Hangul

I fell in love with this writting system since I "discovered" it. It is FULL of meanings! Sensefull meanings everywhere!

Hangul was promulgated by the fourth king of the Joseon Dynasty, Sejong the Great. It is an artificial script in the sense that it was created from scratch by (most probably) a group of people. Hangul (한글) is a term coined by Ju Sigyeong in 1912 that simultaneously means great (한) script (글) in archaic Korean and Korean script in modern Korean. Contrary to what many may think Hangul is a phonemic alphabet. It is organized into blocks of at least two of the 24 jamo (자모) (a jamo is one of the units that make up the Hangul alphabet. 자 means letter or character, and 모 means mother, so the name suggests that the jamo are the building-blocks of the script): at least one of the 14 consonants and one of the ten vowels.

The jamo are:

• 14 simple consonant letters: ㄱ, ㄴ, ㄷ, ㄹ, ㅁ, ㅂ, ㅅ, ㅇ, ㅈ, ㅊ, ㅋ, ㅌ, ㅍ, ㅎ, plus obsolete ㅿ(alveolar),ㆁ(velar),ㆆ,ㅱ,ㅸ,ㆄ
• 5 double letters (glotalized): ㄲ, ㄸ, ㅃ, ㅆ, ㅉ, plus obsolete ㅥ,ㆀ,ㆅ,ㅹ
• 11 consonant clusters: ㄳ, ㄵ, ㄶ, ㄺ, ㄻ, ㄼ, ㄽ, ㄾ, ㄿ, ㅀ, ㅄ, plus obsolete ㅦ,ㅧ,ㅨ,ㅪ,ㅬ,ㅭ,ㅮ,ㅯ,ㅰ,ㅲ,ㅳ,ㅶ,ㅷ,ㅺ,ㅻ,ㅼ,ㅽ,ㅾ,ㆂ,ㆃ, and obsolete triple clusters ㅩ,ㅫ,ㅴ,ㅵ
• 6 simple vowel letters: ㅏ, ㅓ, ㅗ, ㅜ, ㅡ, ㅣ, plus obsolete ㆍ
• 4 simple iotized vowel letters (semi consonant-semi vowel): ㅑ, ㅕ, ㅛ, ㅠ
• 11 diphthongs: ㅐ, ㅒ, ㅔ, ㅖ, ㅘ, ㅙ, ㅚ, ㅝ, ㅞ, ㅟ, ㅢ, plus obsolete ㆎ,ㆇ,ㆈ,ㆉ,ㆊ,ㆋ,ㆌ

Hangul uses distinct strokes to indicate distinctive features such as place of articulation (labial, coronal, velar, or glottal) and manner of articulation (plosive, nasal, sibilant, aspiration) for consonants, and iotation (a preceding i- sound), harmonic class, and I-mutation for vowels. This is just incredible as each jamo is telling you what sound it represents!! You can tell the difference between ㄱ and ㅋ (both velar), but there is no way of telling between Latin letters g and k (here, the shape of the letter means absolutelly nothing).

Vowel letters are based on three elements:

• a horizontal line representing the flat Earth, the essence of yin
• a point for the Sun in the heavens, the essence of yang (this becomes a short stroke when written with a brush)
• a vertical line for the upright Human, the neutral mediator between the Heaven and Earth

Except for a few grammatical morphemes in archaic texts, no letter may stand alone to represent elements of the Korean language. Instead, jamo are grouped into syllabic blocks of at least two and often three: a consonant or consonant cluster called the initial, a vowel or diphthong called the medial, and, optionally, a consonant or consonant cluster at the end of the syllable, called the final. When a syllable has no actual initial consonant, the null initial ㅇ is used as a placeholder (no placeholder is needed when there is no final). That is, a syllabic block contains a minimum of two jamo.

This script is fascinating. I suggest taking a look at korea.net, this short tutorial and this tutorial. In order to type the jamo, go here.

I hate this word!

It always leaves me without much to say back. It sounds as a "I don't want to continue with this argue".

