Language Diversity

This questionnaire was first developed by Prof. Gisbert Fanselow (1959-2022) and further developed by Andreas Hölzl, Nina Adam, and Andreas Pregla. It is part of the project Consequences of Head Argument Order for Syntax (CHAOS) funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). It is the basis for the upcoming "CHAOS-Bank" database to be released in 2025.

The project tests the hypothesis that there are systematic syntactic differences between (S)VO and (S)OV languages that go beyond further laws of linearization for heads and their arguments. For this purpose, comparable data is collected systematically in a sample of the world’s languages. The aim is also to determine whether pertinent typological generalizations are best captured via the ordering of verb and object or via the structural position of the subject.

is an EFL teacher in secondary education. She holds a M.A. degree in 1EFL and she is a Ph.D. candidate at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Her research interests include teaching English as a foreign language, needs-based course design, syllabus design and curriculum renewal, English for Specific Purposes, teacher development, and multilingualism/plurilingualism. She has participated in Greek and International Conferences and has published articles in journals.

A linguistic enclave is a restricted linguistic area where an X-speaking community is surrounded by a Y-speaking society. This article reviews some cases of Mediterranean enclave speech communities, while specific concern is devoted to Alghero (l'Alguer), a Catalan-speaking enclave in Sardinia, in the western Mediterranean. Often the linguistic landscape of enclaves involves the intertwining of language diversity and multilingual contact from which several sociolinguistic phenomena arise, since the emergence of a diverse language repertoire is a common outcome. I emphasize family and societal multilingualism, local identities and ideologies, and local language regression and progression. Diversity embraces not only language, but culture and religions too. These features make language enclaves appropriate sites to study the historical dynamics of languages and peoples. Most of the communities considered are under cultural and political pressure and their patrimonial language is subject to functional restriction, language shift and/or language obsolescence and death. However, they are, first and foremost, examples of long-lasting language maintenance under challenging conditions. Their origins typically stem from historical migrations and further settlement. Not all enclave communities are permanently settled: the Rom have been traditionally a nomadic people. I consider the case of Catalan Gypsies in France. They moved from the Catalan countries and their ethnic language is a variety of Catalan. Top-down and bottom-up revitalization measures in the Catalan-speaking community of Alghero are also considered with respect to both corpus planning and status planning.

Program, I need to thank Tabitha Bentley, Kimberly Reyes, and Kelly Slay, all of whom shaped my project in its early stages. Catherine Jones Keating supported this project without fail-in the darkness, when despair was close, in the light, when a path forward was illuminated, and in the time between, when most of the work got done. As first reader, she combined her experience as a talented educator, her immense store of empathy, and her sky-high expectations and hopes to help me maintain momentum. I am indebted, forever. Finally, I wish to thank my parents whose support for my fascination with language, writing, and words spans decades.

Program, I need to thank Tabitha Bentley, Kimberly Reyes, and Kelly Slay, all of whom shaped my project in its early stages. Catherine Jones Keating supported this project without fail-in the darkness, when despair was close, in the light, when a path forward was illuminated, and in the time between, when most of the work got done. As first reader, she combined her experience as a talented educator, her immense store of empathy, and her sky-high expectations and hopes to help me maintain momentum. I am indebted, forever. Finally, I wish to thank my parents whose support for my fascination with language, writing, and words spans decades.

El presente dossier reúne una serie de trabajos cuya primera versión tuvo lugar en la Primera Jornada Internacional: “Políticas del lenguaje en publicaciones científicas”, en el Instituto de Lingüística de la Universidad de Buenos Aires, hacia agosto de 2024. En este espacio interdisciplinario de intercambio y discusión, coordinado desde el Proyecto PIP-CONICET: “Ciencia y soberanía en los discursos sobre el espa¬ñol y el inglés”, participaron lingüistas, especialistas en estudios sociales de la ciencia y la tecnología, y directores/as editoriales de revistas especializadas en distintas disciplinas, tanto humanísticas como naturales, provenientes de Argentina, Brasil, Canadá, Chile y México. Los criterios de políticas editoriales, las prácticas de escritura y publicación de la ciencia, así como las asimetrías lingüísticas y los desafíos del multilingüismo en la comunicación científica fueron los ejes que definieron las discusiones.
El dossier incorpora, entonces, diversos artículos que exploran las siguientes temáticas: los rasgos estructurales y las representaciones sobre el valor de distintas lenguas para la difusión de la ciencia (Bein), la relación entre los usos de lenguas y su impacto en artículos publicados en Latinoamérica (França y Finardi), las políticas del lenguaje en herramientas de gestión universitaria (Glozman et al.), la incidencia de tecnologías de la inteligencia artificial en la escritura de investigación (Scotto), las ideologías lingüísticas en prácticas de escritura académica (Nogueira) y los beneficios de la comunicación plurilingüe en actividades científica (Colombo).

