ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with very basic preliminaries. Human languages are made up of units that can fit into larger units that themselves can fit into yet larger units, and so on indefinitely. It is like boxes inside boxes inside boxes forever. There is no limit to the topics any natural language can talk about. Human language is an all-purpose communication device that is not restricted to certain topics or environmental conditions. Dutch and German are close enough to each other that they could easily be viewed as dialects of one language. Languages are always changing. Changes in language happen because different speakers-often unconsciously-innovate in different ways. Languages change, as well, because as children learn them, they sometimes change them. Linguists classify different languages into families based on how they are related historically. The more people communicate across racial, cultural, or class divides, the more their dialects begin to converge back together into a common language.
