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An Exhibit on Language

Words of the People

The Canterbury Tales (by Chaucer, Geoffrey)
The Principles of the International Phon... (by International Phonetic Association)
The Science Of Language Vol I (by F. Max Muller K. M.)
A Comparative Grammar of the Gaudian Lan... (by Hoernle, August Frederich Rudolf)
National Symposium on Learning Disabilit... (by Department of Education)
The Tower of Babel, A Poetical Drama (by Alfred Austin)
Selections from Chaucer's Canterbury Tal... (by Chaucer, Geoffrey)
Psychology and Pathology of Speech Devel... (by Conradi, Edward)

The Words of the People: An Exhibit on Language

From the oldest forms of writings with pictographs and Cuneiform in 3500 B.C. to the generation of the first alphabet; of all the strides that we have made in technology, Language has been the single most important "invention" since the dawn of man. In fact, language defies time. Language is the greatest man-made achievement. Tone, intonation, inflection, the tongue, the throat, the breath and the brain: all lifeforms have some form of communication. The proceeding Collections in "The Words of the People: An Exhibit on Language" includes the most significant books on the subject of language.

Language, Literature, Children's Literature, Hawaiiana, Poetry and more.

Language and Learning

The root of the word language comes from the Latin term lingua, meaning "tongue." This definition’s attention to the human tongue highlights this muscle as the primary tool used by the body to shape combinations of uttered sounds to form the words of a spoken language. However, we can examine how languages also have a life of their own beyond an individual body. The “Words of the People: An Exhibit on Language" illustrates how language can be studied through its human biological and cognitive properties, as well as through its temporal and relational nature.

Language depends upon social customs and the ability for other humans to learn and adapt to social stimuli. The Science of Language Volume I, details theories on how early humans created words through vocalizations with the speech organs such as the throat, nose, tongue, palate, teeth, and lips, producing thousands of sounds. However, a typical language group utilizes only a limited number of sounds, usually between 10 and 60, which are interpreted aurally (The Science of Language, Volume 1, K.M. Max Muller).

In The National Symposium on Learning Disabilities in English Language Learners, proffers that the capacity to learn a language is based on individual factors, such as neurobiology, and contextual factors, such as environmental and social support (U.S. Department of Education, The National Symposium on Learning Disabilities in English Language Learners, U.S. Department of Education). Edward Conradi, a Professor of Psychology, wrote a thesis titled Psychology and Pathology of Speech Development of the Child. In this work, Conradi details how the various sounds a child makes after birth becomes the foundation for learning his mother tongue (Conradi, Psychology and Pathology of Speech Development of the Child, Edward Conradi). Later, the author became the President of the Florida State College of Women, the first women’s college in the south approved by the Association of American Universities (“Edward Conradi,” World Heritage Encyclopedia). Perhaps it was through his studies in child psychology that Conradi believed all people should be given the opportunity to develop their language, and contribute to their culture and society.

Language Across Time

Writing allowed particular languages to be remembered for longer periods of time. The oldest writing is traced to the Sumerians, whose records go back to at least 3500 B.C. They used a form of picture writing that told a story or gave a message. The use of pictures as a writing style became so highly developed that it could express abstract ideas. Many present-day Asian countries such as China continue to use this form of writing (“Language,” World Heritage Encyclopedia and "The History of the Alphabet," World Heritage Encyclopedia).

However, alphabetic systems of writing differ from picture writing because they are not static. Alphabetic writing is comprised of symbols, such as letters of the alphabet, that represent a vocalized sound (“Language”). Alphabetic writing changes to reflect the evolution of spoken language (“Language,” World Heritage Encyclopedia and "Letter Alphabet," World Heritage Encyclopedia). The Canterbury Tales was told by storyteller and poet Geoffrey Chaucer is an example, The original writing of this work used different spellings, reflecting pronunciations of words according to the vernacular of Chaucer’s time. However, when the work was written in later editions, the spellings of words changed to reflect pronunciations during those times (The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer). The International Phonetic Association (IPA) has transcribed words in this book, using symbols to demarcate specific speech sounds. The Principles of the International Phonetic Association, 1912 chronicles the history of the IPA, creating a tool often used in dictionaries to assist readers in the pronunciation of words as they are spoken in their contexts (The Principles of the International Phonetic Association, International Phonetic Association).

The Great Vowel Shift

Before Modern English, there were "Old English" and Middle English." In 1550 A.D., a documented event called "The Great Vowel Shift occurred.

