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Element Symbol

Element symbol

:See also chemical formula. A chemical symbol is an abbreviation or short representation of the name of a chemical element. Natural elements all have symbols of one or two letters; some man-made elements have temporary symbols of three letters. Chemical symbols are listed in the periodic table and are used as shorthand and in chemical equations, e.g., :

2H_2 + O_2\ \rightarrow\ 2H_2O

. Because chemical symbols are often derived from the Latin or Greek name of the element, they may not bear much similar to the common English name, e.g., Na for sodium (Latin natrium) and Au for gold (Latin aurum). In China, each chemical element is assigned an ideograph as its symbol; most of them have been explicitly created for this purpose (see Chinese characters for chemical elements). Chemical symbols may also be changed to show if one particular isotope of an atom that is specified, as well as to show other attributes such as ionization and oxidation state of a chemical compound. For complete listings of the chemical elements and their symbols, see:
- List of elements by symbol
- List of elements by name
- List of elements by number
- Periodic table of the elements
- Category:Symbols ko:원소 기호 ja:元素記号

Chemical formula

A chemical formula (also called molecular formula) is a concise way of expressing information about the atoms that constitute a particular chemical compound. It identifies each type of chemical element by its element symbol and identifies the number of atoms of such element to be found in each discrete molecule of that compound. The number of atoms (if greater than one) is indicated as a subscript. For non-molecular substances the subscripts indicate the ratio of elements in the empirical formula. Chemical formula used for a series of compounds that differ from each other by a constant unit is called general formula. Such a series is called the homologous series, while its members are called homologs.

Elements

In organic chemistry most compounds consist of the following five chemical elements:
- C carbon
- H hydrogen
- N nitrogen
- O oxygen
- S sulfur For other element symbols see list of elements by symbol.

Molecular and structural formulas

For example methane, a simple molecule consisting of one carbon atom bonded to four hydrogen atoms has the chemical formula: : CH₄ and glucose with six carbon atoms, twelve hydrogen atoms and six oxygen atoms has the chemical formula: : C₆H₁₂O₆. A chemical formula may also supply information about the types and spatial arrangement of bonds in the chemical, though it does not necessarily specify the exact isomer. For example ethane consists of two carbon atoms single-bonded to each other, each having three hydrogen atoms bonded to it. Its chemical formula can be rendered as CH₃CH₃. If there were a double bond between the carbon atoms (and thus each carbon only had two hydrogens), the chemical formula may be written: CH₂CH₂, and the fact that there is a double bond between the carbons is assumed. However, a more explicit and correct method is to write H₂C:CH₂ or H₂C=CH₂. The two dots or lines indicate that a double bond connects the atoms on either side of them. A triple bond may be expressed with three dots or lines, and if there may be ambiguity, a single dot or line may be used to indicate a single bond. Molecules with multiple functional groups that are the same may be expressed in the following way: (CH₃)₃CH. However, this implies a different structure from other molecules that can be formed using the same atoms (isomers). The formula (CH₃)₃CH implies a chain of three carbon atoms, with the middle carbon atom bonded to another carbon: Carbon chain and the remaining bonds on the carbons all leading to hydrogen atoms. However, the same number of atoms (10 hydrogens and 4 carbons, or C₄H₁₀) may be used to make a straight chain: CH₃CH₂CH₂CH₃. The alkene 2-butene has two isomers which the chemical formula CH₃CH=CHCH₃ does not identify. The relative position of the two methyl groups must be indicated by additional notation denoting whether the methyl groups are on the same side of the double bond (cis or Z) or on the opposite sides from each other.(trans or E)

Polymers

For polymers, parentheses are placed around the repeating unit. For example, a hydrocarbon molecule that is described as: CH₃(CH₂)₅₀CH₃, is a molecule with 50 repeating units. If the number of repeating units is unknown or variable, the letter n may be used to indicate this: CH₃(CH₂)_nCH₃.

Ions

For ions, the charge on a particular atom may be denoted with a right-hand superscript. For example Na⁺, or Cu²⁺. The total charge on a charged molecule or a polyatomic ion may also be shown in this way. For example: hydronium, H₃O⁺ or sulfate, SO₄^2-.

Isotopes

Although isotopes are more relevant to nuclear chemistry or stable isotope chemistry than to conventional chemistry, different isotopes may be indicated with a left-hand superscript in a chemical formula. For example, the phosphate ion containing radioactive phosphorus-32 is ³²PO₄^3-. Also a study involving stable isotope ratios might include ¹⁸O:¹⁶O. A left-hand subscript is sometimes used to indicate redundantly, for convenience, the atomic number.

Empirical formula

In chemistry, the empirical formula of a chemical is a simple expression of the relative number of each type of atom or ratio of the elements in it. Empirical formulas are the standard for ionic compounds, such as CaCl₂, and for macromolecules, such as SiO₂. An empirical formula makes no reference to isomerism, structure, or absolute number of atoms. The term empirical refers to the process of elemental analysis, a technique of analytical chemistry used to determine the relative percent composition of a pure chemical substance by element. For example, hexane could have a chemical formula of CH₃CH₂CH₂CH₂CH₂CH₃, implying that it has a straight chain structure, 6 carbon atoms, and 14 hydrogen atoms. However the empirical formula for the same molecule would be C₃H₇.

Abbreviation

Abbreviation (from Latin brevis "short") is strictly a shorter form of a word, but more particularly, an abbreviation is a letter or group of letters, taken from a word or words, and employed to represent them for the sake of brevity. For example, the word "abbreviation" can be abbreviated as "abbr." or "abbrev."

Types of abbreviations

Apart from the common form of shortening one word, there are other types of abbreviations. These include apocopations, syllabic abbreviations, acronyms, initialisms and portmanteaux.

Syllabic abbreviations (SAs)

A syllabic abbreviation is an abbreviation formed from (usually) initial syllables of several words, such as Interpol = International + police. Syllabic abbreviations are usually written using lower case, sometimes starting with a capital letter, and are always pronounced as words rather than letter by letter. Syllabic abbreviations should be distinguished from portmanteaus.

