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Indo-European

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Indo-European, family of languages having more speakers than any other language family. It is estimated that approximately half the world's population speaks an Indo-European tongue as a first ...

Hausa language

(Encyclopedia)Hausa language, member of the Chadic group of languages belonging to the Afroasiatic family of languages. See Afroasiatic languages. ...

German language

(Encyclopedia)German language, member of the West Germanic group of the Germanic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages (see Germanic languages). It is the official language of Germany and Austria and i...

Athabascan

(Encyclopedia)Athabascan both: –păsˈ– [key], group of related Native American languages forming a branch of the Nadene linguistic family or stock. In the preconquest period, Athabascan was a large and extensi...

sign language

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Manual alphabet sign language, gestural communication used as an alternative or replacement for speech. Sign languages resemble oral languages in every way other than their modality. As with o...

bilingualism

(Encyclopedia)bilingualism, ability to use two languages. Fluency in a second language requires skills in listening comprehension, speaking, reading, and writing, although in practice some of those skills are often...

Cushitic

(Encyclopedia)Cushitic kəshĭtˈĭk [key], group of languages belonging to the Afroasiatic family of languages. See Afroasiatic languages. ...

Darwin's finches

(Encyclopedia)Darwin's finches or Galapagos finches gəläˈpəgōsˌ [key], species of small perching birds, constituting the subfamily Geospizinae of the tanager family. Not related to the true finches, this grou...

Hawaiian

(Encyclopedia)Hawaiian, member of the Polynesian group of the Austronesian family of languages. Of the fewer than 10,000 people who speak Hawaiian, only a few hundred are native speakers, but the language is taught...

language

(Encyclopedia)language, systematic communication by vocal symbols. It is a universal characteristic of the human species. Nothing is known of its origin, although scientists have identified a gene that clearly cont...