Webster's Online Dictionary says:

One or some or every or all without specification; "give me any peaches you don't want"; "not any milk is left"; "any child would know that"; "pick any card"; "any day now"; "cars can be rented at almost any airport"; "at twilight or any other time"; "beyond any doubt"; "need any help we can get"; "give me whatever peaches you don't want"; "no milk whatsoever is left".

AskOxford says:

used to emphasize a lack of restriction in referring to any thing; no
matter what; pronoun used for emphasis instead of ‘what’ in questions; at all;
of any kind; no matter what happens.

You can also read the entry at Dictionary.com.

So... what's so annoying about this harmless and innocent word? WHATEV-AH!!!!

Proto-language

A proto-language, sometimes also called Ursprache (German word, derived from the prefix Ur- "primordial" and Sprache "language"), is a hypothetically reconstructed language based on the comparison of attested vocabularies and grammars.
In most cases, the ancestral proto-language is not known directly and it has to be reconstructed by comparing different members of the language family via a technique called the comparative method. Through this process only a part of the proto-language's structure and vocabulary can be reconstructed; the reconstruction remains the more fragmentary the more ancient the proto-language in question is.

Sometimes, however, the proto-language is a language which is known from inscriptions, an example being the Proto-Norse language attested in the Elder Futhark runic inscriptions.
Other proto-languages are Proto-Indo-European, Proto-Uralic and Proto-Bantu.


Traditional historical linguistics state that so far it has been impossible to show that all the world's languages are genetically related. Critics say that from the purely statistical point of view, among any two unrelated languages, there would be more than 40% of words sharing a roughly similar sound and meaning. Therefore, the concept of comparing languages basing only on general comparisons between their vocabularies is considered flawed.

Swadesh list

A Swadesh list is a prescribed list of basic vocabulary (207 words) developed by Morris Swadesh in the 1940-50s, which is used in glottochronology to determine the approximate date of first separation of genetically related languages. The closeness of the relationship of the languages is suggested to be roughly proportional to the number of cognate words present in the list.

The Swadesh list in English is: I, you (singular), he, we, you (plural), they, this, that, here, there, who, what, where, when, how, not, all, many, some, few, other, one, two, three, four, five, big, long, wide, thick, heavy, small, short, narrow, thin, woman, man (adult male), man (human being), child, wife, husband, mother, father, animal, fish, bird, dog, louse, snake, worm, tree, forest, stick, fruit, seed, leaf, root, bark, flower, grass, rope, skin, meat, blood, bone, fat (n.), egg, horn, tail, feather, hair, head, ear, eye, nose, mouth, tooth, tongue, fingernail, foot, leg, knee, hand, wing, belly, guts, neck, back, breast, heart, liver, drink, eat, bite, suck, spit, vomit, blow, breathe, laugh, see, hear, know, think, smell, fear, sleep, live, die, kill, fight, hunt, hit, cut, split, stab, scratch, dig, swim, fly (v.), walk, come, lie, sit, stand, turn, fall, give, hold, squeeze, rub, wash, wipe, pull, push, throw, tie, sew, count, say, sing, play, float, flow, freeze, swell, sun, moon, star, water, rain, river, lake, sea, salt, stone, sand, dust, earth, cloud, fog, sky, wind, snow, ice, smoke, fire, ashes, burn, road, mountain, red, green, yellow, white, black, night, day, year, warm, cold, full, new, old, good, bad, rotten, dirty, straight, , round, sharp, dull, smooth, wet, dry, correct, near, far, right, left, at, in, with, and, if, because, name.

Using this list of "stable" words, glottochronologists believed they could calculate the approximate amount of time that had passed between the split-up of two related languages. Unfortunately, language, unlike C-14, does not seem to change at a constant rate. The word list and the formulas to use it will accurately show that the Romance languages started to split up about 2000 years ago, but I wouldn't be surprised if the formulas were fine-tuned to Romance rates of change in the first place.

Click here for a 100 word Swadesh list with animation.

Official language

An official language is a language that is given a unique legal status in the countries, states, and other territories. It is typically the language used in a nation's legislative bodies, though the law in many nations requires that government documents be produced in other languages as well.