Usage of syllabic abbreviations in different languages

Syllabic abbreviations are not widely used in English or French. On the other hand, they prevailed in Germany under the Nazis and in the Soviet Union for naming the plethora of new bureaucratic organizations. For example, Gestapo stands for Geheime Staats-Polizei, or "secret state police". Similarly, Comintern stands for the Communist International. This has caused syllabic abbreviations to have negative connotation, notwithstanding that such abbreviations were used in Germany even before the Nazis came to power, e.g., Schupo for Schutzpolizei. Syllabic abbreviations were also typical for the German language used in the German Democratic Republic, e.g. Stasi for Staatssicherheit ("state security", the secret police) or Vopo for Volkspolizist ("people's policeman"). East Asian languages whose writing uses Chinese-originated ideograms instead of an alphabet form abbreviations similarly by using key characters from a term or phrase. For example, in Japanese the term for the United Nations, kokusai rengō (国際連合) is often abbreviated to kokuren (国連). (Such abbreviations are called ryakugo (略語) in Japanese). The classic example is, of course, shogun. The syllabic abbreviation is frequently used for universities: for instance, Beida (北大, Běidà) for Peking University (Beijing) and Tōdai (東大) for the University of Tokyo.
Usage of syllabic abbreviations in organisations
Syllabic abbreviations are prefered by the US Navy as it increases readability amidst the large number of initialisms that would otherwise have to fit into the same acronyms. Hence DESRON 6 is used (in the full capital form) to mean "Destroyer Squadron 6," while COMNAVFORLANT would be "Commander, Naval Force (in the) Atlantic."
Style conventions
In modern English there are several conventions for abbreviations and the choice may be confusing. The only rule universally accepted is that one should be consistent, and to this end publishers express their preferences in a style guide. Questions which arise include the following:
- Use of upper or lower case letters. If the original word was capitalised, then the first letter of its abbreviation should retain the capital, for example Lev. for Leviticus. When abbreviating words spelt with lower case letters, there is no consistent rule.
- Use of periods (full stops) and spaces, for example when abbreviating United States, should one write "US", "U.S." or "U. S."? Spaces are generally not used between single letter abbreviations of words in the same phrase, so one almost never encounters "U. S.". In American English, the period is usually added if the abbreviation may be interpreted as a word, though some American writers do not use a period here. There is no stop/period between letters of the same word, for example St. and not S.t. for Saint. In modern British English abbreviations are written with full stops if the word has been cut at the point of abbreviation (e.g., "Street" – "St[reet]" – becomes "St."), but not otherwise (e.g., "Saint" – "S[ain]t" – becomes "St"). Thus in the United Kingdom, titles such as "Doctor", "Mister" and "Mistress" are abbreviated as "Dr", "Mr", and "Mrs" respectively, but in Canada and the U.S. as "Dr.", "Mr." and "Mrs." respectively.
- Acronyms that were originally capitalized (with or without periods) but have since "stood the test of time" by entering the vocabulary as generic words are no longer abbreviated with capital letters nor with any periods—e.g., sonar, radar, laser, and scuba.
- Whether to add an apostrophe for a plural where the plural is not formed by doubling up the last letter: should one write CDs or CD's? The apostrophe is not needed grammatically but sometimes is added to make it clear that the s is not part of the abbreviation. Because the apostrophe most often represents possession or a contraction, some style guides prefer that it not be used at all with abbreviations, but only with individual letters—"Dot all your i's and cross all your t's!" or "Mind your p's and q's!"—or numbers—"The dyslexic student mixes up his S's and 5's." Thus numbers, such as decades, that are understood to represent other concepts, are not written with apostrophes either—e.g., "The U.S. enjoyed an economic boom in the 1990s and the Roaring ’20s", referring to decades, or "I am going to the bank to exchange four 5's for two 10's", where the 5's and 10's refer to banknotes. Conventions followed by publications and newspapers:
- Publications based in the United States tend to follow the style guides of the Chicago Manual of Style and the Associated Press. The U.S. Government follows a style guide published by the U.S. Government Printing Office.
- There is some inconsistency in abbreviation styles, however, as they are not rigorously defined by style guides. Some two-word abbreviations, like "United Nations", are abbreviated with uppercase letters and periods, and others, like "personal computer" (PC) and "compact disc" (CD), are not; rather, they are typically abbreviated without periods and in uppercase letters. A third variation is to use lowercase letters with periods; this is used by Time Magazine in abbreviating "public relations" (p.r.). Moreover, even three-word abbreviations (most U.S. publications use uppercase abbreviations without periods) are sometimes not consistently abbreviated, even within the same article.
- The New York Times is unique in having a consistent style by always abbreviating with periods: P.C., I.B.M., P.R. This is in contrast with the trend of British publications to completely make do without periods for convenience.
- Many British publications follow some of these guidelines in abbreviation:
- For the sake of convenience, many British publications, including the BBC and The Guardian, have completely done away with the use of full stops or periods in all abbreviations. These include:
- Social titles, like Ms or Mr (though these would not have had full stops in any case — see above) Capt, Prof, etc.;
- Two-letter abbreviations for countries (US, not U.S.);
- Words are seldom abbreviated with lower case letters (PR, instead of p.r., or pr)
- Abbreviations beyond three letters (full caps for all except initialisms);
- Names (e.g., FW de Klerk, GB Whiteley, Park JS). A notable exception is the Economist (e.g., Mr F. W. de Klerk)
- Scientific units.
- Acronyms are referred to with only the first letter of the abbreviation capitalised. For instance, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation can be abbreviated as Nato, and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome as Sars. Initialisms (which are similar to acronyms but which are not pronounced as words) are always written in capitals, for instance the British Broadcasting Corporation is abbreviated to BBC, never Bbc.
- When abbreviating scientific units, no space is added between the number and unit (e.g., 100mph, 100m, 10cm, 10ºC). Miscellaneous and general rules
- Plurals are often formed by doubling up the last letter of the abbreviation. Most of these deal with writing and publishing: MS=manuscript, MSS=manuscripts; l=line, ll=lines; p=page, pp=pages; s=section, ss=sections). This form, derived from Latin is used in Europe in many places: dd=didots. "The following (lines or pages)" is denoted by ff. One example that does not concern printing is hh=hands.
- A doubled letter also appears in abbreviations of some Welsh names, as in Welsh the double "l" is a separate sound: "Ll. George" for (late British prime minister) Lloyd George.
- Some titles, such as "Reverend" and "Honourable", are spelt out when preceded by "the", rather than as "Rev." or "Hon." respectively. This is true for most British publications, and some in the United States.
- It is usually advised to spell out the abbreviation where it is new or unfamiliar to the reader (e.g., UNESCO in a magazine about music, because it more frequently refers to another entity in another context, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization).
History
After World War II, the British greatly reduced their use of the full stop and other punctuations after abbreviations in at least semi-formal writing, while the Americans more readily kept its use until more recently, and still maintain it more than Britons. The classic example, considered by their American counterparts quite curious, was the maintenance of the internal comma in a British organization of secret agents called the "Special Operations, Executive" – "S.O.,E." – which is not found in histories written after about 1960. But before that, many Britons were more scrupulous at maintaining the French form. In French, the period only follows an abbreviation if the last letter in the abbreviation is not the last letter of its antecedent: "M." is the abbreviation for "monsieur" while "Mme" is that for "Madame" and "Mlle" for "Mademoiselle". Like many other cross-channel linguistic acquisitions, many Britons readily took this up and followed this rule themselves, while the Americans took a simpler rule and applied it rigorously. Over the years, however, the lack of convention in some style guides has made it difficult to determine which two-word abbreviations should be abbreviated with periods and which should not. The U.S. media tend to abbreviate two-word abbreviations like United States (U.S.), but surprisingly, not personal computer (PC) or television (TV), which is a source of confusion. Many British publications have gradually done away with the use of periods in abbreviations completely.
Examples

- List of classical abbreviations
- List of mediaeval abbreviations
- List of abbreviations in use in 1911
- List of acronyms and initialisms
- The abbreviations used in the 1913 edition of Webster's dictionary
Abbreviation types

- Acronym and initialism
- Apocopation
- TLA
- Syllabic abbreviation
- Portmanteau
See also

- List of syllabic abbreviations
- Neologism, word, term, or phrase which has been recently created
- Internet slang, list of computing and IT abbreviations, list of medical abbreviations, list of government and military acronyms, abbreviations used in CIA World Factbook,
- ISO language code, ISO country code.
- Ditloid
External links

- [http://www.abbreviationz.com/ AbbreviationZ] acronyms, abbreviations & Initialisms directory.
- [http://www.acronyma.com/ Acronyma]—large database of acronyms and abbreviations (over 450,000 entries)
- [http://www.acronymfinder.com/ Acronym Finder]—searchable acronyms and abbreviations site (over 400,000 entries) Category:Abbreviations ja:略語 simple:Abbreviation

Chemical element

A chemical element, often called simply element, is a chemical substance that canot be divided or changed into other chemical substances by any ordinary chemical technique. The smallest unit of this kind of chemical substances is an atom. An element is a class of substances that contain the same number of protons in all its atoms.

