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Abuelos paternal:

Houston. (America) English monolingual.

Smith (America) English monolingual.

Abuelos maternal:

Tohill (America-France-America); English monolingual.

Lowery (America-France-America); English monolingual.

Padres:

Houston (America); English monolingual.

Tohill (America); English monolingual.

Yo:

Houston (America (for now)); Spanich/English bilingual.

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Este video tiene muchos ejemplos que describen el uso de "code-switching" que muchas personas bilingues dicen por accidente. Tiene algunos jovenes que demuestra los tipos diferentes de code-switching tambien como: interoracional, intraoracional, y marcador discursivo. Todas de las tres ejemplos son presentado en el video.

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Este comercial nos demuestra muchos de las lenguas herencias en los Estado Unidos. Creo que este comercial tiene exito como una manera combinar las culturas diferentes y lenguas diferentes que hacen la gran cultura de los Estados Unidos. Aunque esta cancion fue escrito en ingles, Coca Cola lo usa para representar la importancia prestar atencion a todas tipas de personas y todas de sus lenguas herencias

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La vitalidad linguistica de una lengua es un aspecto que muchas personas no piensan como importante. Este video es parte de un proyecto de Geografico Nacional que trabaja preservar lenguas en peligro de extincion en Australia. La idea que una lengua desaperece cada dos semanas es incredible! Todas lenguas en el mundo tiene informacion que podemos usar y aprender algo importante.

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Este sitio tiene diez ejemplos de cognados falsos entre ingles y espanol. Las fotos demuestran oraciones que no tienen sentido en ingles cuando una persona traduce de espanol con una palabra incorrecto. Por ejemplo, la primera foto dice "Congrats on your embarrassment" porque la palabra "embarrasada" suena como "embarrassed" en ingles; pero realmente significa "pregnant."

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Top ten funniest Spanish-English false friends The Local

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Este video explica las claves para hablar como los Americanos en el sur de los Estados Unidos. En la programa "House of Cards" hay un personaje que nacio' en California, pero tiene hablar con un acento del sur para su rol en la programa. El video describe que es una idea antigua usar "r-dropping" para sonar como naciste en el sur. Realmente, si quieres parecer que eres del sur de los Estados Unidos, necesitas concentrar como pronunciar los vocals.

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Why Kevin Spacey's accent in House of Cards sounds off

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The linguistics behind Kevin Spacey's Southern accent in House of Cards. Read What linguists say about Kevin Spacey's bizarre Southern accent on House of Cards: http://www.vox.com/2015/2/27/8119829/house-of-cards-spacey-southern-accent Subscribe to our channel!

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Este video nos da aspectos linguisticas para entender y aprender co'mo hablar Americano. El hombre Australiano tiene algunas claves para hablar Americano; entonces, el dice que necesitas acentuar tus vocals y tambien poner un enfasis en las "r"s. En relacion a sus acento australiano estas caracteristicas linguisticas hacen valer en EEUU y no en Australia.

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How To Speak American, Without Knowing How!

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En este articulo, aprendi que los dialectos y variedades linguisticas no son siempre en relacion a los regiones y lugares. En Australia, hay tres maneras en que las personas se hablan; pero sus acentos no cambia en lugares diferentes del pais -- realmente los cambian en relacion a su posicion social. Si estas mas rico tiene un accento poco diferente que las personas mas pobres. Entonces, todo la variedad en las lenguas no depende donde estas o donde nace; variedades linguisticas puede surgir por razones multiples.

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He encontrado y usado este video por un otro capitulo, pero lo relaciona a este capitulo tambien (y es un video muy comico). Aqui Joanna demonstra algunos acentos espanoles en paises diferentes y meciona caracteristicas lingisticas sobre algunos. Por ejemplo ella habla sobre la "ll" en Argentina y que las personas alla lo pronuncian "sh". Tambien ella dice que las personas del Caribe no pronuncian la siliba final (como: -adp a -ao).

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Aunque este articulo describe los efectos de escribir los mensajes de texto en ingles, creo que este tema puede aplicar a todas idiomas hoy en dia. Aqui dice que "texting" no es la misma lengua que usamos para escribir un libro o nuestra tarea; pero es una codigo que usamos para ahorrar tiempo y expresar emociones mas rapido. Por ejemplo, "LOL" significa mas que "laugh out loud;" es una palabra que insenuar la idea de empatia entre dos personas. "Texting" no esta sustiuando las lenguas porque es una lengua oral.

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People have always spoken differently from how they write, and texting is actually talking with your fingers

Getty Images

Texting has long been bemoaned as the downfall of the written word, "penmanship for illiterates," as one critic called it. To which the proper response is LOL. Texting properly isn't writing at all - it's actually more akin to spoken language. And it's a "spoken" language that is getting richer and more complex by the year.

First, some historical perspective. Writing was only invented 5,500 years ago, whereas language probably traces back at least 80,000 years. Thus talking came first; writing is just an artifice that came along later. As such, the first writing was based on the way people talk, with short sentences - think of the Old Testament. However, while talk is largely subconscious and rapid, writing is deliberate and slow. Over time, writers took advantage of this and started crafting tapeworm sentences such as this one, from The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: "The whole engagement lasted above 12 hours, till the gradual retreat of the Persians was changed into a disorderly flight, of which the shameful example was given by the principal leaders and the Surenas himself."

( MORE: Why Americans Need Spelling Bees and Vocabulary Tests)

No one talks like that casually - or should. But it is natural to desire to do so for special occasions, and that's what oratory is, like the grand-old kinds of speeches that William Jennings Bryan delivered. In the old days, we didn't much write like talking because there was no mechanism to reproduce the speed of conversation. But texting and instant messaging do - and a revolution has begun. It involves the brute mechanics of writing, but in its economy, spontaneity and even vulgarity, texting is actually a new kind of talking. There is a virtual cult of concision and little interest in capitalization or punctuation. The argument that texting is "poor writing" is analogous, then, to one that the Rolling Stones is "bad music" because it doesn't use violas. Texting is developing its own kind of grammar and conventions.

( MORE: Banning the Term Illegal Immigrant Won't Change the Stigma)

Texting is developing its own kind of grammar. Take LOL. It doesn't actually mean "laughing out loud" in a literal sense anymore. LOL has evolved into something much subtler and sophisticated and is used even when nothing is remotely amusing. Jocelyn texts "Where have you been?" and Annabelle texts back "LOL at the library studying for two hours." LOL signals basic empathy between texters, easing tension and creating a sense of equality. Instead of having a literal meaning, it does something - conveying an attitude - just like the -ed ending conveys past tense rather than "meaning" anything. LOL, of all things, is grammar.

Of course no one thinks about that consciously. But then most of communication operates below the radar. Over time, the meaning of a word or an expression drifts - meat used to mean any kind of food, silly used to mean, believe it or not, blessed.

Civilization, then, is fine - people banging away on their smartphones are fluently using a code separate from the one they use in actual writing, and there is no evidence that texting is ruining composition skills. Worldwide people speak differently from the way they write, and texting - quick, casual and only intended to be read once - is actually a way of talking with your fingers.

All indications are that America's youth are doing it quite well. Texting, far from being a scourge, is a work in progress.
This essay is adapted from McWhorter's talk at TED 2013.
MORE: Why Do We Love to Invent Languages?

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Is Texting Killing the English Language? | TIME.com

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Texting has long been bemoaned as the downfall of the written word, "penmanship for illiterates," as one critic called it. To which the proper response is LOL. Texting properly isn't writing at all - it's actually more akin to spoken language.

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Esta foto nos dicimos los tipos diferentes (en una forma un poco mas claro) de deixis en pragmaticas. En general, palabras de deixis son palabras que necesitan el contexto de la oracion para entender la informacion especifico. Por ejemplo si alguien dice a usted sobre el telefono, "Venga aqui!" -- necesite mas informacion porque no sabemos donde esta la palabra "aqui" se refiere. Entonces, esta palabra es una de Deixis spacial.

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En español, hay muchas palabras hoy en dia que tenemos una version para escribir mas rapida y corta. En este sitio hay ejemplos de viente palabras communes que cortamos cuando escribimos mensajes de texto. Sin embargo, estas palabras cortas tiene las mismas significadas como sus completas palabras precedentes, es simplimente mas facil por los jovenes para escribir con las adaptaciones cortas.

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English speakers are not alone in using netspeak to create number-filled, abbreviated, and strangely-spelled messages for speed, efficiency and making messages impenetrable to others.

When I moved abroad to Chile, I landed in the middle of "txtng cntrl;" the nation currently has more cellphones than people. With cell-to-cell calling rates of more than fifty cents a minute on a prepaid phone, many cell-phone using Chileans are master texters.

And while you may (like me) not favor the secret-agent/word game quality of the abreviaturas, if you want to communicate with people on chats, forums and/or SMS in Spanish and need to descifrar what people are saying, you're likely to need at least an elementary handle on of some of these terms.

Here are examples of 20 commonly-used expressions throughout the Spanish-texting world, with a more detailed explanation of the rules that underlie their formation, so you can decode them as you go along si quieres, if you like. Many phrases can be spelled in a variety of different ways, depending on individual texters and which rules are applied.

Netspeak in Spanish: The Basics

How to Form Spanish Netspeak

After several years of mostly unintentional study, I've come up with the following eight somewhat flexible rules that describe how Spanish SMS is formed. They may be applied in isolation, in tandem or to such a great degree that only careful parsing will reveal just what is going on behind the SMS letter-salad.

1. Letter Disappearance

The most commonly dropped letters are the initial "e" or "es" or the "d" found between vowels.

Examples: estoy → toy / toi, espera → pera, todo → too

2. Letter Replacement

The most common letter replacements are the hard "c" and "q," which become "k," "y" is replaced with "i," and "ch" becomes "x."

Examples: quiero → kiero, quién → kien, eschuca → kuxa (double letter replacement AND letter disappearance).

3. Siglas - Initials

This is similar to the English-based AFAIK (as far as I know) or IMHO (in my humble opinion). The first letter of each word in a well-known phrase or syllable in an often-used word is used instead of the whole word/syllable.

Examples: te quiero mucho → tqm / tkm, te amo mucho → tam, también → tb

4. Rebus - Letters that "Say" Their Names

Here there is a play on the fact that in addition to a sound (or two), each letter has a "name," also seen in English with the letter b used to connote "be." Once you know the names of the letter in Spanish, this one becomes fairly easy.

