Wild lorikeet: Sophisticated definition of language: "Languages as particles, waves, and fields..." from "The Ethnologue," WUaS engages "The Ethnologue" and its current 7413 languages, to inform our approach to developing a school in every language, and for the WUaS Universal Translator ...

http://us.123rf.com/400wm/400/400/silkenphotography/silkenphotography1204/silkenphotography120400026/13407926-a-brightly-coloured-wild-lorikeet-with-a-beak-full-of-seeds-swings-out-of-a-green-leafy-tree.jpg

Sophisticated definition of language: 

"Languages as particles, waves, and fields. Scholars are recognizing that languages are not always easily nor best treated as discrete, identifiable, and countable units with clearly defined boundaries between them (Makoni and Pennycook 2006). Rather, a language is more often comprised of continua of features that extend across time, geography, and social space. There is growing attention being given to the roles or functions that language varieties play within the linguistic ecology of a region or a speech community. The Ethnologue approach to listing and counting languages does not preclude a more dynamic understanding of the linguistic makeup of the countries and regions we report on. While discrete linguistic varieties can be distinguished, we also recognize that those varieties exist in a complex set of relationships to each other. Languages can be viewed, then, simultaneously as discrete units (particles) amenable to being listed and counted, as continua of features across time and space (waves) that are best studied in terms of variational tendencies as examples of “change in progress”, and as parts of a larger ecological matrix (field), where functional roles and usage of the linguistic codes for a wide range of purposes are more in focus. All three of these perspectives, language as particle, wave, and field (Lewis 1999; Pike 1959), are useful and important. Ethnologue focuses primarily on the unitary nature of languages without prejudice against the other perspectives." ... 

(http://www.ethnologue.com/ethno_docs/introduction.asp) ... 


WUaS engages "The Ethnologue" and its current 7413 languages, 

to inform our approach to developing a school in every language -

http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Languages - 

and for the WUaS Universal Translator ... 

http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/WUaS_Universal_Translator ... 

(building on Google Translate +)







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