Chemistry terminology

Earlier an element or pure element was defined as a substance which "cannot be further broken down into another compound with different chemical properties" -- which should be taken to mean it consists of atoms of one element. However, due to allotropy, the isotope effect, and the confusion with the more useful term referring to the general class of atoms (irrespective of what compound it may be in), this usage is in disfavor amongst contemporary chemists, and sees restricted, mostly historical, use. This definition was motivated by the observation that these elements could not be dissociated by chemical means into other compounds. For example, water could be converted into hydrogen and oxygen, but hydrogen and oxygen could not be further decomposed, thus "elemental". There are also many counterexamples (for example "elemental oxygen" (O₂) can be decomposed by solely chemical means into oxygen ions and atoms which have drastically different chemical properties). The remainder of this article will concern itself with the first definition.

Description

The atomic number of an element, Z, is equal to the number of protons which defines the element. For example, all carbon atoms contain 6 protons in their nucleus, so for carbon Z=6. These atoms may have different amounts of neutrons, and are known as isotopes of the element. The atomic mass of an element, A, is measured in unified atomic mass units (u) is the average mass of all the atoms of the element in an environment of interest (usually the earth's crust and atmosphere). Since electrons are light, and neutrons are barely more than the mass of the proton, this usually corresponds to the sum of the protons and neutrons in the nucleus of the most abundant isotope, though this is not always the case (notably chlorine, which is about three-quarters ³⁵Cl and a quarter ³⁷Cl). Some isotopes are radioactive and decay into other elements upon radiating an alpha or beta particle. Some elements have no nonradioactive isotopes, in particular all elements with Z >= 84. The lightest elements are hydrogen and helium. Hydrogen is thought to be the first element to appear after the Big Bang. All the heavier elements, are made naturally and artificially through various methods of nucleosynthesis. As of 2005, there are 116 known elements: 93 occur naturally on earth (including technetium and plutonium), and 94 (including promethium) have been detected so far in the universe. The 23 elements not found on earth are derived artificially; the first purportedly synthesized element was technetium, in 1937, although the trace amounts of naturally occurring technetium were not known then. All artificially derived elements are radioactive with short half-lives so that any such atoms that were present at the formation of Earth are extremely likely to have already decayed. Lists of the elements by name, by symbol, by atomic number, by density, by melting point and by boiling point are available. The most convenient presentation of the elements is in the periodic table, which groups elements with similar chemical properties together.

Nomenclature

The naming of elements precedes the atomic theory of matter, although at the time it was not known which chemicals were elements and which compounds. When it was learned, existing names (e.g., gold, mercury, iron) were kept in most countries, and national differences emerged over the names of elements either for convenience, linguistic niceties, or nationalism. For example, the Germans use "Wasserstoff" for "hydrogen" and "Sauerstoff" for "oxygen," while some romance languages use "natrium" for "sodium" and "kalium" for "potassium," and the French prefer the obsolete but historic term "azote" for "nitrogen." But for international trade, the official names of the chemical elements both ancient and recent are decided by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, which has decided on a sort of international English language. That organization has recently prescribed that "aluminium" and "caesium" take the place of the US spellings "aluminum" and "cesium," while the US "sulfur" takes the place of the British "sulphur." But chemicals which are practicable to be sold in bulk within many countries, however, still have national names, and those which do not use the Latin alphabet cannot be expected to use the IUPAC name. According to IUPAC, the full name of an element is not capitalized, even if it is derived from a proper noun (unless it would be capitalized by some other rule, for instance if it begins a sentence). And in the second half of the twentieth century physics laboratories became able to produce nuclei of chemical elements that have too quick a decay rate to ever be sold in bulk. These are also named by IUPAC, which generally adopts the name chosen by the discoverer. This can lead to the controversial question of which research group actually discovered an element, a question which delayed the naming of elements with atomic number of 104 and higher for a considerable time. (See element naming controversy). Precursors of such controversies involved the nationalistic namings of elements in the late nineteenth century (e.g., as "lutetium" refers to Paris, France, the Germans were reticent about relinquishing naming rights to the French, often calling it "cassiopeium"). And notably, the British discoverer of "niobium" originally named it "columbium," after the New World, though this did not catch on in Europe. The Americans had to accept the international name just when it was becoming an economically important material late in the twentieth century.

Chemical symbols

Specific chemical elements

Before chemistry became a science, alchemists had designed arcane symbols for both metals and common compounds. These were however used as abbreviations in diagrams or procedures; there was no concept of one atoms combining to form molecules. With his advances in the atomic theory of matter, John Dalton devised his own simpler symbols, based on circles, which were to be used to depict molecules. These were superseded by the current typographical system in which chemical symbols are not used as mere abbreviations though each consists letters of the Latin alphabet - they are symbols intended to be used by peoples of all languages and alphabets. The first of these symbols were intended to be fully international, for they were based on the Latin abbreviations of the names of metals: Fe comes from Ferrum; Ag from Argentum. The symbols were not followed by a period (full stop) as abbreviations were. Besides a name, later chemical elements are also given a unique chemical symbol, based on the name of the element, not necessarily derived from the colloquial English name. (e.g., sodium has chemical symbol 'Na' after the Latin natrium). The same applies to "W" (wolframium) for Tungsten , "Hg" (Hydrargyrum) for mercury and "K" for potassium. Stricly taken, a symbol like Tu for tungsten or M or Me for mercury seems to be more logical. Chemical symbols are understood internationally when element names might need to be translated. There are sometimes differences; for example, the Germans have used "J" instead of "I" for iodine, so the character would not be confused with a roman numeral. The first letter of a chemical symbol is always capitalized, as in the preceding examples, and the subsequent letters, if any, are always minuscule (small letters).

General chemical symbols

There are also symbols for series of chemical elements, for comparative formulas. These are one capital letter in length, and the letters are reserved so they are not permitted to be given for the names of specific elements. For example, an "X" is used to indicate a variable group amongst a class of compounds (though usually a halogen), while "R" is used for a radical (not to be confused with radical_(chemistry), meaning a compound structure such as a hydrocarbon chain. The letter "Q" is reserved for "heat" in a chemical reaction. "Y" is also often used as a general chemical symbol, although it is also the symbol of Yttrium. "Z" is also frequently used as a general variable group. "L" is used to represent a general ligand in inorganic and organometallic chemistry. "M" is also often used in place of a general metal.

Nonelement symbols

Nonelements, especially in organic and organometallic chemistry, often acquire symbols which are inspired by the elemental symbols. A few examples: Cy - cyclohexyl; Ph - phenyl; Bz - benzoyl; Bn - benzyl; Cp - Cyclopentadiene; Pr - propyl; Me - methyl; Et - ethyl; Tf - triflate; Ts - tosyl.

External links

- [http://www.vanderkrogt.net/elements/ Elementymology & Elements Multidict] word history and language dictionary

Chemical information

- [http://www.webelements.com/ WebElements]
- [http://www.vcs.ethz.ch/chemglobe/ptoe/ ChemGlobe]
- [http://pearl1.lanl.gov/periodic/default.htm Los Alamos National Laboratory]
- [http://www.chemicalelements.com/ ChemicalElements] ko:화학 원소 ms:Unsur kimia ja:元素 simple:Element th:ธาตุเคมี

Symbol

:For the Romanian choir, see Symbol (choir) A symbol, in its basic sense, is a conventional representation of a concept or quantity; i.e., an idea, object, concept, quality, etc. In more psychological and philosophical terms, all concepts are symbolic in nature, and representations for these concepts are simply token artifacts that are allegorical to (but do not directly codify) a symbolic meaning, or symbolism. Spoken language, for example, consists of distinct auditory tokens for representing symbolic concepts (words), arranged in an order which further suggests their meaning.

