Language is the biggest asset of a man. This is a complicated mechanism It involves all faculties of man.
He is able to communicate complicated messages to his fellow members concerning his activity. This is achieved by means of two types of sensory stimulation, viz., visual and auditory. Language is the link between the human beings. The stimulus acting on one man produces an effective response in another or in all the members of that grout. Though there are other means of communication such as gestures, pictures, flag signals, light signals, etc., they serve only a very limited purpose. But language is comprehensive, elaborate and productive. It mirrors the culture and way of life of the concerned society.
Language is, then, the most complex one of man's tools.
It operates as a complex system of communication with many levels of intricacies involving very careful selection and ordering of sounds and larger units and their proper arrangements. Languages differ, and if the members of a speech community desire to communicate with another speech community, then the former bas learn the latter's language or find someone who knows it. Language, therefore, consists of oral-aural symbols of communication. They are arbitrary in their association and combination to any particular shape and meaning in any particular language. The language, therefore, revolves round three things, namely, form, distribution and meaning. So, it is a well-knit system.
Language is a well organised system. This system consists of utterances. The utterance can be explained as a word or a sequence of words. The word is transmitted through one or more sounds. The language is, then, a system of sound structure which is represented by some given symbols. The sounds involved are vocal symbols. The vocal symbols are organised in such a way that any significant change in the form by altering one unit may change the meaning of the utterance. This minimum vocal unit that can alter a word into another thereby giving a different meaning is termed as phoneme. The phoneme is composed of one or more phonetically similar sounds which occur in complementary distribution.
The symbols attributed to the phones and phonemes are arbitrary. The meaning conveyed by a sequence of phonemes in any language is arbitrary. What a Tamilian refers to a particular four-legged animal pace is identified as kau 'cow' in English. What a Tamilian refers to another type of four-legged animal as kutiray is denoted as ghotra in Hindi and as hors horse' in English.
The smallest unit which conveys a specific meaning is termed as a morpheme. A word may consist of one or more morphemes. The word 'boy' consists of one morpheme.
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