12 min read
This is not another article about how to recognize and deal with fake friends in your life. Here, we’ll talk about a different kind of struggle. Anyone who learns a foreign language needs to watch out for so-called false friends. No, they are not people who try to sabotage your effort by giving harmful advice.…
Languages
Language Facts for Everyone
As we are in the “Language” category, let’s talk about some interesting language trivia. But even before that, let’s learn some basic facts about language to have a full grasp on the subject. A language is a system of communication that allows people to express themselves and understand one another.
Trivia about language etymology
The word ‘language’ is derived from the Latin word “lingua”, which means tongue. The interesting trivia about language is that until the 17th century, it wasn’t used to refer to a system of communication.
Facts about language categorization
Nowadays, the language is considered as one of the following:
-
- A living natural language (such as English)
- A dead natural language (such as Latin)
- A constructed language (such as Esperanto)
- A dialect continuum (such as the Scandinavian languages)
- Code used for communication between computers, such as Morse code or binary
- One of the most interesting language facts is that languages don’t have to be the real historical ones to be popular and alive… we’re talking of course about fictional languages.
Fictional Languages
Fictional languages are the ones that are created for the sake of the artistic work. They have a lot of uses in the world of storytelling, such as to create an exotic feel and to provide a sense of depth to the universe. There is a lot of interesting language trivia about such languages. Let’s focus on the most popular ones.
Fictional Languages Facts: Categories
There are many different types of fictional languages, and they can be broadly classified into three categories: constructed, naturalistic, and engineered. Fun language facts about it is that they are made up entirely by their creators and don’t exist anywhere in nature. These types of languages usually involve a lot of thought put into their structure, grammar, vocabulary and culture.
Naturalistic languages on the other hand are based on real-world language structures but with added elements or influences from other cultures or places. The fun language trivia about that is that these types of fictional language can be found in various forms, like Tolkien’s Elvish or George R. R. Martin’s Dothraki language for example. Engineered languages on the other hand are based on real-world language structures. Fun trivia about language of this type is that it has elements or influences from other cultures
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