Examples: bebé → bb, eres → rs, encontrar → ncontrar, cadena → kdena

5. Numbers & Symbols

This is similar to the rebus above, where numbers are pronounced and mathematical functions are called by their names: x = por, + = mas, and - = menos.

Examples: saludos → salu2, recién → re100, besitos → bsit2, porque → xq, al menos → al-, demasiado → de+sia2

6. U Dominance

The combinations bu or gu lose their initial consonant, and leave you with a u sound, written as a w.

Examples: bueno → weno, buena → wena, guapo → wapo, guapa → wapa

7. Inclusivity

Spanish is a gendered language, where the male form of a word is used when both males and females are present. Some people will use the arroba (@ sign) to replace the final vowel, so it is both an "o" and an "a" to show inclusivity.

Examples: amigos/amigas → amig@s, todos/todas → tod@s

8. English Loans

This is the use Spanish phonetic spelling to communicate English words. Sometimes when you just can't make out what something means, you have to say it out loud to yourself, pronouncing each letter like it would be said in Spanish, to see if you can make sense out of it.

In the following common examples you'll find a greeting, birthday wishes, an apology and a request if you can decipher them: jelou, japibirdei, sorri, plis.

The rules above are often applied in combination, which can make the whole thing quite nreda2 ( enredado, tangled/confusing). But if you keep just a few basic expressions in mind, you should be able to hold your own, for a few minutes anyway. Qs3! Que estrés!

If you're interested in learning more Spanish Netspeak, the most complete online dictionary (entirely in Spanish) is a compliation and public-sourced site at diccionariosms.com.

If the whole thing is giving you a ' jakeka,' you can try soothing the pain with the definitive authority on "proper" Spanish, the Real Academia Española. I'll be there in un minuto.

Community Connection

Matador has recently launched an all Spanish site that includes original features as well as translations of some of the network's most popular articles. Check it out here: Matador en Español.

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20 words and phrases to start texting in Spanish

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English speakers are not alone in using netspeak to create number-filled, abbreviated, and strangely-spelled messages for speed, efficiency and making messages impenetrable to others. When I moved abroad to Chile, I landed in the middle of "txtng cntrl;" the nation currently has more cellphones than people.

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Este video (para ninos) explica la diferencia entre los homonimias y los homofonos en semanticas. Entonces, homonimias son palabras que tienen la misma ortografia pero hay mas de un significado por esta palabra. Y mas  menos el opuesto de hinominos, los homofonos no tiene la misma ortografia ni el mismo significado pero suenan la misma. Con este video se puede entender facilmente la diferencia entre los dos relaciones semanticas.

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Homographs | Common Core Reading Instruction Video

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Homonyms and Homophones - Time4Writing.com

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Some of the most interesting words in English are homophones, homonyms, and homographs. However, intrigue can quickly give way to confusion when dealing with sound-alikes and look-alikes! Learning the distinction between identical spellings with two different pronunciations or two different spellings with identical pronunciation is not just confusing, but potentially frustrating.

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Este sitio describe todo que necesita saber sobre la lengua de latin "vulgar." Hay una diferencia entre el latin que estudiamos y el latin (vulgar) que hablabamos durante el imperio romano. Latin clasico era un poco mas formal, usado en libros y escritos; pero el latin "vulgar" era mas como una forma jargon o "slang" en la lengua de Latin. El sitio describe el expansion de la lengua y la muerte tambien

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Vulgar Latin - The Father of the Modern Romance Languages

No, Vulgar Latin isn't Latin filled with profanities or simply a slangy version of Classical Latin, although there certainly were vulgar words in Vulgar Latin.

Rather, Vulgar Latin is the father of the Romance languages, Classical Latin, the Latin we study is their grandfather.

Vulgar Latin was spoken differently in different countries, where, over time, it became such familiar modern languages as Spanish, Italian, French, Catalan, Romanian, and Portuguese.

There are others less commonly spoken.

The Spread of Latin

When the Roman Empire expanded, the language and customs of the Romans spread to peoples who already had their own languages and cultures. The growing Empire required soldiers be positioned at all the outposts. These soldiers came from all over the Empire and spoke Latin diluted by their native tongues.

The Latin Spoken in Rome

In Rome itself, the common people did not speak the stilted Latin that we know of as Classical Latin, the literary language of the first century B.C.

Not even the aristocrats, like Cicero, actually spoke the literary language, although they wrote it.

Evidence? We can say this because, in some of Cicero's personal correspondence, his Latin was less than the polished form we think of as typically Ciceronian.

Classical Latin was, therefore, not the lingua franca of the Roman Empire, even if Latin, in one form or another was.

Difference Between Vulgar Latin and Classical Latin

Throughout the Empire, Latin was spoken in many forms, but it was basically the version of Latin called Vulgar Latin, the fast-changing Latin of the common people ( the word vulgar comes from the Latin word for the common people, like the Greek hoi polloi 'the many').

Vulgar Latin was a simpler form of literary Latin.

It dropped terminal letters and syllables (or they metathesized).

It decreased the use of inflections since prepositions (ad (> à) and de) came to serve in place of case endings on nouns.

Colorful or slang (what we think of as 'vulgar') terms replaced traditional ones -- testa meaning 'jar' replaced caput for 'head'.

You may see some of what had happened to Latin by the 3rd or 4th century A.D. when a list of 227 fascinating "corrections" [basically, Vulgar Latin, wrong; Classical Latin, right] was compiled by Probus.

Latin Dies a Lingering Death

Between the changes in the language wrought by the native speakers of Latin, the changes made by the soldiers, and the interaction between Latin and the local languages, Latin was doomed -- at least in common speech.

For professional and religious matters, Latin based on the literary Classical model continued, but only the well-educated could speak or write it. The everyday person spoke the everyday language, which, with the passing years, diverged more and more from even Vulgar Latin, so that, by the end of the sixth century, people from different sections of the Empire could no longer understand people in others: Latin had been replaced by the Romance languages.

Living Latin

Although both Vulgar and Classical Latin have largely been replaced by the Romance languages, there are still people who speak Latin. In the Roman Catholic Church, ecclesiastical Latin never entirely died out and has seen an increase in recent years. Some organizations deliberately use Latin so people can live or work in a living Latin environment. There has been a radio news broadcast from Finland that is delivered all in Latin. There are also children's books that have been translated into Latin. There are also people who turn to Latin for new names for new objects, but this only requires an understanding of individual words and is not a "living" use of the Latin language.

A Nosferatic Language?

There is no rule against academics taking their inspirations from B-movies, but this may surprise you.

Someone on the Classics-L email list referred to Latin as a Nosferatic Language. If you try Googling the term, Google will suggest Nostratic language, because Nosferatic is something of a punning neologism. A Nostratic language is a proposed macro-family of languages. A Nosferatic language is an undead language, like the vampire Nosferatu for whom it is named.

See also these articles on words and word derivations:

Latin Words in English I
English has lots of words of Latin origin. Some of these words are changed to make them more like other English words -- mostly by changing the ending (e.g., 'office' from the Latin officium), but other Latin words are kept intact in English. Of these words, there are some that remain unfamiliar and are generally italicized to show that they are foreign, but there are others that are used with nothing to set them apart as imported from Latin. You may not even be aware that they are from Latin. Here are some such words and abbreviations.

Latin Words in English II
(See preceding.)

On Translating Latin Into English
Whether you want to translate a short English phrase into Latin or a Latin phrase into English, you can not just plug the words into a dictionary and expect an accurate result. You can't with most modern languages, but the lack of a one-to-one correspondence is even greater for Latin and English.

Latin Religious Words in English
If you want to say that the prospects are bleak, you could say "it doesn't augur well." Augur is used as a verb in this English sentence, with no particular religious connotation. In ancient Rome, an augur was a religious figure who observed natural phenomena, like the presence and location to left or right of birds, to determine whether the prospects were good or bad for a proposed venture. Find out about more such words.

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Vulgar Latin - Learn Why Late Latin Was Called Vulgar

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No, Vulgar Latin isn't Latin filled with profanities or simply a slangy version of Classical Latin, although there certainly were vulgar words in Vulgar Latin. Rather, Vulgar Latin is the father of the Romance languages, Classical Latin, the Latin we study is their grandfather.

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Este sitio tiene viente y dos hechos de gallego - la lengua se habla en el norte oeste de Espana. Esta lengua deriva del Latin pero no es la misma de otras lenguas en el Peninsula Iberico. Gallego tiene muchos similitudes a castellano porque tiene la misma fuente, pero gallego no es un dialecto de castellano - es una lengua completamente diferente. Un hecho interesante es que en gallego no se usa -es al final de las palabras que terminan en un consonante. Se usa -s por todas palabras cuando se quiere hacerlas plurales

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Galician is a Romance language (i.e., from Latin) spoken by about 3 million people in Spain's northwestern region of Galicia. Although it's most closely related to Portuguese-which is spoken south of the border-it shares many similarities with Castilian Spanish, including sounds and spelling.

If you're planning on spending any time traveling or living in this unique corner of Spain, or walking the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route that ends here, even a tiny knowledge of Galician will help you get around and navigate menus, maps, etc. If you happen to speak Spanish, you're already 80% of the way to understanding Galician, and I'm serious! Getting a grasp on the grammatical and phonological differences will turbo boost you up to 90%.

To whet your appetite (both literally and linguistically), here's a little selection from the Galician Wikipedia's article on empanada, or meat pie:

Unha empanada é unha preparación culinaria consistente nunha masa e un recheo que se frixe ou coce no forno. Consiste nunha masa de fariña, elaborada máis ou menos como unha masa de pan rechea de carne ou outros produtos (tamén verduras peixes, ou mariscos variados), previamente cociñados de formas moi variadas segundo a gastronomía local, pero sendo con moita cebola frixida en aceite o modo tradicional en Galicia. Este é un tipo de alimento de orixe moi antiga que se da en case tódalas culturas.

And if you're trying to get an ear for the language, listen to this advertisement from Galician supermarket Gadis:

Galician's a really cool, unique language that's really easy to pick up on if you take a little time to figure out what makes it different. Like I said, if you already know Spanish, you can basically figure out what Galician means, even if you can't speak it yourself.