Language Families

The Tower of Babel: A Poetical Drama by Alfred Austin is a dramatization of a biblical story that tells us that all languages were at once one. However, a heavenly intervention confused people’s languages and scattered them around the world (Tower of Babel, Alfred Austin). Despite the differences of today, it is possible to examine the relationships between languages. One way to classify these relations are through the concept of language families, or a group of languages that are related through descent from a common ancestor, or proto-language. Language families can be divided into smaller phylogenetic units, or branches of the language family. For example, the Celtic, Germanic, Slavic, Romance and Indo-Iranian languages are phylogenetic units of the indo-European language family (“Tower of Babel,” World Heritage Encyclopedia).

Different languages can also transform one another when they come into contact. These are called "Sprachbund." The book, A Comparative Grammar of the Gaudian Languages, With Special Reference to the Eastern Hindi, Accompanied by a Language-Map and a Table of Alphabets details how the Indian Subcontinent is a Sprachbund, or "...a geographical region that has several languages that feature common linguistic structures due to language contact and not common origin..." (A Comparative Grammar of the Gaudian Languages, With Special Reference to the Eastern Hindi, Accompanied by a Language-Map and a Table of Alphabets, August Frederich Rudolf Hoernle). "Language Isolates" are languages that have no known relatives, such as the Basque language (“Basque Language,” World Heritage Encyclopedia). "Contact Languages" are created when languages that do not come from a single ancestor come into contact to create "mixed" or Creole languages (“Language,” World Heritage Encyclopedia). Hawaiian Pidgin, for instance, is an example of a Creole. Of note: Hawaiian Pidgin is the only known language in history to be created by children. On pineapple, coffee and sugar cane plantations in Hawaii, there was such a diversity of workers that the children (in order to be able to socialize together) unconsciously created a Creole that is still spoken widely in the State of Hawaii. Hawaiian Creole is a mixture of "loanwords" and phrases from over a dozen languages, including Hawaiian, Modern English, Japanese, Chinese, Filipino and Portuguese.

Debates on the study of language revealed its multi-dimensionality. Language has been studied biologically and cognitively, as an action of the vocal chords to create sounds with the use of the tongue. Languages function as organisms that survive over time through becoming a written language, or a spoken language that endures as a descendant of a proto-language. Spoken language can also dynamically transform by taking on the properties of other languages it is in contact with. The “Words of People: An Exhibit" on Language” features language as a multi-dimensional subject that covers the biological, historical and cultural aspects of human communication.

Works Cited

Austin, Alfred. The Tower of Babel, A Poetical Drama. Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons, 1874.

"Basque Language." World Heritage Encyclopedia. WorldLibrary.org. Web. 2014.

Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales. New York: Macmillan, 1910.

Conradi, Edward. Psychology and Pathology of Speech Development of the Child. Volume 11. Pedagogical Seminary, September, 1904.

Department of Education. The National Symposium on Learning, Disabilities in English Language Learners. Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation Services, U.S. Department of Education, 2003.

"Edward Conradi." World Heritage Encyclopedia. WorldLibrary.org. Web. 2014.

"The History of the Alphabet." World Heritage Encyclopedia. WorldLibrary.org. Web. 2014.

Hoernle, August Frederich Rudolf. A Comparative Grammar of the Gaudian Languages, With Special Reference to the Eastern Hindi, Accompanied by a Language-Map and a Table of Alphabets. London: Trubner and Co., 1880.

International Phonetic Association. The Principles of the International Phonetic Association. Paris: Association Phonétique Internationale, 1912.

"Language." World Heritage Encyclopedia. WorldLibrary.org. Web. 2014.

"Letter Alphabet." World Heritage Encyclopedia. WorldLibrary.org. Web. 2014.

Muller K.M. Max. The Science of Language. Volume 1. London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1899.

"Tower of Babel." World Heritage Encyclopedia. WorldLibrary.org. Web. 2014.

Language Collections

Learn more about the evolving nature of languages in these collections:

Top 100 books on Language

Great Expectations (by Dickens, Charles)
The King's English (by Fowler, Henry Watson)
Jane Eyre (by Brontë, Charlotte)
1984 (by Orwell, George)
Grimm's Fairy Tales (version 2) (by Grimm, Jacob & Wilhelm)
A Woman of Thirty (by De Balzac, Honore)
Middlemarch (by Eliot, George)
Dubliners (by Joyce, James)
Canterbury Tales, The (by Chaucer, Geoffrey)
An Intermediate Greek English Lexicon
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Tom ... (by Twain, Mark)
A Sanskrit Grammar : Including Both the ... (by William Dwight Whitney)
The Iliad (by Butler, Samuel)
The Egyptian Book of the Dead (by Budge, Ernest Alfred Wallis, Sir)
Iliad, The (by Homer)

