Indo-European, Semitic, Finno-Ugric, and most languages {finite-form language} use definite or indefinite subjects. Other languages {infinite-form language} use no person distinction.
In computer languages {formal language, grammar}, signs have unique meanings, references, and senses. Languages that contain demonstratives, such as "that", allow signs to have different senses and so cannot be formal languages.
Fundamental vocabulary {logical language} can have only tautologies {logical locution} or observations {observation predicate}.
Languages {radical language} can have words that are radicals, so grammar and syntax use word order.
Languages {subordinating language} can group around main word and can have particles or words that can express grammar or semantic relations.
Languages {verb language} can use verb sentences.
Languages {tone language} can have meaning that comes from pitch changes.
Guanches people use Silbo Gomera language {whistling language} on Gomera Island in Canary Islands.
Bantu language {classificatory language} nouns have classes. Class prefixes precede all words associated with nouns.
Latin and Greek {inflecting language} {flexional language} can have words with suffixes. Suffixes represent several morphemes, so morphemes are not separate.
Languages {juxtaposing language} can use prefixes as classifiers to show grammatical relations.
Proto-Indo-European guttural k sound has changed to k sound in Greek, Italian, Celtic, Germanic, Hittite, and Tokharian {centum language}.
Proto-Indo-European guttural k sound has changed to sibilant s in Balto-Slavic, Albanian, Armenian, and Indo-Iranian languages {satem language}.
Languages {agglutinating language} can have words that use morpheme sequences, so words have separate morphemes. Turkish and most languages are agglutinating languages.
Languages {amalgamating language} can have fused roots and affixes, not separate and independent word parts, so words do not have separate morphemes.
Vietnamese and most Chinese language {analytic language} {isolating language} words are invariable. Words can represent different morphemes in different sentence contexts.
logogram
Written Chinese characters represent meanings, not sounds. Chinese symbols are meaning units {logos, alphabet} {logographic script}. First logograms were indicators {indicative sign}, such as stick-figure pictures {pictorial sign} or counting strokes. Logograms are now invariable monosyllables. Plurals and tense are optional monosyllables.
combination
Symbols can combine with other symbols to make polysyllabic words. If two logograms combine, meanings combine. Compound characters use one part {determinative} {signific} {radical part} for main meaning, which is the basis for arranging characters in dictionaries. Compound characters use another part {borrowed character} for extra sound {phonetic, Chinese}. Phonetic compounds are 95% of Chinese characters. Phonetic compounds with same borrowed character can differ in pronunciation, because phonetic meaning is more important than sound.
Asian languages
Japanese and Korean, languages unrelated to Chinese, use Chinese characters.
Languages {synthetic language} can have words that are morpheme combinations, so inflections show grammar. Languages {polysynthetic language} can have words that represent whole sentences, such as verbs combined with morphemes.
Languages can replace another language {substratum, language} as dominant language. Substratum changes the newly dominant language {substratum theory}.
Languages {superstratum} can replace another language.
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Description of Outline of Knowledge Database
Date Modified: 2022.0225