The Kölner Korpus des Kiezdeutschen/Cologne Corpus of Kiezdeutsch is a dataset documenting the urban youth language variety known as Kiezdeutsch as spoken in Cologne (North Rhine-Westphalia), Germany. It includes audio recordings and GAT 2-transcribed conversations among adolescent male speakers recorded in 2023. The data were collected in a vocational school and comprise approximately three hours of conversation across three speaker groups: monolingual, multilingual, and mixed. The corpus is pseudonymized and published under a CC BY 4.0 license. It is intended as a broadly reusable linguistic resource and provides empirical data for research in sociolinguistics, morphosyntax, grammatical variation, lexical innovation, discoursepragmatics and interactional linguistics. Its structure and basic annotation also make it suitable for applications in language contact research, corpus-based analysis and language pedagogy.

“The value of any unit in this existence is its participation in the larger order of which it is a part’ (10),” states a distinguished educationist, highlighting the significance of individuals and entities in contributing to a greater societal good. In Chetan Bhagat’s Half Girlfriend, Madhav Jha embodies this principle through his transformative efforts in Dumraon, a disadvantaged village in Bihar. Educated at St. Stephen’s College, New Delhi, Madhav rejects a lucrative position at HSBC to apply his expertise to uplift his hometown. His focus is revitalizing his mother’s struggling Dumraon Royal School and addressing the villagers’ challenges, aligning with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision for a clean and literate India, emphasized during the Lok Sabha elections. Madhav first tackles the lack of accessible water, which forces children, especially girls, to travel miles and miss school. By engaging the local MLA, he secures water pumps, contingent on hosting a Bill Gates Foundation event. The more pressing issue—lack of toilets, particularly for female students—is resolved when Madhav’s heartfelt speech impresses Bill Gates, earning a substantial donation. “I spent my whole college life with a complex” (183), he shares, vowing to spare his students similar humiliation. This grant funds toilets and infrastructure, advancing Modi’s sanitation and education goals. Madhav’s determination, inspired by national campaigns, transforms the school into a beacon of hope, inspiring others to serve their communities and reinforcing the educationist’s insight on purposeful contribution.

Systems of grammatical gender are widespread, yet evidence on how these systems emerge is surprisingly scarce. We report on novel research using storyboard experiments in six Oceanic languages of Vanuatu and New Caledonia, to probe the initial stages in the emergence of grammatical gender from possessive classifiers. This would appear to be an unlikely source, yet we can demonstrate the development and investigate it through current experiments. Our storyboard experiments were designed to reveal the use of classifiers as reference tracking devices across units of discourse and in different interactional contexts. The particular interest is in the degree to which the use of these classifiers becomes fixed and hence redundant for given nouns. The general interest is the investigation of the way in which apparently useful distinctions are lost, as transparent classification becomes opaque.

Chetan Bhagat, a most celebrated figure in modern Indian literature, investigates the themes of gender, romance, and youth in his writings. His novels, including Five Point Someone, 2 States, Half Girlfriend, Revolution 2020, and The Girl in Room 105, depict the challenges and dreams of young Indians and knit the romance with social issues. This paper searches into the interaction of gender and romance in Bhagat's works and evaluates how he represents the Indian young generation. By examining the themes, character portrayals, and cultural contexts of his narratives, this research analyzes Bhagat's role in present discussions regarding gender roles, romantic relationships, and social expectations.

