Talking about languages

1. Some techinical terms for talking about your language
Syntax: the grammar and word order
_ How does your language express modality? (meanings such as possibility and necessity)
English does it with modal verb like must, could and should.

Phonology: the sound system, i.e. pronunciation and intonation
_ How many vowel phonemes does your language have? (different sounds that distinguish meanings)
English has 12 and 10 diphthongs. (sounds made by combining vowels, such as ei)

Lexicon: technical term for vocabulary
_ The Germanic languages have many compounds (words formed by combining words, e.g. software)
English has a mixture of Graeco-Latin (originally from Greek and Latin) words and Anglo-Saxon words

Orthography: technical term for writing systems
_ The English alphabet has 26 characters (letters or symbols)

Morphology: how words are formed
_ There are three morphemes in unthinkable: un, think and able (units of meaning).

_ The writing system of Burmese is quite difficult for a foreign learner.
_ Japanese uses several different writing systems with hundreds of letters and symbols.
_ The vocabulary of a language like English is constantly changing. A lot of new technical words are based on roots from Latin and Greek, rather than words from the period pre-1000 AD.
_ Unlike English, some world languages have very few vowel sound and not combinations of vowels.
_ This ancient and beautiful alphabet uses symbols that evoke pictures to express meaning.
_ Windscreen is a noun made from two nouns
_ Meanings connected with probability and obligation are expressed in different forms in different languages.