**The Language portal**

A language is a system of symbols, generally known as lexemes, and the rules by which they are manipulated. The word language is also used to refer to the whole phenomenon of language, i.e., the common properties of languages. Though language is commonly used for communication, it is not synonymous with it. The scientific study of language, its historical development, characteristics, and use in society is known as Linguistics.

Human language is a natural phenomenon, and language learning is instinctive in childhood. In their natural form, human languages use patterns of sound or gesture for the symbols in order to communicate with others through the senses. Though there are thousands of human languages, they all share a number of properties from which there are no known deviations.

Humans have also invented (or arguably in some cases discovered) many other languages, including constructed human languages such as Esperanto or Klingon, programming languages such as Python or Ruby, and various mathematical formalisms. These languages are not restricted to the properties shared by natural human languages.

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Language of the month (2009)

Leonese language

Leonese derives directly from language and took shape in the early Middle Ages. At that time, Leonese was the official language of the Leonese Kingdom and achieved a high codification grade ^[1]. Leonese developed a proper codification in the territories of the actual provinces of Llión, Zamora and Salamanca and in the Leonese territories in the actual Portugal, especially in the District of Braganza. So, the local laws called "Fueros" are mainly written in Leonese, and the documentation from the monasteries in this land is also in Leonese.

Middle Ages

The first written text in Leonese is the Nodicia de Kesos (959 or 974); other works in the language include Fueru de Llión, Fueru de Salamanca, Fueru Xulgu, Códice d'Alfonsu XI, ou Disputa d'Elena y María^[2] or Llibru d'Alixandre^[3].

Modern Era

The Modern Era signifies a new opportunity for Leonese to show that big writers could also use it for writing important pieces. Writers like Torres Naharro, Juan del Encina, Lucas Fernández or Torres Villarroel in the Modern Era cultivated Leonese, which however came on the verge of disappearance during the XIXth century.

19th and 20th centuries: International research

International philologues of the XIXth century, like Gessner, Hanssen, Staaff or Menéndez Pidal, in Europe and America, started to describe Leonese. Some writers like Caitano Bardón (Cuentos en Dialecto Leonés), Luis Maldonado or Aragón Escacena (Entre brumas) restarted the Leonese literature in the early XXth century.

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Picture of the month (June 2009)

City Hall in Lombard language

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Language topic of the month (June 2009)

High German consonant shift

In historical linguistics, the High German consonant shift or second Germanic consonant shift was a phonological development (sound change) which took place in the southern parts of the West Germanic dialect continuum in several phases, probably beginning between the 3rd and 5th centuries AD, and was almost complete before the earliest written records in the High German language were made in the 9th century. The resulting language, Old High German, can be neatly contrasted with the other continental West Germanic languages, which mostly did not experience the shift, and with Old English, which was completely unaffected.

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