Nature of symbols

word]A symbol can be a material object whose shape or origin is related, by nature or convention, to the thing it represents: for instance, the cross is the main symbol of Christianity, and the scepter is a traditional symbol of royal power. A symbol can also be a more or less conventional image (i.e. an icon), or a detail of an image, or even a pattern or color: for example, the olive branch in heraldry represents peace, the halo is a conventional symbol of sainthood in Christian imagery, tartans are symbols of Scottish clans, and the color red is often used as a symbol for socialist movements, especially communism. More often, a symbol is a conventional written or printed sign (specifically, a glyph), usually standing for anything other than a sound (symbols for sounds are usually called graphemes, letters, logograms, diacritics, etc.). Thus mathematical symbols such as π and + represent quantities and operations, currency symbols represent monetary units, chemical symbols represent elements, and so forth. Symbols can also be immaterial entities like sounds, words and gestures. The ringing of gongs and bells, and the banging of a judge's gavel, often have conventional meanings in certain contexts; and bowing is a common way to indicate respect. In fact, every word in a natural language is a symbol for some concept or relationship between concepts. A symbol is usually recognized only within some specific culture, religion, or discipline, but a few hundred symbols are now recognized internationally. See list of common symbols and List of symbols.

Use of symbols

Human beings' ability to manipulate symbols allows them to explore the relationships between ideas, things, concepts, and qualities - far beyond the explorations of which any other species on earth is capable. The discipline of semiotics studies symbols and symbol systems in general; semantics is specifically concerned with the main meaning of words or other linguistic units. Literary works are often admired for their artful use of symbolism, i.e. the use of words, phrases and situations to evoke ideas and feelings beyond their plain interpretations; these uses are the subject of literary semiotics. Religious and metaphysical writings are also known for their use of esoteric symbolism. Alchemical writings made extensive use of symbols for spiritual and chemical processes (which they also saw as symbols of each other). The interpretation of dreams as symbols of one's experiences is a main feature of Freudian psychoanalysis and Jungian analytical psychology.

Etymology

The word "symbol" came to the English language, by way of Middle English, Old French, and Latin, from the Greek σύμβολον súmbolon from the root words σύμ- (sym-) meaning "together" and βολή bolḗ "a throw", having the approximate meaning of "to throw together", so "sign, ticket, or contract".

External links

- [http://www.symbols.com Symbol search engine]
- [http://altreligion.about.com/library/glossary/blsymbols.htm Religious and Cultural Symbols]
- ja:シンボル simple:Symbol

Latin

Latin is an ancient Indo-European language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. It gained great importance as the formal language of the Roman Empire. All Romance languages, those being most notably Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, and Romanian, are descended from Latin, and many words based on Latin are found in other modern languages such as English. The Latin alphabet, derived from the Greek, remains the most widely-used alphabet in the world. It is said that 80 percent of scholarly English words are derived from Latin (in a large number of cases by way of French). Moreover, in the Western world, Latin was a lingua franca, the learned language for scientific and political affairs, for more than a thousand years, being eventually replaced by French in the 18th century and English in the late 19th. Ecclesiastical Latin remains the formal language of the Roman Catholic Church to this day, and thus the official national language of the Vatican. The Church used Latin as its primary liturgical language until the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. Latin is also still used (drawing heavily on Greek roots) to furnish the names used in the scientific classification of living things. The modern study of Latin, along with Greek, is known as Classics.

Main features

Latin is a synthetic inflectional language: affixes (which usually encode more than one grammatical category) are attached to fixed stems to express gender, number, and case in adjectives, nouns, and pronouns, which is called declension; and person, number, tense, voice, mood, and aspect in verbs, which is called conjugation. There are five declensions (declinationes) of nouns and four conjugations of verbs. There are six noun cases: #nominative (used as the subject of the verb or the predicate nominative), #genitive (used to indicate relation or possession, often represented by the English of or the addition of s to a noun), #dative (used of the indirect object of the verb, often represented by the English to or for), #accusative (used of the direct object of the verb, or object of the preposition in some cases), #ablative (separation, source, cause, or instrument, often represented by the English by, with, from), #vocative (used of the person or thing being addressed). In addition, some nouns have a locative case used to express location (otherwise expressed by the ablative with a preposition such as in), but this survival from Proto-Indo-European is found only in the names of lakes, cities, towns, small islands, and a few other words related to locations, such as "house", "ground", and "countryside". Latin itself, being a very old language, is far closer to Proto-Indo-European than are most modern Western European languages; it has, in fact, about the same relationship with PIE as modern Italian or French has to Latin. There are six general tenses in Latin (technically they are tense/aspect/mood complexes). The indicative mood can be used with all of them. The subjunctive mood, however, has only present, imperfect, perfect, and pluperfect tenses. These tenses in the subjunctive mood do not completely correlate in meaning to the tenses in the indicative. The following examples are of the first conjugation verb "laudare" ("to praise") in the indicative mood and the active voice:
Primary sequence tenses
# present (laudo, "I praise") # imperfect (laudabam, "I was praising") # future (laudabo, "I shall praise," "I will praise")
Secondary sequence tenses
# perfect (laudavi, "I praised", "I have praised") # pluperfect (laudaveram, "I had praised") # future perfect (laudavero, "I shall have praised," "I will have praised") The future perfect tense can also imply a normal future idea (like in "When I will have run...") and so may also sometimes be included in the primary sequence.
Latin and Romance
After the collapse of the Roman Empire, Latin evolved into the various Romance languages. These were for many centuries only spoken languages, Latin still being used for writing. For example, Latin was the official language of Portugal until 1296 when it was replaced by Portuguese. The Romance languages evolved from Vulgar Latin, the spoken language of common usage, which in turn evolved from an older speech which also produced the formal classical standard. Latin and Romance differ (for example) in that Romance had distinctive stress, whereas Latin had distinctive length of vowels. In Italian and Sardo logudorese, there is distinctive length of consonants and stress, in Spanish only distinctive stress, and in French even stress is no longer distinctive. Another major distinction between Romance and Latin is that all Romance languages, excluding Romanian, have lost their case endings in most words except for some pronouns. Romanian retains a direct case (nominative/accusative), an indirect case (dative/genitive), and vocative. In Italy, Latin is still compulsory in secondary schools as Liceo Classico and Liceo Scientifico which are usually attended by people who aim to the highest level of education. In Liceo Classico Ancient Greek is a compulsory subject.
Latin and English
See Latin influence in English for a more complete exposition. English grammar is independent of Latin grammar, though prescriptive grammarians in English have been heavily influenced by Latin. Attempts to make English grammar follow Latin rules — such as the prohibition against the split infinitive — have not worked successfully in regular usage. However, as many as half the words in English were derived from Latin, including many words of Greek origin first adopted by the Romans, not to mention the thousands of French, hundreds of Spanish, Portuguese and Italian words of Latin origin that have also enriched English. During the 16th and on through the 18th century English writers created huge numbers of new words from Latin and Greek roots. These words were dubbed "inkhorn" or "inkpot" words (as if they had spilled from a pot of ink). Many of these words were used once by the author and then forgotten, but some remain. Imbibe, extrapolate, dormant and inebriation are all inkhorn terms carved from Latin words. In fact, the word etymology is derived from the Greek word etymologia, meaning "true sense of the word." Latin was once taught in many of the schools in Britain with academic leanings - perhaps 25% of the total [http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/T/teachem2/thennow/]. However, the requirement for it was gradually abandoned in the professions such as the law and medicine, and then, from around the late 1960s, for admission to university. After the introduction of the Modern Language GCSE in the 1980s, it was gradually replaced by other languages, although it is now being taught by more schools along with other classical languages.
Latin education
The linguistic element of Latin courses offered in high schools or secondary schools, and in universities, is primarily geared toward an ability to translate Latin texts into modern languages, rather than using it in oral communication. As such, the skill of reading is heavily emphasized, whereas speaking and listening skills are barely touched upon. However, there is a growing movement, sometimes known as the Living Latin movement, whose supporters believe that Latin can, or should, be taught in the same way that modern "living" languages are taught, that is, as a means of both spoken and written communication. One of the most interesting aspects of such an approach is that it assists speculative insight into how many of the ancient authors spoke and incorporated sounds of the language stylistically; without understanding how the language is meant to be heard it is very difficult to identify patterns in Latin poetry. Institutions offering Living Latin instruction include the Vatican and the University of Kentucky. In Britain the Classical Association encourages this approach, and there has been something of a vogue for books describing the adventures of a mouse called Minimus. In the United States there is a thriving competitive organization for high school Latin students, the National Junior Classical League (the second-largest youth organization in the world after the Boy Scouts), backed up by the Senior Classical League for college students. Many would-be international auxiliary languages have been heavily influenced by Latin, and the moderately successful Interlingua considers itself to be the modernized and simplified version of the language (le latino moderne international e simplificate). Latin translations of modern literature such as Paddington Bear, Winnie the Pooh, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Le Petit Prince, Max und Moritz, and The Cat in the Hat have also helped boost interest in the language.
See also