Fun facts

1) Articles (think "the") are simple vowels: o for masculine words and a for feminine ones. Where Spanish has el, la, los, las, Galician has o, a, os, as. Because Galician lost the initial L over the centuries as the Latin spoken by everyday people transformed into what we have today, this makes for some fun, and sometimes confusing, contractions.

2) Contractions-Galician's got a lot. I've used articles as the examples below, but pronouns also combine, too.
* with a ("to") and an article: ao, á, aos, ás
* with con ("with") and an article: co, coa, cos, coas
* with de ("of") and an article: do, da, dos, das
* with en ("in, on") and an article: no, na, nos, nas
* with por ("by, for") and an article: polo, pola, polos, polas
And so on...

3) I love Galician pronouns: "I" is eu, "you" is ti, "he, she" is el, ela, "we" is nós, "y'all" is vós, and "they" is eles, elas

4) And their possessive adjectives are even cooler, since the construction is literally "the my [thing]" and all the adjectives take gendered forms.
* "my cat": o meu gato
* "my university" a miña universidade
* "your mom" a túa nai
* "his/their house" a súa casa
* "our world" o noso mundo
* "y'all's apartment" o voso piso
5) Galician has more vowels and different diphthongs than Spanish. For example, where Spanish has tierra ("earth") and huerta ("garden"), Galician has the short vowels terra ("TEH-rrah" [ˈtɛ.ra]) and horta ("OHR-tah" [ˈɔɾ.ta]). Similarly, you will find two unique diphthongs (two vowels sounded together) all over the place in Galician: EI and OU. The word manera in Spanish ("way, manner") is maneira in Galician-"mah-NAY-EE-rah" [maˈnej.ɾa], and otro ("other") is outro in Galician-"OE-OO-troe" [ˈow.tɾo].

6) Unlike Portuguese, Galician has lost the nasalizations of its sister language. In Portuguese, to greet someone, you might say bom dia ("BOENG DEE-ah" [bõ ˈdi.a]), but in Galician it's a simple bos días-"BOES DEE-ahs" [bos ˈdi.as]. Similarly, a Portuguese "apple" is a maçã-"mah-SANG" [maˈsɐ̃] but in Galician it's the un-nasalized mazá -"mah-THAH" [maˈθa].

7) Galician is not a mixture of Spanish, Portuguese, or any other combination of languages. In the Middle Ages, when the vernacular Romance languages were emerging, Galician was one of many Latin-based languages spoken in northern Spain-along with Astur-Leonese, Castilian, Aragonese, and Catalan. Portuguese began to break off from medieval Galician around the same time Portugal gained its independence from Castilla.

8) Additionally, Galician is not a dialect of Spanish, nor is it badly-spoken Castilian. It simply shares a common source-Latin-with Spanish, just like French and Italian do. I'm comparing Galician with Spanish on this post because the two languages are very closely-related and many readers of this blog know Spanish. It just helps to point out where Galician is unique or different.

9) There's a little bit of rhotacization in Galician, a fancy word for "Ls-turning-into-Rs." Where Spanish has plaza ("city square") and blanco ("white"), Galician has praza and branco.

10) In the shift from Latin to Galician, many Ls and Ns were lost in the middle of words. These medial consonants vanished in words like lúa ("moon"; cf. Spanish luna) and quente ("hot"; cf. Spanish caliente).

11) Palatal consonants in Spanish-the LL and the Ñ-are often simply Ls and Ns in Galician. The Spanish word for yellow, amarillo, is amarelo in Galician, and pequeño ("little") is pequeno.

12) On the other hand, because of the extremely confusing process that nasalization and denasalization took in medieval Galician-Portuguese, where Spanish has a simple medial N, Galician often has a palatalized Ñ. For example, "wine" in Spanish is vino but is viño in Galician; "queen" is reina and raíña, respectively.

13) The Galician letter X represents the "SH" sound /ʃ/: xente for "people" (cf. Spanish gente), dixo for "he said" (cf. Spanish dijo), and xaneiro for "January" (cf. Spanish enero).

14) "No" is non.
15) Galician conserves the initial Latin F, whereas it was lost in Spanish. Compare the words for "oven"- forno & horno-"to talk"- falar & hablar-"flour"- fariña & harina-and "to boil"- ferver & hervir.

16) Object pronouns are stuck to the end of verbs. So, "he told me" is díxome (from dixo + me), unlike Spanish, where it's reversed: me dijo.

17) Galician is as "lispy" as Spain Spanish. You pronounce here in Santiago de Compostela as you would in Spanish, with the "TH" sound for the Z and the C.

18) Galician has no compound tenses. Compound simply means you add an auxiliary verb like "have" to create a new, nuanced tense, like "I had gone to bed when you called." Galician will have none of that, relying only on context for specifics.

19) The Latin word multus ("much/many") changed to mucho in Spanish but moito in Galician; similarly, the Latin lactus ("milk") became leche in Spanish but leite in Galician.

20) It even has its own font! Inspired by traditional stone inscriptions, you will often see restaurants or bars with signs hanging printed in this typeface, and you can download it for free here.

21) How to say thanks: graciñas ("grah-THEE-nyahs" [graˈθi.ɲas]). The diminutive ending in Galician, - iño, is adorable, and pops up in words like poquiño ("a little bit").

22) The plural ending is -S and that's all there is to it. More than one constitución? Then you've got some constitucións. Watch out for words that end in L, though. In a phenomenon related to the whole losing-medial-Latin-Ls thing, they become semivowels (an I) and an S is added. For example: animal >> animais (cf. Spanish animales).

If you've ever encountered one of the many minority languages of Spain, what did you observe or find interesting about them? Add your thoughts to the discussion below!

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22 Fun Facts About the Galician Language

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Galician is a Romance language (i.e., from Latin) spoken by about 3 million people in Spain's northwestern region of Galicia. Although it's most closely related to Portuguese-which is spoken south of the border-it shares many similarities with Castilian Spanish, including sounds and spelling.

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Esta foto muestra las lenguas diferentes en el pais de Espana. Todos estos colores representan una lengua diferente. Entre Galician, Asturian, Basque, Catalan, Castillian, (gallego, asturiano, vasco, catalan, y castellano) la lengua Vasco, se llama Euskera, es la unica que no deriva de Latin. Todos de las otras son lenguas romances y tiene la misma fuente de origen. Castellano es lo mas comun en España y puede identificar lo mas con español en los paises latinos.

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Este sitio describe el significado de "language isolate" y nos da una tabla que dice todas lenguajes alrededor el mundo que no tiene un origen como sus culturas y lenguajes envolventes. Un buen ejemplo que me interese mucho es la lengua de Euskera o vasco. Esta lengua, como todas otras en el LIST, no tiene un origen que sabemos mucho. Tambien, es dificil entender el origen de estas lenguas porque no son relacionadas a ninguna lengua.

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Language isolates are languages that have no known historical or linguistic relationship to any other languages. Language isolates can be found in all parts of the world. In some cases, languages are classified as isolates because we know so little about them that we are unable to establish a family relationship, as in the case of some languages of Papua New Guinea. In other cases, the languages are well known and well described, but a family relationship cannot be determined because all their relatives went extinct and have left no record. Such is probably the case of Basque. On the other hand, a language thought to be an isolate may turn out to be related to other languages once scholars agree on the classification scheme. This is the case of Japanese which was considered to be a language isolate until its relationship to Ryukyuan languages was established. As a result, Japanese is now considered to be a member of the Japanese (Japonic) language family. There is also the case of Korean which was considered by scholars to be a language isolate, but today is thought to be a member of the the Altaic language family, and by others a language isolate. Finally, some languages have become isolates in recent times. This happened because all their known relatives have become extinct.

Status
Ethnologue lists 75 language isolates. Of these, 9 are extinct and 8 are on the verge of extinction with fewer than 100 speakers remaining. A good percentage of the languages listed are spoken in remote areas of Papua New Guinea, and the Andean regions of South America. The only large language isolates are Korean with 42 million and Basque with more than 580,000 speakers. The table below lists some of the existing language isolates.

Dialects

Structure

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Writing

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Difficulty

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Language isolates are languages that have no known historical or linguistic relationship to any other languages. Language isolates can be found in all parts of the world. In some cases, languages are classified as isolates because we know so little about them that we are unable to establish a family relationship, as in the case of some languages of Papua New Guinea.

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4. Gramatica en la lengua de los pájaros.

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4. Gramatica en la lengua de los pájaros.

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En este sitio tenemos la idea de los ser humanos no son las animales únicamente que usan gramática en su lengua. Hay también pájaros que han sido estudiado y los científicos japoneses que han encontrado evidencia que los pájaros tienen una idea de sintaxis en sus sonidos o "canciones". Aprendemos aquí que los paramos tienen sonidos diferentes para significar y comunicar ideas diferentes a otros pájaros.

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Article | Open

Nature Communications 7, Article number: 10986 (2016)

doi:10.1038/ncomms10986

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Abstract

Human language can express limitless meanings from a finite set of words based on combinatorial rules (i.e., compositional syntax). Although animal vocalizations may be comprised of different basic elements (notes), it remains unknown whether compositional syntax has also evolved in animals. Here we report the first experimental evidence for compositional syntax in a wild animal species, the Japanese great tit ( Parus minor). Tits have over ten different notes in their vocal repertoire and use them either solely or in combination with other notes. Experiments reveal that receivers extract different meanings from 'ABC' (scan for danger) and 'D' notes (approach the caller), and a compound meaning from 'ABC-D' combinations. However, receivers rarely scan and approach when note ordering is artificially reversed ('D-ABC'). Thus, compositional syntax is not unique to human language but may have evolved independently in animals as one of the basic mechanisms of information transmission.

Introduction

A prominent feature of human language is its combinatorial power, which allows us to generate innumerable expressions from a finite number of vocal elements and meanings. Language has two hierarchical levels of syntactic structure: one combines otherwise meaningless elements to form meaningful words (phonology) and the other combines different words to form more complex expressions (compositional syntax). Animal communication systems share many of the basic properties of human language. For example, mammals and birds can use specific call types to denote specific predator categories (i.e., referential communication)7,8 and can learn to recognize the meaning of calls given by other individuals9. Although combinations of discrete vocal elements have been found in some mammals and birds10, it remains controversial whether the ability to combine elements is linked to the creation of more complex meanings6,11.

