Languages are grouped together into families. Languages belonging to the same family share common ancestors. This essay looks at some of the more common and important language families. These are described in general terms with unusual or interesting grammars indicated for selected languages.
There are tables showing several language families in detail:
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Indo-European Uralic Altaic Sino-Tibetan Malayo-Polynesian |
Afro-Asiatic Caucasian Dravidian Austro-Asiatic Niger-Congo |
There is also a listing of the 20 Most Spoken Languages in the world.
The English Language
A short history of the world's most important language including the origin of
British place-name prefixes and suffixes as well as borrowed words.
Borrowed Words in English
A collection of words in the English language that were originally borrowed from other languages. The list features languages as diverse as Arabic, Hindi, Cree, Italian, Quechua and Ewe.
Writing
The development, history and evolution of the world's writing systems. Beginning with pictographic forms and outlining the invention of the alphabet.
A map shows the evolution of scripts, alphabets and syllabaries with links to several examples:
English: UK and USA
Differences in the usage of English in the United Kingdom and the United States
of America.
Cockney English
Londoners (known as Cockneys) have their own distinct
vocabulary full of rhyming slang and unusual words developed in the criminal
underworld.
London Place Names
London is a collection of villages that sprang up and slowly amalgamated into the 1500 square kilometre city of the present. Here we look at the origin of place names in London.
Grammar
An essay on grammar defining different parts of speech with examples from different languages.
It's a WORLD Wide Web
Communicating over the internet in English. Common assumptions made that are a bar to effective communication.