This study examines the relationship between the language of publication and scientific impact, focusing on the number of citations received by articles authored by researchers from Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) on the internationalization of higher education. The research data stems from the analysis of the most cited works in three bibliographic databases (Scopus, WoS and Lens) discussing whether the current dynamics of scientific internationalization have effectively expanded international dialogues or, conversely, reinforced the hegemony of English and central countries. This dynamic promotes the adoption of a habitus among researchers, encouraging the use of a common language, English, for the dissemination of research outcomes, ultimately restricting and devaluing other languages and academic perspectives. Based on the collected and analyzed data, it is concluded that while publishing in English increases visibility and scientific impact, it also tends to perpetuate geopolitical inequalities in the scientific field, where knowledge produced in peripheral countries must conform to standards dictated by (and for) central countries so as to gain recognition. This reality places LAC researchers in a dilemma: to adopt English to achieve greater visibility or to prioritize local languages to guarantee social and local impact and also to preserve epistemological and cultural diversity.

Abstract
This chapter explores the historical trajectory of Gabon from early Bantu migrations to its eventual independence from France in 1960. It examines the region’s strategic encounters with Portuguese, Dutch, and particularly French colonial powers, with emphasis on the political, economic, and cultural transformations induced by European influence. The chapter traces the consolidation of French colonial authority through treaties, missionary activities, and military expeditions, leading to Gabon's integration into French Equatorial Africa. It highlights the emergence of nationalist movements led by Léon Mba and Jean-Hilaire Aubame, the transition to autonomy within the French Community, and the relatively peaceful declaration of independence. Post-independence political instability, including the 1964 coup and France’s continued intervention, underscores Gabon's enduring neocolonial ties. The chapter further assesses Gabon’s postcolonial development under President Albert-Bernard Bongo, characterized by resource-driven economic growth, centralized governance, and entrenched Franco-Gabonese relations. Finally, it analyzes the complexities of Gabonese identity, nationalism, and the dual embrace of both indigenous traditions and French cultural legacies, revealing a nuanced postcolonial experience marked by stability, inequality, and evolving sovereignty.

Let me start with our traditional question. Why linguistics? What motivated you to study language and to deal with it professionally? EM Foreign languages played a big role in our family. In addition to Hungarian -our native language -my mother spoke German and French and my father -a professor of Greek philology -knew German, Russian, French, Modern Greek, Ancient Greek, and Latin. He even had some Turkish; along with Russian, he acquired it in the prisoner of war camp in Krasnoyarsk during WWI. He spent five years there and happened to meet a Turkish fellow prisoner who taught him his language. As a child, I took lessons in German and English with private teachers. In school, I studied Russian, Latin, and Ancient Greek. In spite of his broad range of familiarity with foreign languages, my father did not speak them well and I was not good at speaking languages, either; but, just as my father, grammar intrigued me and in particular, how the grammars of languages differed. I remember that my Ancient Greek grammar book listed verbal modes -indicative and subjunctive -under the different tenses, while my Latin textbook had it the other way, with modes comprising tenses, and I wondered whether this indicated a difference between the two languages or whether it was simply due to the textbook writers' whim. When I graduated from high school, I had to choose a major for my university studies. I would have liked to study general linguistics but there was no Linguistics Department at the University of Budapest at the time. My favorite language was Russian -but this was in 1957 right after the Hungarian revolution against the communist regime and the Russian occupation. Since my father was a fairly prominent person, my parents felt that if I opted for Russian, this would be interpreted as an endorsement of the communist regime by the family, which we definitely did not want. Another possibility was English but this in turn could have been seen as indicating an anti-communist position -a dangerous option. Since I disliked German at the time, the only remaining choices were the politically neutral classical languages: Latin and Greek. When in 1964 at the age of 25 I immigrated to the US, I was first teaching Classics but this was not a field of study I wanted to stay with. Being in the US and having to hone my English skills, I was constantly faced by the striking differences and similarities between English -my "outer language" -and Hungarian -my "inner one" -and this experience increased my interest in linguistics. Indiana University in Bloomington IN had a very good Department of Linguistics and since I was also offered a teaching assistantship there to teach Hungarian, I seized this chance to realize my desire to become a professional linguist.