Recent field studies have suggested that particular combinations of sounds may be linked to particular meanings. For example, white-handed gibbons ( Hylobates lar) alter the sequence of notes (that is, basic vocal elements) in their vocalizations when informing group members about predatory threats or conspecific intrudors12. Similarly, chestnut-crowned babblers ( Pomatostomus ruficeps) combine two types of notes into two sequences that have different meanings13. In both cases, the sounds that constitute the sequence of notes have no apparent communicative meaning on their own and, therefore, these combinations are considered to be phonological5,6. In contrast, the evidence for compositional syntax remains inconclusive. Campbell's monkeys ( Cercopithecus campbelli) can modify alarm calls by adding '-oo', increasing the generality of the call meaning14. However, '-oo' is never used alone and, consequently, it is a suffix rather than a sound with a distinct meaning15. Similarly, putty-nosed monkeys ( Cercopithecus nictitans) combine discrete alarm calls that denote different predator types to elicit group movements16,17, but call receivers do not extract a compound meaning from the call combination18. Thus, it remains unknown whether animals have evolved compositional syntax or whether this is a unique feature of human language6.

Here we provide, to our knowledge, the first unambiguous experimental evidence for compositional syntax in a non-human vocal system. Birds within the family Paridae produce structurally complex vocalizations ('chicka' or 'chick-a-dee' calls) that are composed out of different note types (for example, A, B, C and D)19. Individuals use these calls in a range of contexts, such as to communicate the discovery of food sources20,21, when approaching predators to deter them (i.e., mobbing)22,23,24,25, or to maintain social cohesion with conspecifics26,27. Previous studies suggested that different note types have different functions. For example, Carolina chickadees ( Poecile carolinensis) incorporate a greater number of D notes when discovering a food source or when mobbing a higher-risk predator, and D-rich calls serve to attract flock members to the callers20,23. These birds incorporate more A notes when discovering an aerial predator28 and more C notes when flying29. However, because of the lack of playback studies testing the function of individual notes and their combinations, it is still uncertain whether these notes function as different meaningful elements and if these combinations yield a corresponding complexity in call meanings.

In this study, we investigated whether different note types produced by Japanese great tits ( P. minor; Paridae) have distinct meanings to receivers when produced separately and, if so, whether receivers extract a compound meaning when both elements are combined (compositional syntax). Tits produce 'chicka' calls when approaching and mobbing predators, and these calls contain a number of unique call types composed of different note types, mainly A, B, C and D notes25. A, B and C notes are typically produced in combination with other note types, resulting in AC, BC or ABC calls ( Fig. 1a). In contrast, D notes are produced as a string of seven to ten notes (hereafter referred to as a D call, Fig. 1b) and are also used in non-predatory contexts, such as when a bird visits its nest alone and is recruiting its mate ( Fig. 2). In predatory contexts, D notes are often produced in combination with other note types and typically appear at the end of note strings, such as AC-D, BC-D or ABC-D calls ( Fig. 1c) (ref. 25). Thus, D notes are both produced alone and in combination with other notes, suggesting that they modify the meaning of ABC calls to elicit appropriate mobbing responses to different predator types25.

Figure 1: Sound spectrograms of call treatments played to Japanese great tits.

( a) ABC call is composed of single A, B and C notes. ( b) D call is composed of seven to ten D notes. ( c) ABC-D call is the combination of ABC and D calls. ( d) D-ABC call is a reversed combination of ABC and D calls. These calls were digitally edited using Raven Pro 1.3 software.

Figure 2: Usage of D calls in a non-predatory context in Japanese great tits.

( a) Effect of the presence of a mate on the production of D calls ( n=187 observations, n=40 individuals): tits produced D calls more often when they visited the nest alone than when they did following their mate (generalized linear mixed model: χ ²=5.00, df=1, P=0.025), after controlling for the nonsignificant influence of sex of the callers ( χ ²=1.16, df=1, P=0.281). ( b) Effect of D calls on the recruitment of their mate ( n=136 observations, n=34 individuals): tits that produced D calls were more likely to subsequently attract their mates than tits that did not produce D calls (generalized linear mixed model: χ ²=35.37, df=1, P<0.0001), even after controlling for a significant influence of the responding mate's sex (males were more likely to approach D calls given by their partners than were females; χ ²=9.32, df=1, P=0.002).

We hypothesized that the combination of ABC calls and D calls into ABC-D calls represents semantically compositional syntax ( Fig. 1a-c). To test this hypothesis, we designed two playback experiments. In Experiment 1, we examined whether tits hearing combined ABC-D calls extract the meanings of both ABC and D calls. If tits show a combined response to ABC-D calls, this could be explained by at least two mechanisms. First, tits may combine the distinct behaviour they produce when they hear ABC calls together with the behaviour they produce when they hear D calls, because they recognize ABC-D calls as a single meaningful unit (i.e., compositional syntax). Alternatively, tits may produce the two distinct behavioural responses (that is, first to ABC calls and then to D calls) simply because of the close temporal proximity of ABC and D calls. To differentiate between these two possibilities, we compared the responses of tits with playbacks of natural (ABC-D) and artificially reversed (D-ABC) sequences ( Fig. 1d) in Experiment 2. A key predication of the first mechanism is that receivers should produce a compound response only when the combinations of ABC and D calls are produced together according to their note-ordering rule (that is, ABC-D, but not D-ABC). In contrast, according to the second mechanism, receivers should respond similarly whenever ABC and D calls are produced in close proximity, no matter the order in which they are produced.

Here we find that Japanese great tits extract different meanings from ABC and D calls, and a compound meaning from ABC-D calls. As tits fail to produce a compound response when the note sequence is artificially reversed (D-ABC), these findings support the hypothesis that the communication system of tits represents semantically compositional syntax.

Results

Experiment 1

Japanese great tits principally displayed two behaviours in response to call playbacks (ABC, D and ABC-D): they scanned the surroundings by turning their heads right and left, and approached the playback loudspeaker. However, they produced these two behaviours differently in response to each of the playback treatments.

During playback of ABC calls, tits continuously turned their heads horizontally on tree branches to scan the surroundings. The rate of horizontal scans varied significantly among the playback treatments; it was higher during playback of ABC calls than during playback of D calls or background noise (control) (generalized linear mixed model: χ ²=62.58, df=3, P<0.001, Fig. 3a). There were no significant effects of trial order ( χ ²=1.14, df=1, P=0.29) or sex of the focal individuals ( χ ²=0.01, df=1, P=0.92) on the rate of horizontal scans. Pairwise comparisons of treatments showed that the ABC call treatment resulted in significantly more horizontal scans than the D call treatment (Wilcoxon signed-rank tests: n=21, P<0.0001) and background noise control ( P<0.001), whereas D calls and background noise were not significantly different ( P=0.11).

Figure 3: Responses of Japanese great tits to playbacks of ABC, D and ABC-D calls, and background noise (BN).

( a) Number of horizontal scans made by tits in 90 s (generalized linear mixed model: χ ²=62.58, df=3, P<0.001). ( b) Percentage of trials in which tits approached within 2 m of the loudspeaker (generalized linear mixed model: χ ²=34.56, df=2, P<0.001). The box and whisker plots display the median value and 25 and 75% quartiles; the whiskers are extended to the most extreme value inside the 1.5-fold interquartile range. Sample size: n=21 individuals. Each individual was exposed to all four treatments in varied orders, giving n=21 samples per treatment.

In response to D calls, tits were more likely to approach within 2 m of the playback loudspeaker than in response to ABC calls or background noise. There was a significant effect of playback treatments on the probability of approaching (generalized linear mixed model: χ ²=34.56, df=2, P<0.001; Fig. 3b), whereas trial order ( χ ²=1.47, df=1, P=0.23) or sex of the focal birds ( χ ²=1.93, df=1, P=0.16) had no significant effects. Pairwise comparisons showed that tits approached the loudspeaker during playback of D calls more often than during playback of ABC calls (sign tests: P<0.01) or background noise ( P<0.01), whereas the responses to ABC calls and background noise were not significantly different ( P=0.91). These results demonstrate that tits produce distinct behavioural responses when hearing ABC calls (scanning the surroundings) and D calls (approaching the sound source).

In response to playback of ABC-D calls, tits scanned the surroundings more than when hearing D calls (Wilcoxon signed-rank test: n=21, P<0.001) or background noise ( P<0.001) and not differently to when hearing ABC calls alone ( P=0.11; Fig. 3a). However, tits were also more likely to approach within 2 m of the loudspeaker than when hearing ABC calls (sign-tests: P=0.02) or the background noise control ( P<0.01). There was no significant difference in approaching response between ABC-D and D calls ( P=0.91; Fig. 3b). These results demonstrate that the combined ABC-D calls cause tits produce a combined response containing both behaviours typical of individuals exposed to ABC calls (scanning the horizon) and those typical of individuals exposed to D calls (approaching the sound source).

Across all trials, there was no significant correlation between horizontal scanning and approaching behaviour (Spearman rank-order correlation: horizontal scans versus approaching loudspeaker: ρ=0.053, n=84, P=0.63), indicating that the tits controlled these two behaviours independently.

Experiment 2

Tits responded differently to playbacks of ABC-D (natural sequence) and D-ABC (artificially reversed sequence) calls. In response to the playback of ABC-D calls, focal birds typically approached within 2 m of the loudspeaker, while scanning the horizon, similar to Experiment 1. However, in response to the playback of D-ABC calls, tits made fewer horizontal scans (generalized linear model: χ ²=27.09, df=1, P<0.0001; Fig. 4a) and only rarely approached the loudspeaker ( χ ²=6.03, df=1, P=0.014; Fig. 4b). There was no significant difference between sexes in horizontal scans ( χ ²=1.05, df=1, P=0.31) nor approaching behaviour ( χ ²=0.002, df=1, P=0.96). These results demonstrate that tits produce a compound response when ABC and D are combined according to a note-ordering rule, but not when these two note units are simply produced in close temporal proximity.

Figure 4: Responses of Japanese great tits to playbacks of ABC-D and D-ABC calls.

( a) Number of horizontal scans made by tits in 90 s (generalized linear model: χ ²=27.09, df=1, P<0.0001). ( b) Percentage of trials in which tits approached within 2 m of the loudspeaker (generalized linear model: χ ²=6.03, df=1, P=0.014). The box and whisker plots display the median value and 25 and 75% quartiles; the whiskers are extended to the most extreme value inside the 1.5-fold interquartile range. Sample size: n=34 individuals. Each individual was exposed to only one treatment, giving n=17 samples per treatment.