A few states have no official language, although in most such cases there is a single de facto main language. The acceptance of de facto national languages is sometimes used as a means of remaining unprejudiced or unbiased. In the United States, the federal government has not declared a national language. English is accepted as the de facto national language. To partially cope with this situation, the federal government has given states the right to declare their official language. This right is exercised, with New Mexico having recognized both English and Spanish for official purposes ever since gaining statehood. Also, Louisiana uses French and English as official languages, and Hawaii uses Hawaiian and English as official languages.
Similarly, in the former Soviet Union, Russian was not legally the official language, but de facto. Likewise in the UK, English is the dominant language but no official language has ever been declared. Sweden is another case of a country with no de jure language.

A national language is a language (or language variant, i.e. dialect) which represents the national identity of a nation or country. A national language is used for political and legal discourse and so designated by a country's government. Some countries have more than one national language, such as Canada which uses both French and English. A national language is not to be confused with the predominant language, which is spoken by the majority of people from within a country's borders.

A regional language is a language spoken in a part of a country. It may be a small area, a federal state or province, or a wider area. It is often mistaken for a dialect.
For the purposes of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages:

"regional or minority languages" means languages that are:

1. traditionally used within a given territory of a State by nationals of that State who form a group numerically smaller than the rest of the State's population; and
2. different from the official language(s) of that State

Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark and Norway have signed a resolution to recognise sign languages as official languages. And New Zealand schools will offer it.

Will Irish be an official language in Northern Ireland? We are waiting for the 12-week consultation period to end.

How to forget your mother tongue and remember your national language?

Personal pronouns

In the place I live, it is common to mock politicians. There is not such a thing as a king, but you can see on TV sketches about the president and presidents of other countries. But be careful to say something like that about King Bhumibol Adulyadej (ภูมิพลอดุลยเดช) if you are visiting Thailand. This could happen to you! [As a side comment, the BBC deleted the original note they had when I decided to write about this! Now they only have the one I am linking to and this other one. Wierd!]
Cultural differences can be seen in the use of personal pronouns.
Personal pronouns are pronouns often used as substitutes for proper or common nouns.
English has seven personal pronouns: I, we , you, he, she, it and they. And each of these can take different forms:

• a subjective case form (I, we, etc.), used when it's the subject of a finite verb

• an objective case form (me, us, etc.), used when it's the object of verb or of a preposition

• two possessive case forms (my, our, etc. and mine, ours, etc.), used when it's the possessor of another noun (one that's used as a determiner, and one that's used as a pronoun or a predicate adjective)

• a reflexive form (myself, ourselves, etc.), which replaces the objective-case form in referring to the same entity as the subject

You can see the table with all English pronouns here.
But many other languages, Thai among them, are not as simple as that. Not, at least in what it has to do about personal pronouns.
I, in Thai, could be either ฉัน, ผม, ดิฉัน, ข้าพเจ้า or ก, depending on what you mean and who uses it. ฉัน is used by both males and females when speaking to intimates, servants or children. ผม has the same meaning as ฉัน, but is a more “polite” word and is generally used when talking with equals or superiors but it can only be used by males. ดิฉัน is the feminine counterpart of ผม. ข้าพเจ้า is very formal and may be used by either males or females but is seldom met with except in writing (mostly come across it in official documents). ก is used to a really intimate friend as a very informal and friendly word, but in any other situation, it is an insulting word. But there are more! พี่ literally means older brother / sister, this is quite a common word that can be used for I when you are speaking to someone younger than you. น้อง is the opposite of พ, younger brother / sister. กระผม is another word used only by men, and it's used to show respect when talking to people perceived to be of 'higher status' than you. เรา, confusingly, is the normal word for we/us but it is also used by both men and women as an informal word for I/me. หนู litterally means mouse, this is used by women when speaking to people much older. อั้ว is used only by Chinese Thais. ใต้เท้า literally meaning under your feet, this is a respectful word similar to กระผม. And ข้าพพระพุทธเจ้า is a Royal Thai word, and is only used by those in conversation with the Thai King or another member of the Royal family (it's not a word you're likely to hear often, except at the cinema where it's the first word of the royal anthem played before every film. Literally translated, it means The servant of the Lord Buddha).