This book explores a range of pathways in the evolution and variation of the Spanish language across different communicative domains related to football. From press conferences to the language used by analysts and fans, from journalistic reports to media broadcasts and social networks, and from the very name of the sport to regional variants within Spanish football vocabulary, Partido a partido. La lengua del fútbol addresses a variety of linguistic research topics. These include lexical, discursive, and pragmatic phenomena, as well as diachronic, variational, sociopragmatic, comparative, and intralingual translation-based approaches. The book brings together nine papers, each with distinct aims, scopes, and analytical techniques. Despite this diversity, all the papers focus on the linguistic peculiarities of historical changes and contemporary variations in the Spanish language (across more than one country), which can be observed – though not exclusively – in the language of football. Although exploratory in nature, this volume encourages readers to view the communicative dynamics inspired by football as more than merely ‘mundane’ or ‘ephemeral’. While some phenomena arise solely within the football community under specific circumstances, certain linguistic innovations shaped by football references may eventually extend to other thematic domains. In sum, this book offers readers an overview of the features and complexities that characterise the Spanish language. Like football itself, these features spark interest and foster discussion among specialists.

While global patterns of human genetic diversity are increasingly well characterized, the diversity of human languages remains less systematically described. Here, we outline the Grambank database. With over 400,000 data points and 2400 languages, Grambank is the largest comparative grammatical database available. The comprehensiveness of Grambank allows us to quantify the relative effects of genealogical inheritance and geographic proximity on the structural diversity of the world’s languages, evaluate constraints on linguistic diversity, and identify the world’s most unusual languages. An analysis of the consequences of language loss reveals that the reduction in diversity will be strikingly uneven across the major linguistic regions of the world. Without sustained efforts to document and revitalize endangered languages, our linguistic window into human history, cognition, and culture will be seriously fragmented.

This paper defines what differentiation is and why it is relevant to the classroom. The importance of defining differentiated instruction (DI) strategy were identified on the basis of experiment with 100 participants from 10 schools in Namangan city taking part in semi structured interview and analyzing all answers. The results show that teachers have different ideas about DI.

We discuss the results of research carried out in the last ten years or so in Scandinavia, the Netherlands, Germany, France and the UK, on new forms and styles of language that have emerged in multilingual areas of European cities. We discuss the problematic nature of the term multiethnolect, and argue that multiethnolects are a new typological language variety. We survey the innovative linguistic forms that have emerged in the different European languages, and draw brief and preliminary conclusions about the cognitive and communicative processes that drive their emergence. We then consider general social awareness of multiethnolects and attitudes about their speakers, drawing mainly on the example of the Netherlands. Finally, we review the small amount of existing evidence that helps predict the future of new linguistic forms and styles.

2States: “The Story of My Marriage” by ChetanBhagat is a semi-autobiographical story. The
narrative follows the love story of Krish, a Punjabi boy, and Ananya a Tamil girls, as they navigate
cultural differences and familial objections to their inter-caste relationship. Bhagat highlights
themes such as middle-class mentalities, extravagant wedding expenses, parental possessiveness
and societal racism. Through vivid character portrayals and realistic scenarios, the novel
emphasizes the challenges faced by inter-caste couples in India. The story also critiques the societal
obsession with status and material wealth, illustrating how chose factors exacerbate the already
daunting process of seeking familial approve for marriage. Ultimately, Bhargat’s work serves as a
commentary on the evolving dynamics of love and marriage within the multicultural fabric of
modern India.

Aim Two fundamental questions about human language demand answers: why are so many languages spoken today and why is their geographical distribution so uneven? Although hypotheses have been proposed for centuries, the processes that determine patterns of linguistic and cultural diversity remain poorly understood. Previous studies, which relied on correlative, curve-fitting approaches, have produced contradictory results. Here we present the first application of process-based simulation modelling, derived from macroecology, to examine the distribution of human groups and their languages. Location The Australian continent is used as a case study to demonstrate the power of simulation modelling for identifying processes shaping the diversity and distribution of human languages. Methods Process-based simulation models allow investigators to hold certain factors constant in order to isolate and assess the impact of modelled processes. We tested the extent to which a minimal set of processes determines the number and spatial distribution of languages on the Australian continent. Our model made three basic assumptions based on previously proposed, but untested, hypotheses: groups fill unoccupied spaces, rainfall limits population density and groups divide after reaching a maximum population. Results Remarkably, this simple model accurately predicted the total number of languages (average estimate 406, observed 407), and explained 56% of spatial variation in language richness on the Australian continent. Main conclusions Our results present strong evidence that current climatic conditions and limits to group size are important processes shaping language diversity patterns in Australia. Our study also demonstrates how simulation models from macroecology can be used to understand the processes that have shaped human cultural diversity across the globe.