Discussion

Our results show that Japanese great tits discriminate between different calls containing different note types: they scan the horizon in response to ABC calls, whereas they approach the sound source in response to D calls. These results indicate that these two calls function as different meaningful units to receivers. ABC calls serve as warning calls that elicit predator-scanning behaviour, whereas D calls serve as recruitment calls that attract conspecifics to the callers. These findings are consistent with previous research showing that A, B and C note combinations are used in response to predators25, whereas D notes on its own are used to recruit conspecifics ( Fig. 2).

In response to ABC-D calls, Japanese great tits both scan the surroundings and approach the sound source, indicating that they extract the meanings of both ABC and D calls from combined ABC-D calls. In addition, we find no correlation between scanning and approaching behaviours, which enables tits to perform and combine these behaviours flexibly according to the presence and absence of each note unit within calls. Moreover, tits reduce horizontal scanning and rarely approach the loudspeaker when the ordering of the two note units is artificially reversed (D-ABC). These results indicate that the tits perceive ABC-D calls as a single meaningful unit but not as two separated meaningful units (ABC and D calls) simply produced in close proximity. As ABC and D notes convey unique meanings and can be used alone25, the combination of these two notes does not meet the criteria of phonology5,6. In addition, unlike call combinations reported in several non-human primates14,15,16,17,18, the combination of ABC and D calls conveys a compound meaning that originates from both of the note units. Thus, we conclude that the combination of ABC and D calls in the Japanese great tit obeys semantically compositional syntax6.

Previous studies have shown that parids (chickadees and titmice) alter the repetition rate of particular note types (for example, D notes), which elicits different degrees of response in receivers (i.e., graded call system). One explanation for why tits produce different responses to combined ABC-D calls is that D notes increase the salience of ABC calls (or vice versa), rather than alter their meaning through a syntactic rule. However, we find no evidence supporting this explanation. In Experiment 1, our data show that tits do not alter the intensity of their responses according to the variation in note repetition rate; they scan with similar intensity to both ABC (3 notes) and ABC-D calls (10-13 notes) and, likewise, approach in response to both D (7-10 notes) and ABC-D calls (10-13 notes). Therefore, neither ABC nor D calls simply modify the intensity of behavioural responses. In addition, using a matched-pairs or balanced design controls for the possibility that any acoustic features other than either note combinations (Experiment 1) or note ordering (Experiment 2) influenced the interpretation of the results (see Methods).

Using a compositional syntax is likely to provide adaptive benefits to Japanese great tits. Similar to many small songbirds, tits face a variety of predatory threats requiring complex behavioural responses. Previous studies have demonstrated that avian antipredator communication is adapted to such complexity: some birds produce different calls for different types of threats (for example, different predator types or behaviours) and receivers respond to the calls with appropriate behaviours30,31,32,33,34,35, leading to positive fitness consequences. Our results show that the first units of great tits' combinatorial calls (ABC calls) serve as general warning calls, whereas the last units (D calls) serve as recruitment calls. The specific combination of these calls may serve as an adaption to facing predators that require complex behaviours to be effectively detected and monitored. For example, scanning the surroundings is likely to allow a tit to efficiently detect a flying predator, such as a crow that can approach a nest from all directions31. In contrast, predators that only approach the nest from below, such as martens, are likely to be effectively detected and monitored both by approaching the caller and scanning the surroundings. Japanese great tits incorporate a greater number of D notes into other note units, such as ABC, when mobbing martens than when mobbing crows25. This suggests that tits have co-opted the signal normally used to recruit other individuals (for example, to coordinate parental feeding visits), to stimulate receivers to perform an appropriate combination of behaviours.

In addition, we suggest that the specific note-ordering rule (ABC calls before D calls) used by Japanese great tits in anti-predator contexts may be an adaptation to the greater importance of effectively and quickly warning conspecifics about the presence of predators before transmitting any additional behavioural cues. As D notes are often produced in non-predator contexts, conspecifics hearing D notes before ABC notes may be slower to produce appropriate anti-predator behaviours, which may be of particular importance when tits are defending their nestlings25,30.

Although we provide evidence for compositional syntax in the combination of ABC and D calls, it is not yet clear how the meaning of ABC calls is generated. One possibility is that A, B and C notes have different meanings and their combination has a compound meaning (i.e., compositional syntax). However, these notes may be meaningless as their own, but the combinations make the meaningful units that elicit scanning behaviour in receivers (i.e., phonology). Support for this idea comes from the observation that tits use A, B and C notes in many different combinations (for example, AB, AC and BC) when mobbing predators25. Therefore, it might be possible that all these combinations potentially encode the same threat information; however, the difference in note combinations or sequences of different call types may encode additional information, such as individual identity of callers. Note combinations are widely documented in other members of the Paridae, but their complexity may differ across species37. Further comparative studies may provide insight into the socio-ecological factors38 that drive the evolution of combinatorial signalling such as phonology and compositional syntax.

In conclusion, we provide the first experimental evidence for compositional syntax in a non-human vocal system. Over the past decades, many key attributes of human language have been reported from animal species: vocal learning9,39, referential communication7,8 and phonology12,13. Our results extend these studies and challenge the long-standing view that compositional syntax is unique to human language5,6. Although previous studies on syntactic communication mainly focused on primates12,14,15,16,17,18, our findings highlight that the ability to recognize the combinations of different meaningful units as compositional calls has evolved in birds. Signal combinations can increase the number of meanings that individuals can convey from a limited number of vocal elements and provide the basis for the generation of novel signals. Uncovering the cognitive mechanisms and socio-ecological functions of syntactic communication in animal models may provide insights into the evolution of structural complexity of human language.

Methods

General experimental design

This study consisted of two playback experiments. Experiment 1 was designed to test whether Japanese great tits discriminate between calls with different note types (ABC and D calls) and, if so, whether they also extract a compound meaning from combined calls (ABC-D). If the combination of ABC and D calls obeys compositional syntax, tits are expected to show different responses to the two different note units and a compound response to the combined calls. We examined the response of Japanese great tits to playbacks of ABC calls, D calls, ABC-D calls and the background noise (control).

Experiment 2 was designed to test whether tits respond to the combination of ABC and D calls through the recognition of the note-ordering rule. If they perceive the combined calls (ABC-D calls) as a single meaningful unit but not as separated and independent calls (ABC and D calls), they are expected to respond differently to the natural (ABC-D) and reversed (D-ABC) sequences. We tested the response of tits to playbacks of ABC-D and D-ABC calls.

Study population and call recordings

Experiments were conducted in a colour-ringed population of Japanese great tits in a mixed deciduous-coniferous forest near Karuizawa, Nagano Prefecture, Japan (36°19′-22′N, 138°32′-37′E). For all playbacks, we used 'chicka' mobbing calls that were previously recorded from Japanese great tits (ten males and seven females) from the study population in 2009 and 2010 (refs 25, 30). The 'chicka' calls were elicited by exposure to either a taxidermic model of a crow or a marten near the nest boxes. Calls were recorded using an LS370 parabolic microphone (Fuji Planning Corporation, Tokyo, Japan) connected to an R-09HR digital audio recorder (sampling rate, 48 kHz; sample size, 16 bits; Roland Corporation, Shizuoka, Japan). Detailed information on call recordings has been provided elsewhere25,30.

Playback stimuli

Adobe Audition 3.0 software and Raven Pro 1.3 software40 were used to construct the playback stimuli. We chose four types of notes (A, B, C and D) from recordings of every source individual on the basis of the sound quality (for example, the bird was close to the microphone when it called and the background noise was low). Although A, B and C notes were typically produced as a single note in a call, D notes always occurred as a string of multiple notes. Therefore, we used a single A, B and C note and a string of seven to ten D notes to construct the playback calls. These four note types were combined into an ABC-D call with natural intervals between the notes (50-150 ms, measured for each individual of the recording source). We thus obtained a total of 21 ABC-D calls from the recording files (11 calls from the recordings of 10 males and 10 calls from the recordings of 7 females).

In Experiment 1, we prepared three call treatments (ABC, D and ABC-D calls; Fig. 1a-c) and a control treatment (background noise). ABC and D call types were constructed by eliminating either D or ABC note units from each of the 21 ABC-D calls. Calls were repeated in a sound file at a rate of 30 calls per minute (one call every 2 s, total duration 90 s). This calling rate is within the range of the natural repetition rates for 'chicka' calls during the nestling period25,30. Low-frequency noise (<1 kHz) was filtered out and the calls were amplified on a computer. The background noise files were created in the same way as the call files, using the parts where no birds were calling in the same recordings as call treatments. Thus, we constructed 21 unique sets of playback stimuli (ABC, D and ABC-D calls, and background noise). To avoid pseudoreplication41, we played back each exemplar only once to each focal individual ( n=21). To each focal individual, we played back three call types that originated from the same calling individual (matched-pairs design), ensuring that any acoustic features other than the note combinations (for example, the intervals between different notes) were constant over these three call treatments. All of the sound files were saved in WAV format (16-bit accuracy, 48.0-kHz sampling rate) onto an SD memory card.

In Experiment 2, we prepared two types of calls: ABC-D (natural sequence) and D-ABC (artificially reversed sequence) calls ( Fig. 1d). We chose 17 different ABC-D calls that originated from different individuals (10 male calls and 7 female calls). D-ABC calls ( n=17) were constructed by using these ABC-D calls and re-ordering the sequence by moving D notes before A notes. The intervals between D and A notes within D-ABC calls were set at the same durations as those between C and D notes in their original ABC-D calls, ensuring that any acoustic features other than note orderings did not differ between ABC-D and D-ABC calls (balanced design). These calls were recorded in a sound file at a rate of 20 calls per minute (one call every 3 s, total duration 90 s), which was saved in WAV format (16-bit accuracy, 48.0-kHz sampling rate) onto an SD memory card. This calling rate is within the natural range25,30 and ensures that each call is separated by at least 1.6 s from any preceding calls, reducing the chances that receivers could perceive ABC-D sequences from adjacent D-ABC calls. As with Experiment 1, unique exemplars were used for each focal individual to avoid pseudoreplication41.