About the Latin language

- Latin grammar
- Latin spelling and pronunciation
- Latin declension
- Latin conjugation
- Latin alphabet
- List of Latin words with English derivatives
- Latin verbs with English derivatives
- Latin nouns with English derivatives
- ablative absolute
- Word order in Latin
About the Latin literary heritage

- Latin literature
- Romance languages
- Loeb Classical Library
- List of Latin phrases
- List of Latin proverbs
- Brocard
- List of Latin and Greek words commonly used in systematic names
- List of Latin place names in Europe
- Carmen Possum
Other related topics

- Roman Empire
- Internationalism
References

- Bennett, Charles E. Latin Grammar (Allyn and Bacon, Chicago, 1908)
- N. Vincent: "Latin", in The Romance Languages, M. Harris and N. Vincent, eds., (Oxford Univ. Press. 1990), ISBN 0195208293
- Waquet, Françoise, Latin, or the Empire of a Sign: From the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Centuries (Verso, 2003) ISBN 1859844022; translated from the French by John Howe.
- Wheelock, Frederic. Latin: An Introduction (Collins, 6th ed., 2005) ISBN 0060784237
External links

- [http://www.jambell.com/latin.html Latin Phrases for after dinner conversation (Thanks to Elaine Poole)]
- [http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=lat Ethnologue report for Latin]
- [http://forumromanum.org/literature/index.html Corpus Scriptorum Latinorum] is a comprehensive webography of Latin texts and their translations.
- [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/ The Perseus Project] has many useful pages for the study of classical languages and literatures, including [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/resolveform?lang=Latin an interactive Latin dictionary].
- [http://lysy2.archives.nd.edu/cgi-bin/words.exe words by William whitaker] is a dictionary program online capable of looking up various word forms.
- [http://retiarius.org/ Retiarius.Org] includes a Latin text search engine.
- [http://www.nd.edu/~archives/latgramm.htm Latin-English dictionary and Latin grammar from U of Notre Dame]
- [http://latin-language.co.uk/ Latin language] History of Latin language, Latin texts with English translation and a collection of dictionaries.
- [http://augustinus.eresmas.net/scl/ Societas Circulorum Latinorum] gathers together Latin Circles all over the world.
- [http://www.learnlatin.tk LearnLatin.tk] - Free online course in Latin
- [http://www.latintests.net/ LatinTests.net] - Lets Latin learners test their grammar and vocabulary with self-checking quizzes.
- [http://thelatinlibrary.com/ The Latin Library] contains many Latin etexts
- [http://www.textkit.com/ Textkit] has Latin textbooks and etexts.
- [http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/Latin-english/ Latin–English Dictionary]: from Webster's Rosetta Edition.
- [http://www.language-reference.com/ Language reference] Cross-foreign-language lexicon powered by its own search engine. All cross combinations between Latin and French, German, Italian, Spanish.
- [http://comp.uark.edu/~mreynold/rhetor.html Rhetor by Gabriel Harvey] was originally published in 1577 and never again reprinted.
- [http://freewebs.com/omniamundamundis omniamundamundis] Latin hypertexts from fourteen ancient Roman authors.
- [http://www.saltspring.com/capewest/pron.htm Pronunciation of Biological Latin, Including Taxonomic Names of Plants and Animals]
- [http://www.yleradio1.fi/nuntii Nuntii Latini (News in Latin)], written and spoken (RealAudio) news in latin. Weekly review of world news in Classical Latin, the only international broadcast of its kind in the world, produced by YLE, the Finnish Broadcasting Company.
- [http://www.tranexp.com:2000/InterTran?url=http%3A%2F%2F&type=text&text=Replace%20Me&from=eng&to=ltt InterTran Latin], Translate from Latin to ENGLISH or vice versa.
- [http://www.latinvulgate.com Latin Vulgate] The Latin and English of the Old & New Testaments in parallel, along with the Complete Sayings of Jesus in parallel Latin and English. Category:Classical languages Category:Ancient languages Category:Fusional languages Category:Languages of Italy Category:Languages of Vatican City als:Latein zh-min-nan:Latin-gí ko:라틴어 ja:ラテン語 simple:Latin language th:ภาษาละติน

English language

English is a West Germanic language that is spoken in the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, South Africa, and many other countries. English is now the third-most spoken native language worldwide (after Chinese and Hindi), with some 380 million speakers. It has lingua franca status in many parts of the world, due to the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th and 19th centuries and that of the United States from the 20th century to the present. Through the global influence of native English speakers in cinema, airlines, broadcasting, science, and the Internet in recent decades, English is now the most widely learned second language in the world. Many students worldwide are required to learn some English, and a working knowledge of English is required in many fields and occupations.

History

English is a West Germanic language that originated from the Old Saxon language brought to Britain by Germanic settlers from various parts of northwest Germany. The original Old English language was subsequently influenced by two successive waves of invasion. The first was by speakers of languages in the Scandinavian branch of the Germanic family, who colonised parts of Britain in the 8th and 9th centuries. The second wave was of the Normans in the 11th century, who spoke a variety of French. These two invasions caused English to become "creolised" to some degree (though it was never a full creole in the linguistic sense of the word); creolisation arises from the cohabitation of speakers of different languages, who develop a hybrid tongue for basic communication. Cohabitation with the Scandinavians resulted in a significant grammatical simplification and lexical enrichment of the Anglo-Friesian core of English; the later Norman occupation led to the grafting onto that Germanic core a more elaborate layer of words from the Romance branch of European languages; this new layer entered English through use in the courts and government. Thus, English developed into a "borrowing" language of considerable suppleness and huge vocabulary. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, around the year 449, Vortigern, King of the British Isles, invited the "Angle kin" (Angles led by Hengest and Horsa) to help him against the Picts. In return, the Angles were granted lands in the south-east. Further aid was sought, and in response "came men of Ald Seaxum of Anglum of Iotum" (Saxons, Angles, and Jutes). The Chronicle talks of a subsequent influx of settlers who eventually established seven kingdoms, known as the heptarchy. Modern scholarship considers most of this story to be legendary and politically motivated. These Germanic invaders dominated the original Celtic-speaking inhabitants, whose languages survived largely in Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, and Ireland. The dialects spoken by the invaders formed what would be called Old English, which resembled some coastal dialects in what are now the Netherlands and north-west Germany. Later, it was strongly influenced by the North Germanic language Norse, spoken by the Vikings who settled mainly in the north-east (see Jorvik). The new and the earlier settlers spoke languages from different branches of the Germanic family; many of their lexical roots were the same or similar, although their grammars were more distant, including the prefixes, suffixes and inflections of many of their words. The Germanic language of these Old English inhabitants of Britain would be partly creolised by the contact with Norse invaders. This resulted in a stripping away of much of the grammar of Old English, including gender and case, with the notable exception of the pronouns; thus, the language became simpler and plainer. The most famous work from the Old English period is the epic poem "Beowulf", by an unknown poet. For the 300 years following the Norman Conquest in 1066, the Norman kings and the high nobility spoke only a variety of French. A large number of Norman words were assimilated into Old English, with some words doubling for Old English words (for instance, ox/beef, sheep/mutton). The Norman influence reinforced the continual evolution of the language over the following centuries, resulting in what is now referred to as Middle English. Among the changes was a broadening in the use of a unique aspect of English grammar, the "continuous" tenses, with the suffix "-ing". During the 15th century, Middle English was transformed by the Great Vowel Shift, the spread of a standardised London-based dialect in government and administration, and the standardising effect of printing. Modern English can be traced back to around the time of William Shakespeare. The most well-known work from the Middle English period is Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales.