All this might look crazy! But that's the way it is. And, of course, for the second person, there is a similar amount of words. คุณ is a very common one. And you guessed right, there is one used only when adressing the Thai king or queen: ใต้ฝ่าละอองธุลีพระบาท.
No wonder why some say you see the world through the language you speak!

You can read more about all these pronouns in the blog entry And you thought 'thee' and 'thou' was hard, in learningthai.com and the most complete one is into-asia.com. You might want to check all the other words for you there.

Broca's area

This is the approximate location of Broca's area in the inferior frontal gyrus of the frontal lobe of the cortex. It was discovered by Pierre Paul Broca in 1861. One of his patients could understand speech but was unable to speak. Upon the patient's death, it was shown that the area darkened in the diagram above was damaged. The speech defect caused by damage to Broca's area is called expressive aphasia, motor aphasia or Broca's aphasia. A person suffering from this condition is unable to put together sentences that are grammatically complex. In addition, the sentences typically contain very few words related to content.
A study has shown that musical syntax is also processed in Broca's area and another study says Broca's area is involved in processing hierarchically structured behaviors regardless of their temporal organization (these kinds of hierarchical behaviors are necessary for language, since meaning depends on grammatical relations, which are themselves hierarchical rules for encoding relational information in a temporal sequence. So, the authors hypothesized that Broca's area, necessary for grammar, might also be necessary for these kinds of temporal plans).
There are tow parts of Broca's area, which represent different roles during language comprehension and production:

• Pars triangularis (anterior), which is thought to support the interpretation of various 'modes' of stimuli (plurimodal association) and the programming of verbal conducts

• Pars opercularis (posterior), which is thought to support the management of only one kind of stimulus (unimodal association) and the coordination of the speech organs for the actual production of language, given its favorable position close to motor-related areas

Maybe you remember Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science, by Carl Sagan. Broca saved hundreds of human brains in jars of formalin; among the collection is his own neural organ. When Sagan finds it in a museum, he asks some questions that challenge some core ideas of human existence like "How much of that man known as Paul Broca can still be found in this jar?".

Acrostics

An acrostic (from Greek ακσος meaning "extream" and ςτιγος, "verse") is a poem or other writing in an alphabetic script, in which the first letter, syllable or word of each verse, paragraph or other recurring feature in the text spells out another message. A form of constrained writing, an acrostic can be used as a mnemonic device to aide memory retrieval.

Elizabeth it is in vain you say
"Love not" — thou sayest it in so sweet a way:
In vain those words from thee or L.E.L.
Zantippe's talents had enforced so well:
Ah! if that language from thy heart arise,
Breath it less gently forth — and veil thine eyes.
Endymion, recollect, when Luna tried
To cure his love — was cured of all beside —
His follie — pride — and passion — for he died.
Edgar Allan Poe

Довольно именем известна я своим;
Равно клянётся плут и непорочный им,
Утехой в бедствиях всего бываю боле,
Жизнь сладостней при мне и в самой лучшей доле.
Блаженству чистых душ могу служить одна,
А меж злодеями — не быть я создана.
Юрий Нелединский-

Quand je mets à vos pieds un éternel hommage
Voulez-vous qu'un instant je change de visage?
Vous avez capturé les sentiments d'un cœur
Que pour vous adorer forma le Créateur.
Je vous chéris, amour, et ma plume en délire
Couche sur le papier ce que je n'ose dire.
Avec soin, de mes vers lisez les premiers mots
Vous saurez quel remède apporter à mes maux
Alfred Musset

Sou em você o ser mais completo e mais perfeito
Uma combinação como se nunca estivéssemos separados
Ying e Yang girando até não se ver a distinção
Amantes autofágicos em nós mesmos inebriados
Nascidos a cada instante, a cada pulsar do coração,
Esquecidos do mundo, em nossos corpos entrelaçados.