Experiment 1

We tested the responses of Japanese great tits to playbacks of ABC, D and ABC-D calls. We conducted this experiment on 21 adult great tits (10 males and 11 females from 21 different pairs) during their first breeding attempt of the season. All experimental birds bred in nest boxes that were attached to tree trunks 1.8 m above the ground. The average brood size of these pairs was 7.8±1.5 (mean±s.d., n=21). The experimental trials were carried out from 3 June to 15 June 2012 when the nestlings were 10-17 (12.4±1.7) days old.

An AT-SPG50 loudspeaker (Audio-Technica Corporation, Tokyo, Japan) was hung from a tree and fixed 1.8±0.2 m from the ground and 5.3±1.0 m from the nest (mean±s.d., n=21). The loudspeaker was connected to an R-09 HR digital audio recorder with EXC-12A extension cords (JVC Kenwood Corporation, Kanagawa, Japan), which enabled the control of playbacks from an observation position 15 m away from the nest. Playbacks commenced when a focal individual was within 5 m of the nest and their mate was absent. Calls were played back at a standardized volume (75 dB re 20 μPa at 1 m from the loudspeaker measured using an SM-325 sound level meter; AS ONE Corporation, Osaka, Japan) and background noise was played back at the same amplitude as the background noise level of the call playbacks (50 dB re 20 μPa at 1 m). Focal birds received playbacks of calls that were constructed from unfamiliar individuals (that is, not their mates or neighbours), to eliminate any influence of familiarity. No more than two trials were conducted at the same nest in a single day and playbacks at the same nest were separated by at least 2 h to reduce habituation. The order of the playbacks was randomized. We used the same position for setting the loudspeaker in all treatments at each site to control for its possible effect on the behavioural response. Trials were conducted in calm and dry weather between 08:30 and 16:00 h (Japan Standard Time).

To determine the tits' responses to different treatments, we recorded the following behavioural variables during 90 s of playbacks: (1) number of horizontal scans: we counted the number of movements that birds made with their heads from left to right or right to left (approximately a 180° turn) and (2) approaching the loudspeaker: we recorded whether birds approached within 2 m of the loudspeaker during the playback. These behavioural variables were commented onto an R-09HR digital audio recorder. We also recorded the latency to feed nestlings by using a GZ-MG880 digital video camera (JVC Kenwood Corporation) set ca. 10 m from the nest. Behavioural observations were continued until each playback had ended and the adults entered the nest box to feed the chicks.

Experiment 2

We tested the responses of Japanese great tits to naturally combined ABC-D calls and artificially reversed D-ABC calls. We conducted this experiment with 34 individual great tits (ABC-D calls: 11 males and 6 females; D-ABC calls: 12 males and 5 females). The minimum distance between experimental sites was 400 m, to ensure the collection of data from different individual tits21. Trials were carried out between 6 November and 19 November 2015, during the non-breeding season, when tits, such as other members of the Paridae, are threatened by a variety of predators and produce a corresponding variety of alarm calls.

First, we searched for a flock of Japanese great tits. On finding a flock, we hung an AT-SPG50 loudspeaker from a tree at 1.8±0.1 m from the ground (mean±s.d., n=34). The loudspeaker was connected to an R-09 HR digital audio recorder with EXC-12A extension cords, which enabled the control of playbacks from an observation position ca. 10 m away from the loudspeaker. Then, we commenced the playback when a tit came within 15 m of the loudspeaker. We defined the individual that was closest to the loudspeaker as the focal individual and focussed on this individual during the playback. Trials were carried out under calm and dry weather between 08:45 and 15:30 h (Japan Standard Time). ABC-D and D-ABC treatments were alternated with each other on successive trials so that responses to both treatments were observed under largely similar conditions.

As with Experiment 1, we measured two behavioural variables: (1) number of horizontal scans and (2) the probability of approaching within 2 m of the loudspeaker. These variables were commented onto an R-09HR digital audio recorder.

Usage of D calls in a non-predatory context

Japanese great tits produce D calls not only in predatory contexts but also in non-predatory contexts such as when visiting their nests. We investigated the usage and function of D calls in a non-predatory context, testing the hypothesis that D calls serve to recruit conspecifics. If this hypothesis is true, then we predict that (1) tits produce D calls more often when they visit the nest alone than when their mated partner is also present and (2) a caller's mate is more likely to visit the nest when the caller produces D calls than when it does not. We therefore investigated the effect of social context on the usage of D calls and whether the production of D calls increases the visitation of their mate to the nest.

We observed n=187 nest visitations of 40 adults (19 males and 21 females) at 22 nests from 3 June to 15 June 2012, when nestlings were 10-17 days old. When a parent visited within 5 m of the nest box with a food item, we noted (1) the sex of the parent, (2) whether it gave D calls and (3) whether its mate was present within 5 m of the nest box. In the case in which a parent visited the nest alone ( n=136), we also noted (4) whether the mate visited within 5 m of the nest before the first bird entered the nest box. Observations were made at 15 m from the nest box, a distance from which the tits' behaviour was not disturbed.

Statistical analysis

All the statistical analyses were performed using R for Mac OS X version 3.1.1 (ref. 42). In the analysis of Experiment 1, we used generalized linear mixed models for primary analyses, which include the treatment as a fixed term and individual identity of focal birds as a random term. Trial order and sex were also entered as covariates. We used a negative binomial error distribution and log-link function ( glmer.nb in the package lme4 (ref. 43)) for the analysis of the number of horizontal scans and a binomial error distribution and logit-link function ( glmer in the package lme4 (ref. 43)) for the analysis of the probability of approaching behaviour (yes or no). In some trials, tits visited the nest boxes and flew out of sight immediately after feeding chicks. Therefore, we determined the time duration in which we could observe the behaviour of the tits as the observation time and included this term in the analysis of horizontal scans as a log-transformed offset. For the analysis of approaching behaviour, it was not possible to run the model because of the absence of variance in background noise control treatment (no birds approached to the loudspeaker during this treatment). Therefore, we combined background noise and ABC calls in this analysis, as there was no significant difference between these two treatments (sign test, P=0.5). We used likelihood ratio tests to calculate P-values of each term. In the event of a significant effect of treatment, we further conducted pair-wise comparisons by using non-parametric statistics: Wilcoxon signed-ranks tests ( wilcox.paired.multcomp in the package RVAideMemoire 44) for the number of horizontal scans (standardized by observation time) and sign tests for approaching to the loudspeaker ( cochran.qtest in the package RVAideMemoire 44). When making these multiple comparisons, sequential Bonferroni corrections were applied for the adjustments of P-values. To investigate the correlation between scanning and approaching behaviours, we used Spearman's rank-order correlations ( cor.test in the default package stats).

In the analysis of Experiment 2, we ran generalized linear models including treatment as a fixed term and sex as a covariate. We used a negative binomial error distribution and log-link function ( glm.nb in the package MASS 45) for the analysis of horizontal scans and a binomial error distribution and logit-link function ( glm in the package stats) for the analysis of approaching behaviour. We standardized the number of scans by observation time, as in some cases the focal individuals flew away from the sight during the trials.

In the analysis of the usage of D calls, we ran generalized linear mixed models with a binomial error distribution and a logit-link function ( glmer in the package lme4 (ref. 43)). To test the effect of social context on the production of D calls, we fitted social context (mate present or absent) as a fixed term and the probability of D calling (yes or no) as a dependent variable. To test the effect of D calling on the recruitment of a mate to the nest, we fitted the production of D calls (yes or no) as a fixed term and the probability of recruitment (yes or no) as a dependent variable. In both models, we also included sex of focal birds as a covariate and individual identity of focal birds and individual nest as random terms. All tests were two-tailed and the significance level was set at α=0.05.

Ethical statement

All experiments were performed in accordance with relevant guidelines and regulations. All experimental protocols were approved by the Animal Care and Use Committees at the Rikkyo University and SOKENDAI (The Graduate University for Advanced Studies), and adhered to the Guidelines for the Use of Animals in Research of the Animal Behavior Society/Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour. This research was performed under permission from the Ministry of the Environment and the Forestry Agency of Japan.

Additional information

How to cite this article: Suzuki, T. N. et al. Experimental evidence for compositional syntax in bird calls. Nat. Commun. 7:10986 doi: 10.1038/ncomms10986 (2016).

References

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Magrath, R. D. , Haff, T. M. , McLachlan, J. R. & Igic, B. Wild birds learn to eavesdrop on heterospecific alarm calls. Curr. Biol. 15, 2047-2050 (2015).

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Lucas, J. R. & Freeberg, T. M. in Ecology and Behavior of Chickadees and Titmice: an Integrated Approach ed Otter K. A. 199-213Oxford Univ. Press (2007).

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Suzuki, T. N. Long-distance calling by the willow tit, Poecile montanus, facilitates formation of mixed-species foraging flocks. Ethology 118, 10-16 (2012).

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Freeberg, T. M. Complexity in the chick-a-dee call of Carolina chickadees (Poecile carolinensis): associations of context and signaler behavior to call structure. Auk 125, 896-907 (2008).

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Freeberg, T. M. & Mahurin, E. J. Variation in note composition of chick-a-dee calls is associated with signaler flight in Carolina chickadees, Poecile carolinensis. Ethology 119, 1086-1095 (2013).

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Freeberg, T. M. & Lucas, J. R. Information theoretical approaches to chick-a-dee calls of Carolina chickadees (Poecile carolinensis). J. Comp. Psychol. 126, 68-81 (2012).

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Charif, R. A. , Waack, A. M. & Strickman, L. M. Raven Pro 1.3 User's Manual Ithaca NY Cornell Lab of Ornithology (2008).

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R Core Team. R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing R Foundation for Statistical Computing (2015) Available at: http://www.R-project.org/. Accessed: 20 August 2015 .

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Bates, D. , Maechler, M. , Bolker, B. & Walker, S. lme4: Linear mixed-effects models using Eigen and S4. R package version 1.1-7. Available at http://CRAN.R-project.org/package=lme4 (2014).

10. 44.
Hervé, M. RVAideMemoire: Diverse basic statistical and graphical functions. R package version 0.9-45-2. Available at http://CRAN.R-project.org/package=RVAideMemoire (2015).

11. 45.
Ripley, B. MASS: Support functions and datasets for Venables and Ripley's MASS. R package version 7.3-40. Available at http://CRAN.R-project.org/package=MASS (2015).