Classification and related languages

The English language belongs to the western subbranch of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European family of languages. The closest living relative of English is Scots (Lallans), a West Germanic language spoken mostly in Scotland and parts of Northern Ireland. Like English, Scots is a direct descendant of Old English, also known as Anglo-Saxon. After Scots, the next closest relative is Frisian—spoken in the Netherlands and Germany. Other less closely related living languages include Dutch, Afrikaans, German, Plattdüütsch and the Scandinavian languages. Many French words are also intelligible to an English speaker (pronunciations are not always identical, of course), because English absorbed a tremendous amount of vocabulary from French, via the Norman language after the Norman conquest and directly from French in further centuries; as a result, a substantial share of English vocabulary is quite close to the French, with some minor spelling differences (word endings, use of old French spellings, etc.), as well as occasional differences in meaning.

Geographic distribution

Norman conquest English is the second or third most widely spoken language in the world today; a total of 600–700 million people use English regularly. About 377 million people use English as their mother tongue, and an equal number of people use it as their second or foreign language. It is used widely in either the public or private sphere in more than 100 countries all over the world. In addition, the language has occupied a primary place in international academic and business communities. The current status of the English language compares with that of Latin in the past. English is the primary language in Antigua and Barbuda, Australia (Australian English), the Bahamas, Barbados (Caribbean English), Bermuda, Belize, Canada (Canadian English), the Cayman Islands, Dominica, the Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, Grenada, Guernsey, Guyana, Ireland (Irish English), Isle of Man, Jamaica (Jamaican English), Jersey, Montserrat, New Zealand (New Zealand English), Saint Helena, Saint Lucia, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, the Turks and Caicos Islands, the United Kingdom (various forms of British English), the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the United States. English is also an important minority language of South Africa (South African English), and in several other former colonies and current dependent territories of the United Kingdom and the United States, for example Guam and Mauritius. In Hong Kong, English is an official language and is widely used in business activities. It is taught from kindergarten, and is the medium of instruction for a few primary schools, many secondary schools and all universities. Substantial numbers of students acquire native-speaker level. It is so widely used and spoken that it is inadequate to say it is merely a second or foreign language, though there are still many people in Hong Kong with poor or no command of English. The majority of English native speakers (67 to 70 per cent) live in the United States. Although the U.S. federal government has no official languages, it has been given official status by 27 of the 50 state governments, most of which have declared English their sole official language. Hawaii, Louisiana, and New Mexico have also designated Hawaiian, French, and Spanish, respectively, as official languages in conjunction with English. In many other countries where English is not a major first language, it is an official language; these countries include Cameroon, Fiji, the Federated States of Micronesia, Ghana, Gambia, India, Kiribati, Lesotho, Liberia, Kenya, Namibia, Nigeria, Malta, the Marshall Islands, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Rwanda, the Solomon Islands, Samoa, Sierra Leone, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. English is the most widely learned and used foreign language in the world, and as such, many linguists believe it is no longer the exclusive cultural emblem of "native English speakers", but rather a language that is absorbing aspects of cultures worldwide as it grows in use. Others believe that there are limits to how far English can go in suiting everyone for communication purposes. It is the language most often studied as a foreign language in Europe (32.6 per cent), followed by French, German, and Spanish. It is also the most studied in Japan, South Korea and in the Republic of China (Taiwan), where it is compulsory for most high school students. See English as an additional language.

English as a global language

See also: English on the Internet Because English is so widely spoken, it has been referred to as a "global language". While English is not the official language in many countries, it is the language most often taught as a second language around the world. It is also, by international treaty, the official language for aircraft/airport communication. Its widespread acceptance as a first or second language is the main indication of its global status. There are numerous arguments for and against English as a global language. On one hand, having a global language aids in communication and in pooling information (for example, in the scientific community). On the other hand, it excludes those who, for one reason or another, are not fluent. It can also marginalise populations whose first language is not the global language, and lead to a cultural hegemony of the populations speaking the global language as a first language. Most of these arguments hold for any candidate for a global language, though the last two counter-arguments do not hold for languages not belonging to any ethnic group (like Esperanto). A secondary concern with respect to the spread of global languages (English, Spanish, etc.) is the resulting disappearance of minority languages, often along with the cultures and religions that are primarily transmitted in those languages. English has been implicated in a number of historical and ongoing so-called "language deaths" and "linguicides" around the world, many of which have also led to the loss of cultural heritage. In the Americas, Native American nations have been most strongly affected by this phenomenon.

Dialects and regional variants

The expansiveness of the British and the Americans has spread English throughout the globe. Because of its global spread, it has bred a variety of English dialects and English-based creoles and pidgins. The major varieties of English in most cases contain several subvarieties, such as Cockney within British English, Newfoundland English within Canadian English, and African American Vernacular English ("Ebonics") within American English. English is considered a pluricentric language, with no variety being clearly considered the only standard. Some consider Scots as an English dialect. Pronunciation, grammar and lexis differ, sometimes substantially. The Scottish dialect retains many German aspects including guttural pronunciations. Because of English's wide use as a second language, English speakers can have many different accents, which may identify the speaker's native dialect or language. For more distinctive characteristics of regional accents, see Regional accents of English speakers. For more distinctive characteristics of regional dialects, see List of dialects of the English language. Many countries around the world have blended English words and phrases into their everyday speech and refer to the result by a colloquial name that implies its bilingual origins, which parallels the English language's own addiction to loan words and borrowings. Named examples of these ad-hoc constructions, distinct from pidgin and creole languages, include Engrish, Wasei-eigo, Franglais and Spanglish. (See List of dialects of the English language for a complete list.) Europanto combines many languages but has an English core.

Constructed variants of English

- Basic English is simplified for easy international use. It is used by some aircraft manufacturers and other international businesses to write manuals and communicate. Some English schools in the Far East teach it as an initial practical subset of English.
- Special English is a simplified version of English used by the Voice of America. It uses a vocabulary of 1500 words.
- English reform is an attempt to improve collectively upon the English language.
- Seaspeak and the related Airspeak and Policespeak, all based on restricted vocabularies, were designed by Edward Johnson in the 1980s to aid international co-operation and communication in specific areas.
- European English is a new variant of the English language created to become the common language in Europe.

Sounds

Vowels

Notes: It is the vowels that differ most from region to region. Where symbols appear in pairs, the first corresponds to the sounds used in North American English, the second corresponds to English spoken elsewhere. #North American English lacks this sound; words with this sound are pronounced with or . According to The Canadian Oxford Dictionary (1998), this sound is present in Standard Canadian English. #Many dialects of North American English do not have this vowel. See cot-caught merger. #The North American variation of this sound is a rhotic vowel. #Many speakers of North American English do not distinguish between these two unstressed vowels. For them, roses and Rosa's are pronounced the same, and the symbol usually used is schwa . #This sound is often transcribed with or with . #The letter U can represent either /u/ or the iotated vowel /ju/.