Insistindo em ser eterno, nosso amor infinito
Não foi por acaso que nos reencontramos, mas
Foi por castigo por termos nos deixado a
Intensidade de tudo que sentimos agora.
Não me lembrava mais o que era a paixão
Inexpressivos estavam meus sentimentos
Também era inexpressiva para mim a solidão
Agora uma algoz me matando de saudades
Mata-me como se fosse uma falta de ar
E só a sua voz me faz de novo respirar
No silêncio da noite, tenho só a memória
Tenho a lembrança de cada detalhe e cada som
Então durmo sonhando com você, num sonho bom.

Muitos foram os caminhos que seguimos até agora
Incontáveis foram os amores que tivemos e esquecemos
Nada do que ficou para trás irá tirar a nossa glória
Hoje começamos uma nova vida, ainda que recomecemos.
Aqui se inicia a melhor parte da nossa história.



Poet tvoj nov Slovencam venec vije,
Ran mojih bo spomin in tvoje hvale,
Iz sŕca svoje so kalí pognale
Mokrócvetéče rož'ce poezije.

Iz krajov niso, ki v njih sonce sije;
Cel čas so blagih sapic pogrešvále,
Obdajale so utrjene jih skale,
Viharjov jeznih mrzle domačije.

Izdíhljeji, solzé so jih redile,
Jim moč so dale rasti neveselo,
Ur temnih so zatirale jih sile.

Lej! torej je bledó njih cvetje velo,
Jim iz oči tí pošlji žarke mile,
In gnale bodo nov cvet bolj veselo.
France Prešeren

Read some acrostics made by children. Or read about some advice to create an acrostic.

What's in a name?

الله is the Arabic word for God. From the Islamic point of view, Allah is the special name of God and is the most precious name because it is not a descriptive name like the other 99 names of Allah (go here or here to see the Arab calligraphy), but the name of God's own presence. It is impossible to alter the word in Arabic (such as create a plural form or change the gender).

'Tis but thy name that is my enemy.
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name;
And for that name, which is no part of thee,
Take all myself.

That's said by Juliet in Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2), by William Shakespeare. Here, a little explanation of it.
Is it important how we are named? Should parents be allowed to call their children what ever they want? Check name meanings at Behind the name. Or read suggestions about choosing a name for a baby.

I was asking for something specific and perfect for my city,
Whereupon, lo! upsprang the aboriginal name!
Now I see what there is in a name, a word, liquid, sane, unruly, musical, self-sufficient;

Here, Walt Whitman is saying that the name Mannahatta (or, Manhattan) is the perfect name for such a city, because it is so descriptive of its true essence. Whitman shows the importance and effect of proper naming.
Shakespeare was talking about an anthroponym (the name of a human being). Witman was talking about a toponym (from Greek words τόπος, place, and oνομα, name). But we also have other words like these:

• hydronym, a proper name of a body of water

• ethnonym (from Greek έθνος, tribe and όνομα), the name of an ethnic group

• pseudonym, an artificial, ficticious name, also known as alias

• pen name, a pseudonym adopted by an author, also the French nom de plume

And finally, we have:

• exonyms, which are names for places that are not used within that place by the local inhabitants, or a name for a people or language that is not used by the people or language to which it refers

• endonyms (or autonyms), the names used by the people or locals themselves

Onomastics (or onomatology, from Greek ὄνομα) is the study of proper names of all kinds and the origins of names.

Grammatical categories

A grammatical category is a set of syntactic features that

• express meaning from the same conceptual domain

• occur in contrast to each other

• are typically expressed in the same fashion

• are often subject to agreement constrains

Grammatical categories encompass:

• Grammatical aspect, which is associated with verbs that express a temporal view of the event or state expressed by the verb

• Grammatical case, which is determined by the syntactic or semantic function of a noun or pronoun

• Definiteness, which is concerned with the grammaticalization of identifiability and nonidentifiability of referents

• Grammatical mood, which is one of the distinctive forms thatare used to signal modality, which in turn is a facet of illocutionary force

• Noun class, which is a grammatical system that some languages use to overtly categorize nouns

