Whenever people get together, they talk.
Face-to-face, around the breakfast table,
on the phone, most of the time.
Our waking day is so awash in talk, that many
of us do it when we are alone, and some of
us even do it in our sleep.
Clearly it's something that we're all really
good at, and it's so distinctive of us, you could even say that it's
definitive of humanness.
So don't you think it's funny that most of
us are such skilled language users, but know
so little about how languages work?
Perhaps you think of yourself as a knowledgeable
Australian who loves language, like to think
of yourself as a bit of a 'wordie', good and
scrabble and crosswords — here's a few quick
questions for you:
How many sounds are there in Australian English?
You probably know these American language
names. How many Australian languages can you
name?
Just roughly, how many words do you think
you know?
True or False? There are languages where the
words in a sentence can appear in any order.
True or False? All language have words for
universal concepts like 'hand' or 'mum'.
True or False? Kids learn to talk by imitating
their parents.
Language — there's more to it than you know.
Linguistics is the scientific study of language
as a human phenomenon. You can start to find
out how language works, by studying Linguistics
at the University of New England.
