ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the languages of the world, their obvious differences and their much less obvious similarities. However, a consideration of linguistic diversity means much more than a consideration of the differences between different languages – French and Chinese, for example. There may be considerable linguistic diversity even within a group supposedly using the same language. These divisions generally affect language and mean that perfect intelligibility, even within a single language group, is often not achieved. This is an important aspect of linguistic diversity. The languages of the world also differ greatly in the variation of word forms found. The forms of nouns, pronouns and sometimes adjectives and articles vary according to gender, number, and case. Verbs vary according to person and number and tense. The common or universal features of language have been sought at almost every linguistic level and evidence has now accumulated that there do exist phonological, syntactic and even semantic universals.