Consonants

This is the English Consonantal System using symbols from the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). #The velar nasal is a non-phonemic allophone of /n/ in some northerly British accents, appearing only before /g/. In all other dialects it is a separate phoneme, although it only occurs in syllable codas. #The alveolar flap is an allophone of /t/ and /d/ in unstressed syllables in North American English and increasingly in Australian English. This is the sound of "tt" or "dd" in the words latter and ladder, which are homophones in North American English. This is the same sound represented by single "r" in some varieties of Spanish. #In some dialects, such as Cockney, the interdentals /θ/ and /ð/ are usually merged with /f/ and /v/, and in others, like African American Vernacular English, /ð/ is merged with /d/. In some Irish varieties, /θ/ and /ð/ become the corresponding dental plosives, which then contrast with the usual alveolar plosives. #The sounds are labialised in some dialects. Labialisation is never contrastive in initial position and therefore is sometimes not transcribed. #The voiceless velar fricative /x/ is used only by Scottish or Welsh speakers of English for Scots/Gaelic words such as loch or by some speakers for loanwords from German and Hebrew like Bach or Chanukah /xanuka/, or in some dialects such as Scouse (Liverpool) where the affricate [kx] is used instead of /k/ in words such as docker . Most native speakers have a great deal of trouble pronouncing it correctly when learning a foreign language. Most speakers use the sounds [k] and [h] instead. #Voiceless w is found in Scottish, Irish, some upper-class British, some eastern United States, and New Zealand accents. In all other dialects it is merged with /w/.

Voicing and Aspiration

Voicing and aspiration of stop consonants in English depend on dialect and context, but a few general rules can be given:
- Voiceless plosives and affricates (//, //, //, and //) are aspirated when they are word-initial or begin a stressed syllable and are not part of a consonant cluster—compare pin [] and spin [].
- In some dialects, aspiration extends to unstressed syllables as well.
- In other dialects, such as Indian English, most or all voiceless stops may remain unaspirated.
- Word-initial voiced plosives may be devoiced in some dialects.
- Word-terminal voiceless plosives may be unreleased or accompanied by a glottal stop in some dialects (e.g. many varieties of American English)—examples: tap [], sack [].
- Word-terminal voiced plosives may be devoiced in some dialects (e.g. some varieties of American English)—examples: sad [], bag []. In other dialects they are fully voiced in final position, but only partially voiced in initial position.

Intonation

Tone groups

English is an Intonation language. This means that the pitch of the voice is used syntactically, for example, to convey surprise and irony, or to change a statement into a question. In English, intonation patterns are on groups of words, which are called tone groups, tone units, intonation groups or sense groups. Tone groups are said on a single breath and, as a consequence, are of limited length, more often being on average five words long or lasting roughly two seconds. The structure of tone groups can have a crucial impact on the meaning of what is said. For example: :- :- :-

Characteristics of intonation

Each tone group can be subdivided into syllables, which can either be stressed (strong) or unstressed (weak). There is always a strong syllable, which is stressed more than the others. This is called the nuclear syllable. For example: :That | was | the | best | thing | you | could | have | done! Here, all syllables are unstressed, except the syllables/words "best" and "done", which are stressed. "Best" is stressed harder and, therefore, is the nuclear syllable. The nuclear syllable carries the main point the speaker wishes to make. For example: :John had stolen that money. (... not I) :John had stolen that money. (... you said he hadn't) :John had stolen that money. (... he wasn't given it) :John had stolen that money. (... not this money) :John had stolen that money. (... not something else) The nuclear syllable is spoken louder than all the others and has a characteristic change of pitch. The changes of pitch most commonly encountered in English are the rising pitch and the falling pitch, although the fall-rising pitch and/or the rise-falling pitch are sometimes used. For example: :When do you want to be paid? :Nów? (rising pitch. In this case, it denotes a question: can I be paid now?) :Nòw (falling pitch. In this case, it denotes a statement: I choose to be paid now)

Grammar

English grammar is based on its Germanic roots, though some scholars during the 1700s and 1800s attempted to impose Latin grammar upon it, with little success. English is just slightly inflected, much less so than most Indo-European languages. It compensates for this by placing more grammatical information in auxiliary words and word order. Unlike most other Indo-European languages, modern nominal groups (nouns) in English do not carry gender, although an archaic form of gender is technically assigned as either masculine, feminine, neuter or common. Engendered nouns are only apparent in special cases, such as "I loved that ship as if she were my own", where the noun "ship" is referred to by its feminine pronoun.

Vocabulary

Almost without exception, Germanic words (which include all the basics such as pronouns and conjunctions) are shorter and more informal. Latinate words are often regarded as more elegant or educated. However, the excessive use of Latinate words is often mistaken for either pretentiousness (as in the stereotypical policeman's talk of "apprehending the suspect") or obfuscation (as in a military document which says "neutralise" when it means "kill"). George Orwell's essay Politics and the English Language gives a thorough treatment of this feature of English. An English speaker is often able to choose between Germanic and Latinate synonyms: "come" or "arrive"; "sight" or "vision"; "freedom" or "liberty"—and sometimes also between a word inherited through French and a borrowing direct from Latin of the same root word: "oversee", "survey" or "supervise". The richness of the language is that such synonyms have slightly different meanings, enabling the language to be used in a very flexible way to express fine variations or shades of thought. List of Germanic and Latinate equivalents In everyday speech the majority of words will normally be Germanic. If a speaker wishes to make a forceful point in an argument in a very blunt way, Germanic words will usually be chosen. A majority of Latinate words (or at least a majority of content words) will normally be used in more formal speech and writing, such as a courtroom or an encyclopedia article. English is noted for the vast size of its active vocabulary and its fluidity. English easily accepts technical terms into common usage and imports new words which often come into common usage. In addition, slang provides new meanings for old words. In fact this fluidity is so pronounced that a distinction often needs to be made between formal forms of English and contemporary usage. See also sociolinguistics.

Number of words in English

As the General Explanations at the beginning of the Oxford English Dictionary state: :The Vocabulary of a widely diffused and highly cultivated living language is not a fixed quantity circumscribed by definite limits.... there is absolutely no defining line in any direction: the circle of the English language has a well-defined centre but no discernible circumference. The vocabulary of English is undoubtedly vast, but assigning a specific number to its size is more a matter of definition than of calculation. Unlike other languages, there is no Academy to define officially accepted words. Neologisms are coined regularly in medicine, science and technology—some enter wide usage; others remain restricted to small circles. Foreign words used in immigrant communities often make their way into wider English usage. Archaic, dialectal, and regional words might be considered "English" or not. The Oxford English Dictionary (2nd edition) includes over 500,000 headwords, following a rather inclusive policy: :It embraces not only the standard language of literature and conversation, whether current at the moment, or obsolete, or archaic, but also the main technical vocabulary, and a large measure of dialectal usage and slang (Supplement to the OED, 1933). The difficulty of defining the number of words is compounded by the emergence of new versions of English, such as Asian English.

Word origins

One of the consequences of the French influence is that the vocabulary of English is, to a certain extent, divided between those words which are Germanic (mostly Old English) and those which are "Latinate" (Latin-derived, mostly from Norman French but some borrowed directly from Latin). A computerised survey of about 80,000 words in the old Shorter Oxford Dictionary (3rd ed.) was published in Ordered Profusion by Thomas Finkenstaedt and Dieter Wolff (1973) which estimated the origin of English words as follows:
- French, including Old French and early Anglo-French: 28.3%
- Latin, including modern scientific and technical Latin: 28.24%
- Old and Middle English, Old Norse, and Dutch: 25%
- Greek: 5.32%
- No etymology given: 4.03%
- Derived from proper names: 3.28%
- All other languages contributed less than 1% James D. Nicoll made the oft-quoted observation: "The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and riffle their pockets for new vocabulary." [http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=1990May15.155309.8892%40watdragon.waterloo.edu&oe=UTF-8&output=gplain]

Writing system

English is written using the Latin alphabet. The spelling system or orthography of English is historical, not phonological. The spelling of words often diverges considerably from how they are spoken, and English spelling is often considered to be one of the most difficult to learn of any language that uses an alphabet. See English orthography.