We discuss language diversity in mathematics education research by considering the move from a view of language as representation that strives to correlate concepts, ideas, codes and signs towards addressing the representation politics of language. Language as representation of mathematics has framed the discursive construction of language diversity over the years in published research in our field. We argue that the representation politics of language as grounded in cultural and postcolonial studies enables us to see the meanings attributed to language diversity as resulting from a complex 'circuit of culture' in the realm of global and local identity politics. Three questions help us in this endeavour: (1) What are assumed as commonly shared meanings about language diversity? (2) How do they become present in prevailing discourses about the languages of mathematics, teachers and learners? (3) How may a view of language diversity as part of the 'circuit of culture' disturb the normative presence of such assumptions? Keywords Mathematics education research • Language • Language diversity • Politics of representation • Cultural and postcolonial studies • Circuit of culture

This study suggests a digital linguistic approach to multi-mediated communication (MMC), drawing on a case study of language variation on social media. In the early 21st century, social media (SM) has significantly impacted various aspects of human life, including language, as articulated within the theoretical framework of digital linguistics and language variation. This study explores the influence of SM on Kurdish local dialects in Iraqi Kurdistan, with a focus on vocabulary evolution and the ongoing challenge of dialect standardization. Given the high unemployment rates in Iraq, which have led to increased SM engagement, this research examines how these platforms affect dialect usage across diverse demographic groups. Utilizing a mixed-methods approach, the study integrates qualitative content analysis and quantitative surveys to assess SM's role in shaping linguistic practices. Findings reveal that older generations are more likely to maintain traditional dialects, while younger users increasingly adopt standardized Kurdish forms. The study highlights SM's dual impact: promoting linguistic convergence while posing risks to dialectal diversity. It emphasizes the need for a balanced approach that supports regional dialects alongside the benefits of standardization, advocating for strategic initiatives to preserve linguistic heritage while adapting to digital influences.

While global patterns of human genetic diversity are increasingly well characterized, the diversity of human languages remains less systematically described. Here, we outline the Grambank database. With over 400,000 data points and 2400 languages, Grambank is the largest comparative grammatical database available. The comprehensiveness of Grambank allows us to quantify the relative effects of genealogical inheritance and geographic proximity on the structural diversity of the world’s languages, evaluate constraints on linguistic diversity, and identify the world’s most unusual languages. An analysis of the consequences of language loss reveals that the reduction in diversity will be strikingly uneven across the major linguistic regions of the world. Without sustained efforts to document and revitalize endangered languages, our linguistic window into human history, cognition, and culture will be seriously fragmented.

While global patterns of human genetic diversity are increasingly well characterized, the diversity of human languages remains less systematically described. Here, we outline the Grambank database. With over 400,000 data points and 2400 languages, Grambank is the largest comparative grammatical database available. The comprehensiveness of Grambank allows us to quantify the relative effects of genealogical inheritance and geographic proximity on the structural diversity of the world’s languages, evaluate constraints on linguistic diversity, and identify the world’s most unusual languages. An analysis of the consequences of language loss reveals that the reduction in diversity will be strikingly uneven across the major linguistic regions of the world. Without sustained efforts to document and revitalize endangered languages, our linguistic window into human history, cognition, and culture will be seriously fragmented.

While global patterns of human genetic diversity are increasingly well characterized, the diversity of human languages remains less systematically described. Here, we outline the Grambank database. With over 400,000 data points and 2400 languages, Grambank is the largest comparative grammatical database available. The comprehensiveness of Grambank allows us to quantify the relative effects of genealogical inheritance and geographic proximity on the structural diversity of the world’s languages, evaluate constraints on linguistic diversity, and identify the world’s most unusual languages. An analysis of the consequences of language loss reveals that the reduction in diversity will be strikingly uneven across the major linguistic regions of the world. Without sustained efforts to document and revitalize endangered languages, our linguistic window into human history, cognition, and culture will be seriously fragmented.

