Culture and Language
What We Say Influences What
We Think, What We Feel and
What We Believe
Unique Human Ability
• Ability to create and use language is the
most distinctive feature of humans
• Humans learn their culture through
language
• Culture is transmitted through language
THE NATURE OF LANGUAGE
• Considerable variation in the number of
languages in the world
• 95% of the world’s people speak fewer
that 100 of the approximate 6,000 different
languages
• Linguists concerned about the last 5% of
the world’s languages which are in danger
of disappearing