Module 40: Language
How language works, where it came from, and what it does to thought
Part A · what language is — the miracle of communication
What makes language language — and how it differs from animal communication
Design features of languageDisplacementProductivityAnimal communication systems
The numbers — how many languages, speakers, and scripts exist
~7,000 living languagesLanguage by speakers chartLanguage endangermentExtinction rate
Language families — how languages are related to each other
Indo-European family treeSino-TibetanAfroasiaticLanguage isolatesFamily tree diagram
Proto-languages and reconstruction — what we know about language origins
Comparative methodProto-Indo-EuropeanThe origin of language debate
Part B · how language is structured — linguistics fundamentals
Phonetics and phonology — the sounds of language
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet)Consonants & vowelsPhonemes vs allophonesTone languages
Morphology — how words are built from smaller pieces
MorphemesPrefixes, suffixes, rootsAgglutinative vs fusionalWord formation processes
Syntax — how sentences are structured
Subject-verb-object ordersSOV vs SVO vs VSOPhrase structureRecursion
Semantics and pragmatics — meaning and what we really mean
Literal vs implied meaningGrice's maximsSpeech actsMetaphor theory
Writing systems — from pictograms to alphabets
Logographic systemsSyllabariesAlphabetsAbjadsWriting systems map
Part C · how we acquire and use language
First language acquisition — how children learn to speak
Critical periodStages of acquisitionNativist vs empiricist debateUniversal Grammar
Second language acquisition — why adults struggle and what actually works
Critical period hypothesisInput hypothesis (Krashen)Effective methodsBilingualism benefits
Sociolinguistics — how language varies by class, region, and identity
Dialect vs accentRegister & styleCode-switchingLanguage and power
Language change — how languages evolve and die
Sound changeSemantic shiftLanguage contact & borrowingCreoles & pidgins
Part D · language and thought — the big questions
Does language shape thought? — the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis and the evidence
Strong vs weak WhorfColour perception studiesSpatial cognitionWhat the evidence actually shows
Translation — what is and isn't translatable
Untranslatable wordsLiterary translation problemsMachine translation limits
Metaphor and conceptual structure — how thought is structured by language
Lakoff & Johnson's Metaphors We Live ByConceptual metaphorsPolitical language
Language and power — who gets to define words and why it matters
Framing effectsOrwell on political languageEuphemism and doublespeakDictionary politics
Part E · major world languages — a guided tour
Mandarin Chinese — the world's most spoken first language
Tonal systemCharacters vs pinyinDialects vs PutonghuaClassical Chinese
English — how a minor Germanic dialect became the world language
History of EnglishGlobal English varietiesLingua franca debates
Arabic — one language or many?
Classical vs Modern StandardDiglossiaRegional dialectsThe Quran's influence
Other major traditions — Spanish, French, Hindi-Urdu, Swahili, Japanese
Spanish global spreadHindi-Urdu unity/divisionSwahili as lingua francaJapanese writing complexity
Part F · language in the digital age
Machine translation — from rule-based to neural
Early MT historyStatistical MTNeural MT (Google Translate)What still fails
Language in LLMs — how AI "understands" language
Word embeddingsWhat tokenisation doesStochastic parrots debateDoes LLM language count as language?
Language endangerment and revitalisation — what we lose when a language dies
Endangered language mapHebrew revitalisation case studyWelsh & IrishDigital preservation