Colourless Green Ideas Sleep Furiously

So, we've made our way to linguistics. It was only a matter of time, really. Anyone who knows me well will know that it would have taken a lot of self-restraint to wait this long to write this blog post, since I rave about languages and linguistics on virtually a daily basis. It is my absolute greatest passion. 

Linguistics is the study of language - how we speak, how we acquire language, how languages evolve, what languages are comprised of, how languages are related, how language and thought are linked... and it is truly fascinating.
It seems to combine everything I love: languages, history, maths and logic, psychology, philosophy, anthropology, sociology, being analytical, essay-writing... and it is where my interests lie above anything else.
Here is a list of some of the interesting things that linguistics is concerned with:

• There is a theory called 'Linguistic relativity' or 'Sapir-Whorfianism' which states that language is related to thought, and can actually affect the way we think. For example, Daniel Everett did a study on the Pirahã language (an Amazonian language) and discovered that they have no words for certain colours and certain numbers, the latter resulting in them finding it difficult to understand subtraction as they have no way of expressing it - their language limits them. Almost like 'Newspeak' in George Orwell's '1984', this theory suggests that the range of vocabulary (lexicon) in a language limits our thought and makes people who speak different languages think in different ways
• Virtually every language across Europe and Asia evolved from a language called Proto-Indo-European. The earliest language that evolved from here that is still alive is Albanian, with Sanskrit and Greek following closely. You can also gauge from the diagram that there have been 5 distinct periods of language in England - England before English, Old English, Middle English, Early Modern English and Present Day English - and that the English language has roots from Latin (after the Roman invasion), Germanic languages (from the Saxon, Jute and Angle invasions) and French (after the Norman invasion)
• There are a few languages that do not share the common ancestor of 'Proto-Indo-European', most notably Basque. These languages are called 'Pre-Indo-European' languages. The survival of Basque is very curious, as it is spoken by so few people and has no known ancestor, and consequently it has quite a high risk of linguicide within the next few years
• When villages with different languages trade with one another, they often create a new language called a 'Pidgin' so they can communicate. When the next generation starts acquiring this language, it becomes a stable natural language called a 'Creole' with a system of grammar. These children have not been taught the grammar of the pidgin - in fact the grammar for a pidgin is simplified anyway - instead they effectively create their own language. Pidgins and Creoles are used as evidence for the Chomskian theory that all humans have an innate ability to learn grammar, called Universal Grammar. He believes that the creoles are created because linguistic ability manifests itself without being taught.
• Due to the influence of the internet, many languages are picking up a large number of English words and in effect becoming hybrid languages. Examples include Denglisch (the combination of German and English), Franglais (French and English) and Hinglish (Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi and English)