What is a Language?

A language is a combination of written, spoken or signed words used to communicate meaning. Humans have nearly 7,000 different languages, with more than 600,000 words in the Oxford English Dictionary alone. While these are all very different, each language can be broken down into 3 main sections: 

- Phonemes: distinctive sound units (eg. a, t, b, p, ch) ~ English has around 40 phonemes

- Morphemes: a unit of language that carries meaning but cannot be divided further 

- free morphemes: can stand alone (food, park), bound morphemes: cannot stand alone (eg. prefixes, suffixes)

- Grammar: rules used to enable us to communicate and understand others

THEREFORE...

• Phonemes make up morphemes

• Morphemes are combined to make words and sentences

• Grammar is used to facilitate straight-forward communication.