Download references

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number 25-3391 (T.N.S.) and an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology Award ID 1202861 (D.W.). We are grateful to Daizaburo Shizuka and Carel van Schaik for valuable comments on the manuscript.

Author information

Affiliations

Authors

1. Search for Toshitaka N. Suzuki in:

2. Search for David Wheatcroft in:

3. Search for Michael Griesser in:

Contributions

T.N.S., D.W. and M.G. designed the experiments. T.N.S. designed the research, performed the field experiments, analysed the data and prepared the figures. T.N.S., D.W. and M.G. discussed the results and contributed to the writing of the manuscript.

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Toshitaka N. Suzuki.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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Experimental evidence for compositional syntax in bird calls

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Animal vocalizations contain distinct elements, but it is not clear whether they convey combined meanings in the same way as human speech. Here, Suzuki et al. show that Japanese great tits can combine different elements of vocal signals so that they have compositional syntax.

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Este video de YouTube habla sobre los partes de algunas oraciones. Nos da algunos ejemplos y los significados de "sintagmas" y explica el orden de los palabras y como hacer un árbol sintáctico. Hay descripciones de las diferencias entre el sujeto de una oración y el verbo y predicado de una oración. Y también la chica explica los sintagmas diferentes y co'mo entender la diferencia entre muchos tipos de sintagmas.

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Desde el mismo sitio de numero uno, aquí tenemos un video sobre el tema mas importante de sintaxis -- el orden de las palabras para hacer una oración. Aunque los ejemplos aquí son en ingles, es la misma idea en la lengua de español. En ingles hablamos "SVO" (empezamos la oración con el sujeto, después es el verbo, y luego un objeto.) Este video nos da ejemplos de co'mo el orden de las palabras tiene un afecto en el sentido de de la oración.

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What is Word Order?

The English language is full of hundreds of thousands usable words, all with one specific purpose: to communicate. That communication greatly depends not just on the words you use, but on the order in which you use them. Look at the following sentence:

This is a clear statement indicating that you are hungry and will want food soon. This idea is communicated because the words make sense in the order in which they are said.

Now, look at this sentence using the same words:

The same words are used, but now it is complete gibberish! Accurate word order is extremely important for communication to actually occur.

Inverted Word Order

In the example we just used, the first statement used normal word order. Normal word order occurs when the subject comes before the verb. The subject is the main person or object in a sentence and the verb is the action word. In that sentence, 'I' is the subject and 'hope' is the verb or the action.

Sometimes there are times when you must use inverted word order to communicate the intended idea. Inverted word order occurs when the subject comes after the verb, in between verb parts, or is not included at all.

Examples of Inverted Word Order

There are three situations where inverted word order is used. Let's look at some examples of those three situations:

Questions

Mom, you are making dinner soon.

Mom, are you making dinner soon?

What is the difference between these two sentences? They are communicating almost the exact same idea, but with one important difference. The second sentence is a question. Questions, for the most part, use inverted word order. In questions, the subjects come in between verb parts or after the verb. Look at the first sentence again:

What is the subject? Who is doing the action? You should see the word 'you' is the subject. What, then, is the verb? This sentence has two verbs working together: 'are making.' This phrase is the action. The subject comes before the action, so this is normal word order.

Now look at the question:

What is the subject and what is the verb? They are exactly the same as in the first sentence: 'you' and 'are making.' The difference here is that the word 'you' comes in between the two verb parts. This is inverted word order with the subject in between verb parts.

Commands

After reading those two sentences, did you notice what's different about them? Could you identify a verb? How about a subject? You should have been able to find the verbs 'turn' and 'drive.' Those are the action words. However, there are no subjects. These sentences are commands or words demanding some action. In many commands, the subject is not clearly stated. Instead, it is the implied subject, 'you.' This is an example of inverted word order with a missing subject.

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inverted word order: definition & examples - video & lesson transcript | study.com

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Inverted Word Order: Definition & Examples - Video & Lesson Transcript | Study.com

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The English language is full of hundreds of thousands usable words, all with one specific purpose: to communicate. That communication greatly depends not just on the words you use, but on the order in which you use them. Look at the following sentence: This is a clear statement indicating that you are hungry and will want food soon.

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En este video, hay muchos ejemplos de los usos de "se" en maneras diferentes. el narrador nos da los ejemplos sobre los significados diferentes de verbos con "se" enfrente del verbo. Por ejemplo, el video empieza con el significado del se "reflexivo" y repone algunos verbos reflexivos comunes. Luego, lo habla sobre el uso del se "impersonal." Entonces, este video simplemente demuestra cuando debe usar se y como entender las diferencias entre los usos de "se".

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Using Se in Spanish

'Monica gets up at eight o'clock.' 'Spanish is spoken here.' 'I left my keys at home.' What do all these sentences have in common? If you translated them into Spanish, they would all use the reflexive pronoun se. 'Mónica se levanta a las ocho.' 'Se habla español aquí.' 'Se me quedaron las llaves en casa.' In this lesson, we'll be reviewing reflexive verbs as well as introducing two new uses of se: se for impersonal constructions and se for accidental occurrences.

Reflexive Verbs

You already know why the first sentence, 'Monica gets up at eight o'clock' ('Mónica se levanta a las ocho'), uses se. It uses se because the verb levantarse (to get up) is reflexive. Remember, reflexive verbs use reflexive pronouns (myself, yourself, etc.) to show it is something you do to or for yourself. Many reflexive verbs have to do with your daily routine, such as taking a bath ( bañarse), brushing your teeth ( cepillarse los dientes), dressing yourself ( vestirse), getting up ( levantarse), or going to bed ( acostarse).

Do you remember how to conjugate reflexive verbs, like bañarse? First, take the reflexive pronoun se off the end of the infinitive and put it in front of the verb. Of course, the reflexive pronouns change form to match the subject, so you need to make sure the pronouns are in the correct form:

Now conjugate the verb as you normally would:

Here, se is the form of the reflexive pronoun that is used in the third person, either singular ( él, ella, Ud.) or plural ( ellos, ellas, Uds.).

Using 'Se' for Impersonal Constructions

In addition to being used with reflexive verbs in the third person, se is often used in impersonal constructions. In English, we often use 'they,' 'you,' or 'one:' 'They say that he's very handsome,' or, 'You/One can buy nice clothes here.' The passive voice, which uses a form of the verb 'to be' and a past participle (something is/was done) is also used: 'Spanish is spoken,' or, 'The tamales were eaten.'

In Spanish, the third person form of the reflexive is frequently used for both impersonal and passive constructions. For example, if you wanted to translate the English sentences we used as examples into Spanish, you would use se in all of them: 'Se dice que es muy guapo,' 'Se puede comprar linda ropa aquí,' 'Se habla español,' and 'Se comieron los tamales.'

Of course, what you are literally saying here is that things do or did themselves - one way to indicate that the person who did them is not important. Although it would sound ridiculous in English to say that 'the tamales ate themselves,' using se for impersonal and passive constructions sounds perfectly normal in Spanish. I promise!

In this type of construction, the subject often comes after the verb, so the verb matches what comes after it instead of what comes in front of it. Does this remind you of another construction? Right! Verbs like gustar, where you use gusta or gustan, depending on whether the noun that follows is singular or plural. In the same way, the impersonal and passive constructions with se only use verbs in the third person, singular or plural.

If the conjugated verb is followed by an infinitive, the conjunction que, an adverb, or nothing at all, use the singular form of the verb. These sentences are often translated into English as impersonal expressions. In the example, 'Se dice que es muy guapo,' dice is in the singular because it is followed by a clause introduced by que. In the sentence, 'Se puede comprar linda ropa aquí,' puede is in the singular because it is followed by an infinitive.

If the verb is followed by a noun, check the noun to see if it is singular or plural. For example, in the sentence, 'Se habla español,' español is singular, so the verb needs to be singular: habla. In the sentence, 'Se comieron los tamales,' tamales is plural, so you need to use 'comieron' rather than 'comió.' When se and the verb are followed by a noun, the sentence can usually be translated with the passive voice, although impersonal expressions may sometimes sound better.

Practice with the Impersonal 'Se'

The impersonal se can seem rather strange, since it's so different from impersonal constructions in English. To help you get the hang of it, let's try translating a few sentences from Spanish into English.

'En Argentina, se baila el tango.' Literally, this is saying, 'In Argentina, the tango dances itself.' In English, you could say, 'In Argentina, the tango is danced,' but you'd be most likely to say, 'In Argentina, they dance the tango.'

'Se construyeron las casas.' Again, literally, 'The houses built themselves,' but it sounds much better to say either, 'The houses were built,' or, 'They built the houses.'

'Se puede ver el mar desde aquí.' 'The ocean can be seen from here,' or, 'You can see the ocean from here.'

OK, now let's take some impersonal and passive sentences in English and see how you would translate them into Spanish using the impersonal se.

'The dishes were washed.' To say this in Spanish, we would start with se, then add the correct form of the verb lavar. What was washed? The dishes, so the verb will need to be in the third person plural form. The dishes were washed (completed action), so the verb will be in the preterite tense. What does that give us? Lavaron. How do you say 'dishes' in Spanish? Right - los platos. So all together we have, 'Se lavaron los platos.'

'You (One) can swim in the pool.' Again, start with se. Then add the verb poder. Poder will be followed by the infinitive form of the verb nadar, so what form does it need to be in? The third person singular, and it's in the present tense, so that gives you puede. Then you need 'in the pool'-- en la piscina. So all together you have, 'Se puede nadar en la piscina.'

Using 'Se' for Accidental Occurrences

A similar construction is used for things that happened unintentionally or by accident. It is basically just the impersonal se construction but with an indirect object pronoun added in between the se and the verb to show who the accident happened to. Se rompieron los platos ('The plates were broken') + me (I'm the one it happened to) = 'Se me rompieron los platos'. ('I accidentally broke the plates.')

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using 'se' in spanish - video & lesson transcript | study.com

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Using 'Se' in Spanish - Video & Lesson Transcript | Study.com

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'Monica gets up at eight o'clock.' 'Spanish is spoken here.' 'I left my keys at home.' What do all these sentences have in common? If you translated them into Spanish, they would all use the reflexive pronoun se. 'Mónica se levanta a las ocho.' 'Se habla español aquí.'

