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    		•  'The building of the tower of Babel' by Pieter Bruegel, 1563 Oil on oak panel, at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna     Scripture After the flood, the whole earth had one language and few words. ... the LORD said, 'Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; and nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down, and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.' ... its name was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth; and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth." —Genesis 11:1-9

    Set screen The Roman Alphabet: Graphic Characters and Flags


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    Set screen How Many Languages?


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    Set screen The Study of Languages

    		 

    		 
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    Set screen English Language Resources

    • Strunk's concise Elements of Style guide on how to write well. It concentrates attention on the rules of usage and principles of composition most commonly violated. Even though it was written in 1918, it continues to be perhaps the most widely read book on the English language.

    • The American Heritage® Book of English Usage: A Practical and Authoritative Guide to Contemporary English.

    • Both the Writer's Web and Jack Lynch's Guide to Grammar and Style offer interlinked pages listed alphabetically.

    • H.L. Mencken's Inquiry into the Development of English in the United States clarifies the discrepancies between British and American English. This groundbreaking study done 1921 was the most scientific linguistic work on the American language and continues to serve as a definitive resource in the field.

    • On the Art of Writing: Lectures Delivered by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch in the University of Cambridge, 1913-1914 A classic on the skills needed both to convey and receive the written word, especially English Literature.

      M.A. Ouaknin's “Mysteries of the Alphabet, First Edition”, Abbeville Press, 1999.

      The Gallery of “Misused” Quotation Marks

      There are several formats for formatting attributions in bibliographies and footnotes so readers can find the source material on a document is based.

      • The original MLA style sheet was first published in 1951. The MLA [Modern Language Association] Handbook for Writers of Research Papers 3rd edition (June 1988) by Modern Language Association, Walter S. Achtert, Joseph Gibaldi 0873521323
      • The Kate L. Turabian format allows for a number of different formats.
        • Single spacing within bibliographic entries and footnotes and double spacing between items.

      Example of a book citation:

        Turabian, Kate L. Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations (6th ed.) Chicago: University of Chicago Press, March 1996. 0226816273

      Example of a web citation:

        "Africa Backs France on Iraq," BBC News, UK Edition, Thursday, September 13, 2002, 19:10 GMT. Online available from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2785239.stm. (Accessed Thursday, February 20, 2003.)

      The dot above the lower case i is called a "tipple".

      DNA sequences (the language of life) are named A, C, T, G.

      Origins of Italics

      Italy is the first book using italic font, in a 1501 edition of Vergil printed in Venice. The publisher, "Aline Press", named from Aldus Manutius, the Latin name of its owner, Teobaldo Mannucci (born 1450), who named the font "italic" in honor of his country, Italy. Until his invention, all type was erect Roman letters.

      British vs. American English

      Aspect American English British English
      Words color
      organization
      minimize
      program       		colour
      organisation
      minimise
      programme

    		 

      A website external to this site Resources on the English language

      The Rules of Grammar ($12.50)

      The first novel in Middle English is Beouwulf, written around 1000 A.D. It's about Scandanavians (Danes, Swedes, Finns) with Christian allusions.

      Beouwulf, of the Wægmunding family within the Geats clan (also referred to as Geatas) sword named Nægling Heorot in Roskilde Sjaelland Scyld, a mythical Danish king Hrothgar, King of the Danes during Beowulf's visit to Heorot Eadgils, the Swedish King Hengest, leader of the of the Healfdenes Giant Grendel

      Here is a translation into Modern EnglishA website external to this site

      THE PHAOMNNEAL PWEOR OF THE HMUAN MNID

      Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

      Amzanig huh?

      Hrad to blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdgnieg!

    		 
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    Set screen Hebrew Language Resources

      About.com's guide to Hebrew and Judiasm
      DMOZ List on Hebrew

      The Hebrew Language

      Both Hebrew and Aramaic are based on the Phoenician alphabet from the end of the 2nd millennium BC. This is why Hebrew and Aramaic share the same number, ordering, and pronunciation of letters in their alphabet.

      It is claimed that the original "Hebrew script" emerged around 10th century BC, and used in Israel and Judah until their fall in the 8th and 6th centuries BC, respectively.

      The Hebrew language was not an official language of any country until Isreal became a state after WWII. The lanuage was revived in 1890's almost singlehandedly.