Top 100 books on Education

Trojan Women, The (by Euripides)
Heroides (by Ovidius Naso, Publius (Ovid))
Death in the Afternoon (by Hemingway, Ernest)
Peter Parley's Universal History, On the... (by Peter Parley)
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (by Baum, Lyman Frank)
The Odyssey (by Homer)
Hippolytus (by Euripides)
Washington Irving's the Legend of Sleepy... (by Irving, Washington)
The Call of the Wild (by London, Jack)
The confessions of S. Augustine (by Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo)
The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle (by Aristotle, Frank Hesketh Peters)
The Republic, Score Plato Rep (by Plato)
The Iliad (by Butler, Samuel)
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, ... (by Franklin, Benjamin)
The Lady of Shalott (1832) (by Tennyson, Alfred, 1St Baron Tennyson, Lord)

Top 100 books on Children's Early Learning

Just so Stories (by Kipling, Rudyard)
Raggedy Andy Stories (by Gruelle, Johnny)
Green Fairy Book, The (by Lang, Andrew)
The Three Bears
The National Nursery Book
The Story of Hiawatha
Three Blind Mice (by Ivimey, John William)
The Tale of Mr. Tod (by Potter, Beatrix)
The Little Engine That Could (by Lenski, Lois L.)
The Green Fairy Book (by Andrew Lang, Henry Justice Ford)
Divine and Moral Songs for Children (by Isaac Watts)
Original Poems, for Infant Minds (by Ann Taylor, Jane Taylor, O'Keeffe (Adelaide))
The velveteen rabbit, or, how toys becom... (by Bianco, Margery Williams)
The Three Jovial Huntsmen : One of R. Ca... (by Caldecott, Randolph, 1846-1886)
Cinderella; Or, The Little Glass Slipper...

Top 100 books on Literature and Fiction

Sense and Sensibility (version 3) (by Austen, Jane)
Heart of Darkness (version 2) (by Conrad, Joseph)
Prince, The (Version 3) (by Machiavelli, Niccolo)
Frankenstein : Or, The Modern Prometheus (by Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft)
Crime and Punishment (by Dostoyevsky, Fyodor)
The Pickwick Papers (by Dickens, Charles)
The Portrait of a Lady (by James, Henry)
The Canterbury Tales (by Geoffrey Chaucer)
Pride and Prejudice (by Austen, Jane)
Vanity Fair (by Thackeray, William Makepeace)
Walden (by Thoreau, Henry David)
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (by Baum, Lyman Frank)
The Scarlet Letter (by Hawthorne, Nathaniel)
Utopia (by More, Thomas, Sir, Saint, 1478-1535)
Through the Looking-Glass (by Carroll, Lewis)

Top 100 books on Classic Children's Literature

The Second Jungle Book (by Rudyard Kipling)
Railway Children, The (by Nesbit, E. (Edith))
King Solomon's Mines (by Haggard, Henry Rider)
Legend of Sleepy Hollow, The (by Irving, Washington)
Voyages of Doctor Dolittle, The (by Lofting, Hugh)
Kidnapped (by Stevenson, Robert Louis)
The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes : ... (by Jones, Giles)
The story of King Arthur and his knights (by Pyle, Howard)
Through the Looking-Glass (by Carroll, Lewis)
Black Beauty (version 2) (by Sewell, Anna)
Treasure Island (by Stevenson, Robert Louis)
Nights with Uncle Remus (by Harris, Joel Chandler)
Five Children And It (by E. Nesbit)
Happy Prince and Other Tales, The (by Wilde, Oscar)
Ivanhoe (by Scott, Walter, Sir)

Top books on Shakespeare

Twelfth Night or What You Will (by Shakespeare, William)
As You Like It the Pennsylvania State Un... (by Shakespeare, William)
King Lear (version 2) (by Shakespeare, William)
Coriolanus (by Shakespeare, William)
Macbeth (by Shakespeare, William)
The Merchant of Venice (by William Shakespeare)
Taming of the Shrew, The (by Shakespeare, William)
The Book of Love (by Wagstaff, Blanche Shoemaker)
Othello (by Shakespeare, William)
King Richard Ii (by Shakespeare, William)
Measure for Measure (by Shakespeare)
A Midsummer Night's Dream (by William Shakespeare)
As You Like It (by Shakespeare, William)
The Tempest; A Comedy by William Shakesp... (by Shakespeare, William)
Hamlet (by Shakespeare, William)