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4. Es interesante que la morfologia de las palabras en una lengua pue cambiar depende de los regiones que usan esta lengua. Por ejemplo, usamos ingles en los Estados Unidos y tambien en Inglaterra ; Aunque hablamos la misma lengua no usamos las mismas palabras, frases, y conjugaciones de verbos. Demonstrado en este "link", el participio pasado entre los verbos "regulares y irregulares" son diferentes entre las dos tipas de ingles. Cuando un verbo es regular: EEUU usa "-ed" al final y Inglaterra usa "-t". Y no hay verbos "irregulares" en ingles por los ingleses.

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In American English the verbs burn, dream, lean, learn, smell, spell, spill and spoil are all regular.

In British English, these verbs are usually irregular with past tenses and past participle forms ending in -t.

Note that regular forms are also used in British English, but they are much less common.

In American English, spit has both spit and spat as past tense and past participle.

Quit and wet are regular in British English.

Quit / quitted / quitted
Wet / wetted / wetted

In American English these verbs are irregular

Dive is regular in British English, but can be irregular in American English.

Dive / dived / dived (GB)
Dive / dove / dived (US)

In American English, the past participle of get can be got or gotten.

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Regular and irregular verbs: British and American differences

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In American English the verbs burn, dream, lean, learn, smell, spell, spill and spoil are all regular. Burn / burned / burned Dream / dreamed / dreamed Lean / leaned / leaned Learn / learned / learned Smell / smelled /smelled Spell / spelled /spelled Spill / spilled / spilled Spoil / spoiled / spoiled In British English, these verbs are usually irregular with past tenses and past participle forms ending in -t.

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3. Este sitio tiene diferente tipos de juegos que pueden ayudarse aprender la lengua de Catalan. Porque ya sabemos Español (castellano) es interesante ver y poner su atencion a los similaridades y las diferencias entre Catalan y Castellano. Aunque muchas de las palabras son similares entre los dos lenguas, la pronunciacion puede ser diferente; o hay muchas palabras que suenan el mismo y tiene la misma significado pero son deletreadas la misma.

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Online games for learning Catalan language

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Learn Catalan language with free to use and fun online games. Several games for learning phrases, numbers and vocabulary. Fun quizzes for kids and learners of Catalan.

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2. En este sitio hay tablas que muestran los articulos definidos y indefinidos en la lengua de Catalan. Si estos articular son comparados a Castellano (Español) hay diferentes reglas gramaticas para usar la forma correcta de los articulos con los sujetos. Por ejemplo, los articulos definidos de las dos lenguas son los mismos por "singular" en femenino o masculino; PERO hay una regla en Catalan que dice si el sujeto empieza con una vocal ( o un "h" enfrente de la vocal) no puede usar estos articulos definitos -- tiene usar l' como el articulo nuevo.

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A BRIEF CATALAN TUTORIAL-Articles, Pronouns, Adjectives

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Index · Pronunciation · Articles, Pronouns, Adjectives · Verb Conjugation

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1. Mientras hablamos sobre la morfologia de lenguas diferentes, hay muchas reglas gramaticas en Español que son importante en la idea de sintaxes y la formacion de las frases y oraciones españoles. Un buen (y difficult) ejemplo o tema para entender gramaticamente como los hispanohablantes hablan es: la localizacion de los adjetivos en relacion a los nombres (sujetos). Este "link" tiene todas las reglas que explican exactamente cuando se debe poner un adjetivo en frente o despues del nombre

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4. Esta tabla se da los vocales sordas (voiceless) y sonoras (voiced) más comunes. Cuando una vocal es sorda o sonora depende si tu garganta vibre cuando pronuncias la letra y el sonido. Pero, un hecho divertido sobre los sonidos sordos y sonoros es que cada sonido sorda tiene un sonido sonoro muy similar. Por ejemplo: b/p, t/d, etc.

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3. Este video es sobre la diferencia de pronunciar vocales que están juntos – la diferencia entre los diptongos y hiatos. También, el video explica vocales altas y bajas. I + U son vocales altas (débiles/cerradas). E + A + O son vocales bajas (fuertes/abiertas). En un hiato, hay dos vocales fuertes (o uno fuerte y uno débil con tilde) para hacer dos silabas. Pero en un diptongo, hay uno vocal débil con uno vocal fuerte o dos vocales débiles para hacer UNA silaba.

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2. La foto demuestre cómo muchos regiones de Europa dicen la letra “C,” y se da todos los símbolos fonéticos y sus sonidos en ingles también. Es interesante para entender que casi todos países no tienen los mismos sonidos entre las mismas letras de sus lenguajes; y cada sonido de una letra tiene su propio símbolo.

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1. Este documento se da información fonética en una manera más profunda. Hay seis páginas para describir cómo pronunciar cada letra y cada símbolo fonético. Porque tenemos una prueba sobre todos estos símbolos, se puede usar y estudiar para esta prueba. Y también hay ejemplos de pronunciación en español a inglés; pues, puedo entender el sonido de cada símbolo con ejemplos en las dos lenguas.

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4. Aquí, hay una cita que dice: “To speak a language is to take on a world, a culture.” – Frantz Fanon. Creo que esta cita representa un tema importante en el estudio de las lingüísticas. ¡Para comprender y entender una idioma es la primera etapa para aprender una nueva cultura y entonces uno nuevo mundo!

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165 quotes have been tagged as linguistics: Stephen Fry: 'Language is my whore, my mistress, my wife, my pen-friend, my check-out girl. Language is a com...

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3. ¿Mientras viajar en otro país, has tenido una experiencia donde la palabra que dijiste no significó que pensaba? En la lengua de español, es muy común que las palabras usa en un país no tienen los mismos significados en un otro país hispanohablante. En este “link” hay diez ejemplos de palabras en español que cambian entre diferentes lugares en el mundo.

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If you are learning Spanish, you probably know by now that some things are described by different words depending on the country. As you know, the version of Spanish that is spoken in Spain is different to the one that is spoken in, say, Peru, and many words are also pronounced differently depending on local accents - remember our introduction to Spanish dialects? Feel free to have a look at it if you missed it or if you need to refresh your memory, because these things can be confusing.

Ready? Now let's take a look at 10 words which are used in several Spanish-speaking regions but do not mean the same thing depending on where you use them. This list could be very useful if you are planning on speaking Spanish while travelling, for example, so learn these words to avoid a potentially embarrassing situation. Don't worry though, if you do end up making a mistake, your new friends will probably find it endearing!

1. Torta
If you order a Torta at a restaurant, you might get something completely different depending on the country where you and said restaurant is located. In Spain, you will probably get sweet cake similar to a birthday cake - However, note that this word can also be used to describe a slap in the face in Spain! In some Spanish regions, torta also refers to all types of round and flat bread that are made without using yeast.

In Mexico, however, you would be served a crusty white sandwich roll garnished with vegetables, ham, eggs, avocado or a meat fillet.

Finally, ordering a torta in the Philippines will get you a special kind of omelette made with eggs or eggplant, ground meat and sometimes minced onion and potato.
2. Chucha
In Colombia, chucha is used to describe bad armpit odor. In Argentina, on the other hand, it describes the female reproductive organ and is, similarly, used as an insult in several Latin American countries. In Chile, the phrase "está a la chucha" is used to say that something is far away.
3. Fresa
In most of the Spanish-speaking world, strawberry translates to fresa. However, this fruit is called frutilla in Argentina.

When used in Mexico, fresa describes a young person that is (acting) preppy and is used in a negative way. Mexican teenagers use it to describe the typical superficial, conceited, egocentric, and wealthy Mexican. The opposite of fresa would be naco, which is the pejorative slang term that describes tasteless, tacky and bad-mannered people.
4. Banqueta
If you use the word banqueta in Mexico or Guatemala, people will understand that you are talking about the sidewalk. In most other countries, this word describes a bench whereas it is the word acera which translates to sidewalk.
5. Coche
In Spain, coche means car. However, in Guatemala, it is a slang term for the word "pig" and in Chile, it can also be used to describe a baby stroller. Oh, and by the way: there are several ways to call cars across the Spanish-speaking world. In Mexico, people say coche or carro. In Colombia and Venezuela, carro is also the prefered term whereas Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Peru prefer to say auto.

6. Chucho
In most Spanish-speaking countries, chucho is a slang term for dog or mutt and also means shiver. However, in Central America chucho also means stingy and can be used to describe a crook or an unreliable person as well. In Latin America. it is also slang for joint. Chucho also means cold in Argentina, jail in Chile and in Mexico it characterizes someone who is clever and skilled. Last but not least, Chucho is also the nickname that is often given to people named Jesus!
7. Guagua
Guagua is a slang term for baby ( bebé in standard Spanish). However, in the Caribbean, the Canary Islands, and Spain, buses with a fixed route are also called guaguas.
8. Rato
Rato literally means "while" or "bit" - a undefined length of time. However, this term is used differently depending on the country, and this is where things get tricky. In Mexico, it means a short period of time ("one moment"), whereas in Spain, un rato is a long period of time
9. Mona
Mona is the name that characterizes a female monkey. However, this word has got additional meanings across the Spanish-speaking world. In Spain, mona describes a cute girl, wherea in Colombian slang, it is a word that is used to characterize a blond or white woman (mono being the masculine equivalent). Lastly, in Venezuela, the word is used to talk about conceited girls.
10. Buzo
Buzo means diver in standard Spanish. However, it has several other local meanings. A buzo is a sweatshirt in Argentina, sweatpants in Chile and Costa Rica, and in Guatemala the word is used to define someone who is very good at doing something.

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10 Spanish Words With Multiple Meanings - Lingoda

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If you are learning Spanish, you probably know by now that some things are described by different words depending on the country. As you know, the version of Spanish that is spoken in Spain is different to the one that is spoken in, say, Peru, and many words are also pronounced differently depending on local accents.

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2. Este video es una demostración divertida (y más o menos certera) que representa la diferencia entre los países hispanohablantes y cómo se hablan con la misma lengua pero en maneras diferentes. También lo representa que aunque muchos países hablan “español,” cada país tiene su único dialecto y una manera específica para hablar.

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1. Cuando pensamos sobre afasia y los efectos que la enfermedad tiene en el cerebro, es un poco difícil para comprender y entender. Antes de esta clase no sabía nada sobre afasia, y creo que esta foto representa (en una manera simplificada) cómo su cerebro no siempre puede controlar su boca en la manera que debe.