The article discusses the problem of counting languages with an eye to assessing the loss of language diversity. It opposes internal and external definitions of language. The article rejects current literature which rests on sociological definitions of language, based upon the conventional wisdom of the speakers and the use of languages in order to flag identities, and pleads for the necessity to embrace an internal definition based upon intelligibility and structual differences. In so doing, it harks back to a time-honored quest for a strictly structural definition of language (vs. dialect). In such a view, neither the speakers’ attitudes to their or other languages nor recognition on the part of official bodies play no role, while the task of defining language is therefore handed back squarely from social studies and socialoriented analyses of language to linguistics.

In this paper we focus on variation of the design and the implementation of a specific task during three mathematics lessons in the 8th grade in a learning study (Marton & Tsui, 2004;. The theme of the lesson was division, with a denominator between 0 and 1. The teachers wanted their students to understand that when dividing with a denominator less than 1, the quotient is larger than the numerator. Four teachers collaboratively planned, analyzed and revised three lessons in a cyclic process. The study shows that the implementation of the task changed between the lessons. Although the same task was used in the lessons, the way it was enacted provided different possibilities to learn.

Disclaimer This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Mathematics is taught in many different languages around the world. In some countries mathematics is taught in only one language, for example in the medium of English in England, but in other countries in two or more languages. In countries such as Tunisia and Papua New Guinea, the language of instruction is dependent on the year level. Multilingualism is increasingly becoming the norm for many communities, and for others has been a way of life for thousands of years. However the fact that a community is multilingual does not imply that every member of the community can speak all the represented languages . Therefore a constant issue in multilingual communities is the choice of what language or languages to use in schools, a choice which is 'closely bound up with issues of access, power and dominance' (Barwell, 2003, p. 37; see also . For example, a widely held view by early policy makers, generally representing the colonising power, was that linguistic diversity, that is, multilingualism, presented obstacles for national development, while linguistic homogeneity was associated with modernisation and Westernisation . As a result there has been a worldwide trend for C. Edmonds-Wathen (*)

This study focuses on the position of mother languages in Greek education at the level of educational policy, demonstrating the necessity of their further emergence based on modern scientific findings on the benefits of bilingualism. Through an effort to record a set of obstacles that make it difficult for them to join the curriculum, a framework is proposed to be used for the language repertoire of all pupils, so that their rights are respected in practice and their linguistic richness serves as a source of enrichment for the whole population. The implementation of practices that could enhance the free and equal expression of members of a multilingual and multicultural classroom can thus be supported, initially, by the institutionalization of the function of classes, where the different languages of immigrants and refugees living in Greece will be taught. At the same time, the promotion of teaching strategies focusing on the use of all spoken languages and dialects, even in convent...

The present policy of the Ministry of Education is that all schools should offer instruction in an additional language from Year 7 to Year 10. The additional languages may be te reo Māori, a Pacific language, or one of several international languages. This paper focuses on the latter, and suggests that, at the present time, it would be unwise in many schools to introduce foreign language instruction in Year 7, and instead a focus should be placed on the development of students' intercultural awareness. This paper begins with a brief review of the present policy and the benefits which are assumed to accrue from learning languages. It then discusses the existing constraints affecting language teaching in our primary schools, many of which are also faced in other countries which have introduced foreign language instruction in their primary schools. The most important of these constraints in New Zealand, as elsewhere, is the shortage of linguistically competent and appropriately trained second language teachers. A brief consideration is paid to the limited amount of professional development available to primary teachers in this country, many of whom have little, or even no, knowledge of the target language. The multimedia packs, which have been produced for the teaching and learning of international languages in schools, assume that teachers can learn the target language at the same time as teaching it to their students.

The teacher"s functionality depends on the working environment he/she is operating in and, in some ways, depends on the relationship with the headmaster. The relationship may be due to, but not limited to, leadership styles, personalities, and other attributes of both the teacher and the school management system. Workplace relationships influence the performance of employees in any organization. This grounded theory study aims to get an understanding of the basic social processes in administrator-teacher relationships and come up with an explanation of that kind of relationship. Eleven (n = 11) participants in the study were all qualified teachers, teaching at the two rural-based Catholic-run schools. Data collected through interviews were audiotaped, memoed, and transcribed. The results from this study showed that teachers classified their relationship with their administrators as professional/good, complicated and bad, selective treatment, supportive and indifferent, or no relationship; and all linked to having unhu/ubuntu or lack of it. It is the recommendation of this study that administrators should be trained, and have unhu/ubuntu philosophy when dealing with their teachers and students.