Basic sound-letter correspondence

Written accents

English includes some words which can be written with accent marks. These words have mostly been imported from other languages, usually French. But it is increasingly rare for writers of English to actually use the accent marks for common words, even in very formal writing, to the point where actually writing the accent may be interpreted as a sign of pretension—though this view is counterbalanced by the view that fine typography should preserve accents, especially where it makes a distinction in pronunciation (compare façade vs. facade which would rhyme with cascade). The strongest tendency to retain the accent is in words that are atypical of English morphology and therefore still perceived as slightly foreign. For example, café has a pronounced final e, which would be silent by the normal English pronunciation rules. Some examples: ångström, appliqué, attaché, blasé, bric-à-brac, café, cliché, crème, crêpe, façade, fiancé(e), flambé, naïve, né(e), papier-mâché, passé, piñata, protégé, raison d'être, résumé, risqué, über-, vis-à-vis, voilà. For a more complete list, see List of English words with diacritics. Some words such as rôle and hôtel were first seen with accents when they were borrowed into English, but now the accent is almost never used. The words were considered very French borrowings when first used in English, even accused by some of being foreign phrases used where English alternatives would suffice, but today their French origin is largely forgotten. The accent on "élite" has disappeared from most publications today, but Time magazine still uses it. For some words such as "soupçon" however, the only spelling found in English dictionaries (the OED and others) uses the diacritic. Italics, with appropriate accents, are generally applied to foreign terms that are uncommonly used in or have not been assimilated into English: for example, adiós, coup d'état, crème brûlée, pièce de résistance, raison d'être, über (übermensch), vis-à-vis. It is also possible to use a diaeresis to indicate a syllable break, but again this is often left out or a hyphen used instead. Examples: coöperate (or co-operate), daïs, naïve, noël, reëlect (or re-elect). One publication that still uses a diaeresis to indicate a syllable break is the New Yorker magazine. Written accents are also used occasionally in poetry and scripts for dramatic performances to indicate that a certain normally unstressed syllable in a word should be stressed for dramatic effect, or to keep with the meter of the poetry. This use is frequently seen in archaic and pseudoarchaic writings with the "-ed" suffix, to indicate that the "e" should be fully pronounced, as with cursèd. In certain older texts (typically in Commonwealth English), the use of ligatures is common in words such as archæology, œsophagus, and encyclopædia. Such words have Latin or Greek origin. Nowadays, the ligatures have been generally replaced in Commonwealth English by the separated letters "ae" and "oe" ("archaeology", "oesophagus") and in American English by "e" ("archeology", "esophagus"). However, the spellings "oeconomy" and "oecology" are now generally replaced by "economy" and "ecology" in Commonwealth English, making these spellings the same as in American English.
See also

- English literature
- Formal written English - regional differences
- List of languages
- Common phrases in various languages
Dialects

- American and British English differences
- English speaking Europe
- General American
- List of dialects of the English language
Pronunciation

- General American
- International Phonetic Alphabet for English
- List of words of disputed pronunciation
- Non-native pronunciations of English
- Phonemic differentiation in English
- Received Pronunciation
- Regional accents of English speakers
- Rhotic and non-rhotic accents
Social, cultural or political

- English as a lingua franca for Europe
- English as an additional language
- English on the Internet
- Foreign language influences in English
- Languages in the United States
- Lists of English words of international origin
- Anglosphere
- Anglo-Saxon
Grammar

- English declension
- English plural
- English verb conjugation
- Initial-stress-derived noun
- Present progressive tense
Usage

- Dictionary
- Like
- List of archaic English words and their modern equivalents
- List of unusual English words
- Longest word in English
- Misspelling
- Gender-neutral language
- Singular they
- Siamese twins (English language)
External links

- [http://www.abroadlanguages.com/al/english/ Learning English abroad] and online. With dictionaries, games, penpals, etc.
- [http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/routesofenglish/index.shtml BBC - Radio 4 - Routes of English]
- [http://www.englishtenseswithcartoons.com Short Discriptions of the English Tenses]
- [http://www.ego4u.com/ English Grammar Online] free exercises, explanations, games and teaching materials on English as a foreign language
- [http://www.eslbase.com/ TEFL] - Teaching English as a Foreign Language - information and advice
- http://www.teach-yourself-english.com/ Easy-going learning aid
- [http://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en Learning English Online] grammar, vocabulary, exercises, exams - English as a second language.
- [http://www.english.hb.pl Pako's English Page - Articles and advice on learning English]
- [http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=eng Ethnologue report for English]
- [http://www.LanguageMonitor.com LanguageMonitor] - Watchdog on contemporary English usage
- [http://www.vec.ca/english/1/english.cfm Development of English]
- [http://www.esu.org English Speaking Union]
- [http://www2.ignatius.edu/faculty/turner/languages.htm The World's Most Widely Spoken Languages]
- [http://www.antimoon.com/ Antimoon - How to learn English] - Advice and inspiration for learners of English.
- [http://www.zozanga.com/ Zozanga ESL - Learn Online English] How to learn English.
- [http://www.quiz-tree.com/English_Spelling_main.html Free English spelling quizzes]
- [http://inenglishofcourse.pl Conversation and Resource Point for Learners of English]
- [http://www.globalenglishsalon.com Global English Salon] - Listen to English online free.
- [http://www.loecsen.com/travel/discover_pop.php?lang=en&to_lang=2&learn-English/ Learn and listen to useful expressions in English] Each expression is presented with an audio recording and an illustration
- [http://www.whatdoesthatmean.com What Does That Mean?] A wiki based lexicon of English idioms from around the world
- [http://www1.ku-eichstaett.de/SLF/EngluVglSW/ELiX/bge.pdf Basic Global English]
Dictionaries

- [http://www.oed.com Oxford English Dictionary] The definitive record of the English language
- [http://dicts.info/dictlist1.php All free English dictionaries] Collection of many free English dictionaries.
- [http://dictionary.cambridge.org Cambridge Dictionary]
- [http://www.freelang.net/dictionary/french.html Freelang - French-English Dictionary made by Bertrand Cornu]
Further reading

- Baugh AC and Cable T. A history of the English language (5th ed), Rouledge, 2002 (ISBN 0415280990_
- Crystal, D. The Cambridge encyclopedia of the English language (2nd ed), Cambridge University Press, 2003 (ISBN 0521530334)
- Halliday, MAK. An introduction to functional grammar (2nd ed), London, Edward Arnold, 1994 (ISBN 0340557826)
- McArthur, T (ed). The Oxford Companion to the English Language, Oxford University Press, 1992 (ISBN 019214183X)
- Robinson, Orrin, "Old English and Its Closest Relatives", Stanford Univ Press, 1992 (ISBN 0-8047-2221-8) English language Category:Languages of Fiji Category:Languages of Guam Category:Languages of Hong Kong Category:Languages of Singapore Category:Languages of the Philippines Category:Languages of the United Kingdom Category:Languages of the United States Category:Languages of Canada Category:Languages of New Zealand Category:Languages of India als:Englische Sprache ko:영어 ms:Bahasa Inggeris zh-min-nan:Eng-gí ja:英語 nb:Engelsk språk simple:English language