Top books on Contemporary Children's Literature

Green Eggs and Ham : Preformed by Wally ... (by Dr. Seuss)
Love You Forever : Preformed by Wally Am... (by Robert Munsch)
RRRALPH : Preformed by Wally Amos
Clifford and the Grouchy Neighbors : Pre... (by Norman Bridwell)
The Lion and the Mouse : Preformed by Wa... (by Eric Carle)
Where the Wild Things Are : Preformed by... (by Maurice Sendak)
The Cow Who Clucked : Preformed by Wally... (by Denise Fleming)
Loony Little: An Environmental Tale : Pr... (by Dianna Hutts Aston)
The Crayon Box that Talked : Preformed b... (by Shane DeRolf)
The Paper Bag Princess : Preformed by Wa... (by Robert Munsch)
Koala Lou : Preformed by Wally Amos (by Mem Fox)
The Beckonong Cat, Based on a Japenese F... (by Koko Nishizuka)
Calabash Cat : Preformed by Wally Amos (by James Rumford)
How Rocket Learned to Read : Preformed b... (by Tad Hills)
Squashed in the Middle : Preformed by Wa... (by Elizabeth Winthrop)

Top 100 books on Hawaiiana

Pehea 'O Ia E Holo Ai (by Lilinoe Andrews)
No Ka Wai O Ka Puna Hou (by Eve Furchgott)
Na Koko O Keia Keiki Hawai'I (by William H. Wilson)
Kuleana (by William K. Wallace)
Kamehameha V : Lot Kapuaiwa (by Rosalin Uphus Comeau)
Ao Kiko
He Palapala Mua Na Na Kamalii (A First B... (by Hawaiian Historical Society)
He Mau Mele Kula Sabati (Sunday School S... (by Reverend Laiana)
Punia (by Lokahi Antonio)
The 'Ulu Tree (No Ke Kumu 'Ulu) (by Eve Furchgott)
Ka Moolelo O Ka Moi Kalakaua I (The Hist... (by J. J. Williams)
Kumu Kou (by Larry Kimura)
No Wai Ke Kuleana (by Pohakalani Tolentino-Perry)
The Water of Kane (by Caroline Curtis)
Moolelo Hawaii O Kalapana: Ke Keiki Hoop... (by William H. Wilson)

Top books on Poetry

A Profeta Kertje (by Gibran, Khalil)
Poems (by Owen, Wilfred)
When I Was King: Poems (by Henry Lawson)
The Raven (by Poe, Edgar Allan)
In Memoriam (by Tennyson, Alfred Lord)
Rhymes of a Red Cross Man (by Robert W. Service)
Songs of Innocence and of Experience and... (by Blake, William)
Collected Poems of John Keats : Volume 5... (by Keats, John)
Poetical Works : Volume 1 (by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)
Stray Birds (by Sir Rabindranath Tagore)
A Masque of Poets : Including Guy Vernon... (by Emily Dickinson)
The Selected Poems of Rainer Maria Rilke (by Rilke, Rainer, Maria)
Poems by Currer, Ellis, And Acton Bell (... (by Bell, Acton)
The Negro Speaks of Rivers (by Hughes, Langston)
Verses 1889-1896 (by Kipling, Rudyard)

Yiddish Book Center

Der Onfanger Lerbukh Tsu Lernen Kinder L... Volume Vol. 6 (by Levin, Yaakov)
Dos Land Fun Tsveytn Breyshes Erets-Yiro... (by Papiernikow, Joseph)
Dos Vin’Shfingerl (by Mendele Mokher Sefarim)
In Likh Fun Toyre : Vol. 4 Volume Vol. 4
Pen Tishka Kedey Nish Tsu Fargesn! (by Centre De Documentation Juive Contemporaine)
Heymishe Ksovim Shrayber, Bikher, Proble... Volume Vol. 2 (by Sadan, Dov)
Durkh Loyere Kvaln (by Lee, Malka)
Dos Idishe Kind a Lerbukh : Bashim Far D... Volume Vol. 2 (by Rudoy, Pinas)
Geklibene Shrifn : Vol. 1 Volume Vol. 1 (by Kats, Pinye)
Printsipen a Filozofishe Ophandlung Iber... (by Agushevits, Reuven)
Baym Pru, La Plaa Un Yardn Lider Un Sone... (by Weininger, Freed)
Kalman Bulan Roman Fun Yidishn Lebn : Vo... Volume Vol. 2 (by Tabatznik, M.)
A Heym Far Ale Iz Noyig Un Meglikh Far'N... (by Workmens Circle (U. S.). Old Eydzsh Komie)
Zikhroynes Fun a Yidishn Partizan (by Bakalczuk-Felin, Meilech)
Kamo Er Perosyantsn (by Shilin, Georgi)