While global patterns of human genetic diversity are increasingly well characterized, the diversity of human languages remains less systematically described. Here, we outline the Grambank database. With over 400,000 data points and 2400 languages, Grambank is the largest comparative grammatical database available. The comprehensiveness of Grambank allows us to quantify the relative effects of genealogical inheritance and geographic proximity on the structural diversity of the world’s languages, evaluate constraints on linguistic diversity, and identify the world’s most unusual languages. An analysis of the consequences of language loss reveals that the reduction in diversity will be strikingly uneven across the major linguistic regions of the world. Without sustained efforts to document and revitalize endangered languages, our linguistic window into human history, cognition, and culture will be seriously fragmented.

This paper analyzes the current funding structure of monolingual media in Catalan, Basque and Galician languages and the key financial problems. The information provided by media managers and directors allowed the authors to frame the current financing system within the conceptual frames of insecurity and grievance, which can derail the possibilities for a digital expansion and a sustainable overall development. This study can be set in the research areas of media economics and minority language media. The three language communities have ten million speakers approximately distributed in Spain and France. Methodology was based on questionnaires, field interviews and balance sheets and financial reports.

O conceito de Intercompreensão tem vindo a tornar-se objecto de um interesse tanto mais alargado quanto mais as vivências multiculturais e plurilingues se têm revelado, de facto, como um dos mais importantes desafios europeus na actualidade. Face aos novos cenários nacionais ...

The diversification of language is a capacious term used to portray the diversification between various languages and how individuals communicate with each other. Chetan Bhagat primarily targets the younger generation of Indian society through his novels. In the novel Half Girlfriend, he depicts the struggles and hurdles of a rural Bihari boy in a metro political city. It also portrays the setting of the English language's relationship to the cultural environment and the construction of identity of the modern era. On the other hand, in the novel 2 States, Chetan Bhagat discusses the diversity of language of Northern and Southern India. The paper brings about the diversification of language which lead to barriers to communication in Indian society. Chetan Bhagat shows the prime role of the English language through his works. Through this study of select novels, the paper brings out the struggle of one sector of society which faces difficulties while communicating and learning a language and another one that faces the struggle by articulating in the regional language. These two sections of people depict the barriers while communicating in a language for survival.

While global patterns of human genetic diversity are increasingly well characterized, the diversity of human languages remains less systematically described. Here, we outline the Grambank database. With over 400,000 data points and 2400 languages, Grambank is the largest comparative grammatical database available. The comprehensiveness of Grambank allows us to quantify the relative effects of genealogical inheritance and geographic proximity on the structural diversity of the world’s languages, evaluate constraints on linguistic diversity, and identify the world’s most unusual languages. An analysis of the consequences of language loss reveals that the reduction in diversity will be strikingly uneven across the major linguistic regions of the world. Without sustained efforts to document and revitalize endangered languages, our linguistic window into human history, cognition, and culture will be seriously fragmented.

This paper draws on two research studies with similar theoretical backgrounds, in two different settings, Barcelona (Spain) and Tucson (USA). From a sociocultural perspective, the analysis of mathematics education in multilingual and multiethnic classrooms requires us to consider contexts, such as the family context, that have an influence on these classrooms and its participants. We focus on immigrant parents' perspectives on their children's mathematics education and we primarily discuss two topics: (1) their experiences with the teaching of mathematics, and (2) the role of language (native language and second language). The two topics are explored with reference to the immigrant students' or their parents' former educational systems (the "before") and their current educational systems (the "now"). Parents and schools understand educational systems, classroom cultures and students' attainment differently, as influenced by their sociocultural histories and contexts.

Zipf's law, as a power-law regularity, confirms long-range correlations between the elements in natural and artificial systems. In this article, this law is evaluated for one hundred live languages. We calculate Zipf's exponent for translations of the holy Bible to several languages, for this purpose. The results show that, the average of Zipf's exponent in studied texts is slightly above unity. All studied languages in some families have Zipf's exponent lower/higher than unity. It seems that geographical distribution impresses the communication between speakers of different languages in a language family, and affect similarity between their Zipf's exponent. The Bible has unique concept regardless of its language, but the discrepancy in grammatical rules and syntactic regularities in applying stop words to make sentences and imply a certain concept, lead to difference in Zipf's exponent for various languages.