• Grammatical number, which expresses count distinctions

• Grammatical polarity, which distinguishes affirmative and negative

• Tense, which typically marked on the verb, that deictically refers to the time of the event or state denoted by the verb in relation to some other temporal reference point

• Transitivity, which is the number of objects a verb requires or takes in a given instance

• Grammatical voice, which expresses the semantic functions attributed to the referents of a clause

Tengwar

In his books, J. R. R. Tolkien described a whole world. In this world, Elves played an important role. They had a rich history, culture and, of course, language. The two most known languages are Sindarin and Quenya. Those are written by a script created by Fëanor. The script is Tengwar. And, in Tengwar (in Quenya mode), it is 1Rx#6. 1Rx#6 in Quenya means "letters".
It is written from left to right in horizontal lines, vowels are indicated by diacritics (tehtar), long vowels are always attached to a vowel holder, and consonants are doubled by adding a wavy line below them.
There are 24 primary Tnegwar letters. The letters were organized into four series (known as Témar) and each series was used to represent sounds created by different parts of the mouth. These four series were further broken down into six grades (known as Tyeller), which were used to represent sounds created by different ways that air flows through the mouth and nose.
All of the primary letters were composed of (at least) two elements:

• a vertical stem or Telco, representing air

• a curved bow or Lúva, representing voice

You might not recognize that text. but if you read the book, you might remember these words: "The Doors of Durin, Lord of Moria. speak, friend, and enter".
If you are interested in using Tengwar, you might want a transcriber or download a font.
To read more about it, you can go to Dan Smith's fantasy fonts page, or read a quick guide on how to write your name in Tengwar or read the Tengwar textbook.

To finish, this is the first article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, transcribed in Tengwar from English. Neat, eh?

McGurk effect

What would you say if I tell you that squares A and B are exactly the same shade of grey?

I needed a while to be convinced of it. This is an optical illusion. An optical illusion is always characterized by visually perceived images that, at least in common sense terms, are deceptive or misleading. Therefore, the information gathered by the eye is processed by the brain to give, on the face of it, a percept that does not tally with a physical measurement of the stimulus source. A conventional assumption is that there are physiological illusions that occur naturally and cognitive illusions that can be demonstrated by specific visual tricks that say something more basic about how human perceptual systems work.
For more about this, read here.
Probably you are not convinced yet, you can see the proof here or here. Do it yourself and you'll be convinced!
What does all this have to do with language? Have you ever thought about an effect like this... but with voice?
Well... now I want you to turn on your speakers, play this short video and hear and see carefully. What is the syllable he is pronouncing? See video here.
If you don't have Quicktime to see it, you can use this file or go to this site.
Your conclusion? 98 % of adults will say they hear the sound da. Now, please play it again, but close your eyes. Don't keep reading. Just play it again and listen. What is he pronouncing? Remember to close your eyes!
Maybe you want to play it again. Are you sure he is pronouncing ba? Well, he is! And the image is of him pronouncing ga. This is called the McGurk effect (sometimes also called McGurk-MacDonald effect). It is a perceptual phenomenon which demonstrates an interaction between hearing and vision in speech perception. It suggests that speech perception is multimodal, that is, that it involves information from more than one sensory modality. You can read the abstract of the research paper published by Nature magazine in 1976.

Linguistics

Linguistics is a science at the crossroads of humanities, social and natural sciences. It is a discipline for those who like to have their hands in many fields at the same time – it satisfies the curiosity of anthropologists, historians, scholars of classical languages, biologists, psychologists and others.
Linguistics ask questions about how languaje works such as: What does language usage indicate about speakers? How is language related to our mind? How did language originate? Why does language change and what triggers the change? How do speakers use language to advance their position in society? Why do languages enter into political conflicts and peace negotiations? And so on. Their focus is on language as inseparable from us, speakers, defining and molding us as we use and change it to suit our needs.

The two main branches of linguistics are:

• Theoretical (or general) linguistics

• Applied linguistics

General linguistics encompasses a number of sub-fields, such as the study of language structure (grammar), and meaning (semantics). The study of grammar encompasses morphology (formation and alteration of words) and syntax (the rules that determine the way words combine into phrases and sentences). Phonology (the study of sound systems and abstract sound units) and phonetics (which is concerned with the actual properties of speech sounds (phones) as well as those of non-speech sounds, and how they are produced and perceived) also form part of this field.