      Hebrew Alphabet

      Uni-
      code       		Name English
      Translit.       		Value Pronuciation
      Sound
      א Alef PDF file 1 a glottal stop
      ב Bet &#x05D1 2 boy with dot,
      vine without dot
      ג Gimel &#x05D2 3 go
      ד Dalet &#x05D3 4 dog
      ה He &#x05D4 5 hay
      ו Vav/Wav &#x05D5 6 vine
      ז Zayin &#x05D6 7 zoo
      ח 'Het/Vet &#x05D7 8 German:Bach
      ט Tet &#x05D8 9 bet
      י Yod &#x05D9 10 yard
      ך Kaf final &#x05DA 20 kite (with dot),
      Bach without
      כ Kaf &#x05DB
      ל Lamed &#x05DC 30 let
      ם Mem final &#x05DD 40 mom
      מ Mem &#x05DE
      ן Nun final &#x05DF 50 no
      נ Nun &#x05E0
      ס Samekh &#x05E1 60 sun
      ע Ayin &#x05E2 70 like a glottal stop
      ף Pe final &#x05E3 80 pen with dot,
      fun without
      פ Pe &#x05E4
      ץ Tsadi final &#x05E5 90 pots
      צ Tsadi &#x05E6
      ק Qof/Qoph &#x05E7 100 kite
      ר Resh &#x05E8 200 run (trilled)
      ש Sin/Shin &#x05E9 300 Sin/sheen
      ת Tav/Taw &#x05EA 400 tin
      Click on the character name for the pronounciation page from Washington University's Hebrew Bible course. Training your mind to the sound is important than knowing the name of each letter.

      How Aleph Got To Be First at Toratots.com, my favorite Hebrew learning site for its comprehensiveness and fun factor.

      The Hebrew alphabet is an abjad — it orginally was written using only 22 consonants and 5 final (Sofit) forms, which are in the Latin/Hebrew ISO 8859-8 encoding set.

      Vowels were added later (durin the 8th century) by adding points (niqqud) under or over base characters. In other words, in rabbinic Hebrew consonant letters are used as matres lectionis to represent vowels.

      Points, cantillation marks (ta'amey ha-mikrah) for pauses separating sentences and other punctuation marks are included as overlay characters in Unicode Hebrew gliphs within the U0590 range (displayed in HTML such as &#xU0590;) follows Isreali national standard IL 1311-2.

      The dot (dagesh) inside some of the letters is pronounced differently without it.

      Rashi's popular commentaries on the Bible, written during medieval times in Ashkenazic (also called "Zarphatic") script, are not normally "dotted."

      Cursive script.

      The "Translit." column lists how each Hebrew letter can be written using the Roman alphabet of English. For example, "Tehillim" and "Mishley" are transliterations of Hebrew words for the Psalms and Proverbs, respectively.

      The Poetical Books (Psalms, Job, and Proverbs) have a different system of cantillation marks than the 21 books of Prose.

      The Esra SIL font for Hebrew (SILEOT.ttf) is a OpenType® package for Office 2003 fashioned after the square letter typography of the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS) that is no longer available online. It can be used to display the Unicode 4.0 version of the Westminster-Leningrad Codex (WLC) from the Hebrew Institute of Westminster Theological Seminary.

      Adjective5.com specializes in creating websites using Hebrew fonts.

      Hebrew Tutorials

    • Ben Stitz's Online Hebrew Tutorial
    • NYU's Resources for Learning the Hebrew Language
    • Leah Kvonenthal's Quicktime videos and word study Java application.
    • VJ Lear Hebrew.Com presents sound files of Hebrew phrases as spoken on the streets of Isreal.
    • The Old Testament Hebrew Lexicon
    • Henry Craik (1805-1866), "Easy introduction to the Hebrew Language" (London: Sealey and Burnside, 1831)

      Hebrew Websites

    • Microsoft/isreal
    • Knesset, the parliament of Isreal.
    • Hebrew on the Web


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    Set screen Latin Language Resources

    • Latin Phrase Quotations

      i.e. and e.g.

      e.g., stands for the Latin exempli gratia — which means “for the sake of example”. Use "e.g." when listing examples.

        large dogs, e.g., Saint Bernards and Great Danes.

      i.e., stands for the Latin id est — which means “that is”. Reminder The English "in essence" uses the same letters! So use "i.e." to explain the subject of a sentence.

        hogs, i.e., swine weighing over 180 pounds.

    		 


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    Set screen Spanish Language Resources


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    Set screen Morse Code


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