
What you do all make of the campaign to end the usage of the word "retard"? I understand their motivation (to prevent emotional damage to those it offends), but I can't help but think another word will just replace it.
Hello hello, I'm currently trying to teach myself a language, Japanese. I'm using Rosetta Stone right now and things are going great for the most part. The problem I have is that it only teaches you what can be associated with a picture which works phenomenally with vocab. You also have to infer...
How to write assembly language program in DOS environment? I want to type my assembly language program in some interface and compile and link and execute it. How do I do that? Should I use one of those Masm/Nasm/Tasm assemblers or what?
Hi
I am thinking of learning french and/or russian. In the days of open source software, I am sure
people have created great resources for this purpose. I am looking for such learning material.
May be videos and stuff. Should have clear information on pronunciations. There is a lot
of...
Polish language: the "ch"
I'm having a doubt about the pronounciation of the "ch" in Polish. When it is followed by a vowell (like in the word "kocham") I know it's pronounced similarly to the "j" in Spanish or probably some arabic consonant. However when it ends a word (like in the word...
With China being an up and coming world power I am considering taking Chinese as a minor during my undergrad studies. Some of my friends think that this will be distracting and may take focus away from my other intense courses but I figure that the language is only 3 credit hours boosting my...
I'm currently going through the process of looking at schools I might transfer to next year and I'm surprised at the number of schools that require you to either pass a second language proficiency exam or to take 4+ semesters of a second language.
Personally, being an older student, I feel...
Suppose L\sum* = L for an alphabet \sum . What can we say about the possible strings in L?
I know that the \sum* is a collection of all possible words of a language and I know that 'L' is a subset of \sum* . So L concatenated with \sum* needs to be equivalent to L. I am stumped.
Homework Statement
my notes say this:
Conservation of momentum in one deminsion
m1(v1initial-v1final) = m2(v2i-v2f) equation 1
Conservation of Kinetic Energy:
mass1*(v1^2initial - v1^2final) = mass2(v2^2in - v2^2fin) equation 2
Then is says: on the left hand side...
What would be the most useful foreign language for an engineer? Germany is known for having a huge engineering industry but I've heard that German employers usually don't care about someone speaking German as long as they know English and the resume is impressive.
So would you say it's...
I'm considering trying to learn a second language by either joining the military or attending a language school. If I join the military I will most likely learn Arabic or Chinese, probably Arabic I'm guessing.
I'm currently studying at UNF to become an electrical engineer. What benefit would...
Based on the theory that language is determined by thought, I was wondering if it is possible for a person to have absolutely no thoughts (while retaining consciousness) and be able to speak.
Dee
hello everyone,:wink:
i read somewhere that machine language program is the fastest when compared to assembly language and high-level languages program.
i don't get it. i think you can say machine language program is already in 'exe' form. but once assembly language program and high-level...
Many colleges require that all students learn a foreign language, but I have no idea which one I would want to study. Right now I don't know which area of physics I want to go into, or where I want to live. I suppose that if I stay in the U.S. it doesn't really matter which foreign language I...
I use gcc to compile the code. When I run the program, I get segmentation fault (core dumped).
ranked_galaxies.txt:
# PGC Name RA DEC Mass Distance Diameter Tile_Number Rank_stat
37617 NGC3992 179.399700 53.374450 2.290868 22.909000 5.613000 1 2.51796409431e-05
62964 IC4837A...
I have noticed that when one learns a second language they tend to learn how to read then write and lastly they learn to speak the language. I have noticed this pattern when I have attempted learning a second language as well as when my father was attempting to learn a second language...
Let L be language over unary alphabet {0}. Show that L is context free iff L is regular.
Could someone give me a hint how to solve this problem?
I solved similar problem: Show that L* is regular, but I still don't have idea how to solve previous.
Second problem could be solved in this way (e...
Hopefully someone with some experience in the field can help me out here:
I'm currently studying engineering and I'm going to use my liberal arts concentration to learn a second language. In the aerospace engineering field, i would think it would be beneficial to know Russian, Mandarin, or...
Write an assembly language program that uses ten memory locations (variables) filled with 0, starting at Address 30, and that stores the values 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, and 22 in them. Your program will store 2 at Address 30, 4 at address 31, 6 at address 32, etc. Your program must...
I'm working on brushing up on some programming languages.
Being a big believer in the idea that the best way to learn is by doing, I'm looking for problems of various difficulties I can work through before embarking on some larger project. Anyone know a good resource?
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
int main()
{ double a[10];
int i=0;
for(i=0;i<10;i++)
a[i]=0.0;
for(i=0;i<10;i++)
printf("a[%d]=%e, "), i, a[i];}
The result is radom number. What's wrong with my code?
/*find abs value of an array*/
int absv(double *a, int n)
{
int i;
for(i=0;i<n;i++)
{if (a[i]<0)
a[i]=-a[i];
}
}
int main()
{
double a[7];
int i,j;
for(i=0;i<7;i++)
scanf("%lf\n",&a[i]);
absv(a,7);
for(j=0;j<7;j++)
printf("%e\n",a[j]);
printf("%d,%d",i,j);
}
The...
Hey,
I was wondering, since mechatronics deals with control system and computer programming, what sort of programming language would be beneficial for me to start learning now before my university starts?
since i have around 6 months i though i would be good idea to start learning some...