Linguistics compares languages (comparative linguistics) and explores their histories, in order to find universal properties of language and to account for its development and origins (historical linguistics).

Applied linguistics puts linguistic theories into practice in areas such as foreign language teaching, speech therapy, translation and speech pathology.

Acronyms

Yeah... I thought about IPA and IPA. Those two are acronyms (from Greek ακρος, meaning "topmost, extreme" and ονομα, meaning "name"). But... isn't it an initialism?
An abbreviation (from Latin brevis, "short") is a shortened form of a word or phrase.
An initialism is an abbreviation form from initials. This is, if you see "P.O.D.", you'll read it "p-o-d", pronouncing each letter name. When you find an acronym, which is also an abbreviation from initials, you'll read it as if it were a word on its own, as in "FIFA" or "FIDE" or "laser" (this one... is not even written in capitals! It stands for for light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation).
If you are in doubt about an acronym, you could try to search it at the Internet Acronym Server or the Acronym Finder.
There is also another category: portmanteaux (portmanteau, in singular). This is a word or morpheme that fuses two or more words or parts of words to give a combined meaning. You might be familiar with the word "podcast". This word is a blend of the trademark word "iPod" and "broadcast". By the way, portmanteaux are called blends too. Nowadays, this term is considered more approppriate.

International phonetic alphabet

The IPA is a system to provide a standarized, unique and accurate way to represent the sounds of any spoken language. It is contains 107 base symbols and 55 modifiers.
The symbols are divided into three cathegories:

• letters, which indicate basic sounds. They further divide into vowels and consonants.
  

• diacritics, which further specify those sounds.
  

• suprasegmentals, which indicate such quealities as speed, tone and stress
  

IPA is meant to represent only those qualities of speech that are relevant to language itself.

IPA is also the acronym for International Phonetic Association. So, IPA provides the IPA.

You can type these characters by going here or here. You can listen to it here. Fonts can be found here.

Artificial languages

They are also called conlangs (from constructed language). But the termn artificial may make feel awkward to more than one person. Thus, many prefer to call them planned languages.
Why would someone care about doing such a crazy thing as a conlang? Don't we have enough with all languages out there as to start creating our own language?
There might be several reasons as for one would try to create a conlang. And based on this, we have the first way to categorize them.

• to ease human communication. These conlangs are refered as auxlangs (auxiliary languages)
• to be as part of a fictional environment in art. As in many well-known TV series, movies and books. They are caled artlangs (artistcal languages).
• to experiment on something. These are called engelangs (engineered languages) and they may be of two types: philosophical languages and loglangs (logical languages).

but we can make another kind of division, depending on whence vocabulary or grammar comes from. They can be:

• a priori, if its elemets were created from scratch

• a posteriori, if the elements are derived from one or more natural languages.

Some definitions

I wander a lot, I know, but this blog is intended to be about languages and related topics.
As I already said, I am writing here only to keep track of what I read in the net. So, to clear my mind a little, I think I should start with some definitions.

What is language?
A language is a system, used to communicate, comprised of a set of symbols or sounds and a set of rules (or grammar) by which the manipulation of these symbols is governed. These symbols can be combined productively to convey new information, distinguishing languages from other forms of communication.

What is dialect?
A dialect (from the Greek word διάλεκτος) is a variety of a language used by people from a particular geographic area.

What is vocabulary?
A vocabulary is a set of words known to a person or other entity, or that are part of a specific language.

What is grammar? (Maybe I should also ask why so many spell it "grammer")
Grammar is the study of rules governing the use of language.

What is linguistics?
Linguistics is the scientific study of language.

What is syntax?
Syntax (from the Greek words συν, meaning "co-" or "together", and τάξις, meaning "sequence, order, or arrangement") is the study of the rules, or "patterned relations", that govern the way words combine to form phrases and phrases combine to form sentences.