Zipf's law, as a power-law regularity, confirms long-range correlations between the elements in natural and artificial systems. In this article, this law is evaluated for one hundred live languages. We calculate Zipf's exponent for translations of the holy Bible to several languages, for this purpose. The results show that, the average of Zipf's exponent in studied texts is slightly above unity. All studied languages in some families have Zipf's exponent lower/higher than unity. It seems that geographical distribution impresses the communication between speakers of different languages in a language family, and affect similarity between their Zipf's exponent. The Bible has unique concept regardless of its language, but the discrepancy in grammatical rules and syntactic regularities in applying stop words to make sentences and imply a certain concept, lead to difference in Zipf's exponent for various languages.

This paper draws on two research studies with similar theoretical backgrounds, in two different settings, Barcelona (Spain) and Tucson (USA). From a sociocultural perspective, the analysis of mathematics education in multilingual and multiethnic classrooms requires us to consider contexts, such as the family context, that have an influence on these classrooms and its participants. We focus on immigrant parents' perspectives on their children's mathematics education and we primarily discuss two topics: (1) their experiences with the teaching of mathematics, and (2) the role of language (native language and second language). The two topics are explored with reference to the immigrant students' or their parents' former educational systems (the "before") and their current educational systems (the "now"). Parents and schools understand educational systems, classroom cultures and students' attainment differently, as influenced by their sociocultural histories and contexts.

he term translingual has entered the commons of discourse inhabiting College English as one possible entry point for work contesting the monolingualism that continues to dominate the teaching and study of college writing and reading in the United States and elsewhere. But like other terms proposed as alternatives to monolingualism-for example, multilingual, plurilingual, translanguaging, code-meshing-translingual as a point of entry with no predefined, predetermined outcome is subject to competing inflections. And in fact, the 2011 essay that is arguably responsible for introducing the term to the pages of College English itself presents "a translingual approach" only as something "toward" which we might work, and its authors caution that "we are still at the beginning stages of our learning efforts in this project, which by definition will require the ideas and energy of many" (Horner et al., "Language Difference" 310). Since then, many have taken up just such efforts, in the pages of College English and elsewhere, in predictably diverse ways and with diverse results (see for example

The present article reports on the conceptualization of the Dictionnaire Général du Français Gabonais. The dictionary project is a first of its kind in Gabonese lexicography. As an out­come of the inception of Gabonese French lexicography, the dictionary project arose from a discus­sion on the definition of Gabonese French, which Gabonese French lexicography should account for. In this article, the project background as well as the interests for the planned dictionary are presented. The article also deals with two key aspects of the dictionary conceptualization plan, i.e., lexicographic processes and the dictionary basis. Keywords: conceptualization plan, dictionary basis, dictionary project, French, Gabon, language appropriation, lexicographic processes

This paper traces the historical development of lexicography in Gabon. Gabon, like most African countries, is multilingual. The recent inventories of languages spoken in Gabon are those established by Jacquot (1978) and Kwenzi-Mikala (1998). According to Kwenzi-Mikala (1997), there are 62 speech forms divided into 10 language groups or language-units in Gabon. These speech forms co-exist with French, the official language. In fact, in article 2 of paragraph 8 of the revised Constitution of 1994 the following can be read: "The Gabonese Republic adopts French as the official language. Furthermore, she endeavours to protect and promote the national languages." This constitutional arrangement naturally makes French the language used in education, administration and the media. The survey of lexicography in Gabon that is presented here includes the linguistic situation in and the language policy of Gabon, the lexicographic survey itself, as well as the lexicographic needs of the different speech forms (including languages and dialects). Initially, the pioneers of Gabonese lexicography were missionaries or colonial administrators. Very little was done in this field by the Gabonese themselves. Although credit is to be given to these early works, there are a number of shortcomings regarding the linguistic as well as the metalexicographic contents of dictionaries and lexicons produced during this period. In fact, the main weak point of those studies was the lack of tones in the written transcription of oral productions and orthographic problems. Furthermore, in those contributions, the theory of lexicography is largely unknown and lexicographic works are hardly ever based on authentic data corpora of the languages being described.