Na-Dene: According to Rivet, a family of North American Indian languages, consisting of the Athapascan, Haida and Tlingit sub-families.
Naga: A Tibeto-Burmese language, having a great many related dialects; a member of the Bodo-Naga-Kachin group.
Naga-Kuki: A Tibeto-Burmese language, having a great many related dialects; a member of the Bodo-Naga-Kachin group.
Nahuatl: See Aztec.
Nahuatlan: A family of American Indian languages, a member of which, Aztec or Nahuatl, was the language of the ancient civilization of Mexico. (According to Rivet, Nahuatlan is a sub-family of Uto-Aztecan, which includes also Shoshonean and Pima-Sonoran.)
Naiki: A Dravidian language, spoken in Central India, classified in the Gondi group.
Na-khi: See Mo-so.
Nam: An extinct Central Asian language, assumed to have belonged to the Tibeto-Burmese sub-family of the Sino-Tibetan languages. (The only record of the existence of this language consists of a few fragmentary manuscripts, discovered by F. W. Thomas, who named this language Nam, in 1926.)
Nama: An African language, also called Hottentot, with four dialects, spoken by about 250,000 uncivilized pigmies in South-West Africa; a member of the Hottentot-Bushman family of languages. Characterized phonetically by various types of clicks (q.v.).
name-word: Sweet’s term for a proper name.
naming word: A word which denotes or symbolizes a person or thing (substantive), act or happening (verb) or quality (adjective or other modifier).
Nano. See Umbundu.
narreme: E. Dorfman’s term for “a minimal unit of relevant narrative incident.”
Narrinyeri: The language of some Australian aborigines.
Narrow Romic: The original, complex form of Sweet’s system of phonetic symbols (Romic), which he later simplified in the Broad Romic.
narrow transcription: A careful representation of all the identifiable features of a phonetic utterance. (Cf. broad transcription.)
narrowed meaning: The more restricted meaning of a word which may in general be used with far wider application; e.g., “doctor” may refer to anyone with a doctor’s degree (philosophy, science, letters, etc.) but, usually, is taken to mean “doctor of medicine.”
nasal: In phonetical terminology, a sound produced with the uvula lowered, allowing the air to escape through the nose, so that the nasal cavity acts as a resonator.
nasal cavity, nasal chamber: The interior of the nose.
nasal twang: A nasalization characteristic of the pronunciation of vowels in certain regions.
nasalization: The pronunciation of a vowel as a nasal (q.v.).
Na-shi: See Mo-so.
national accent: A term proposed by Olivet for the sum total of the characteristics of the pronunciation of a certain language.
native language: The first language which a given human being learns to speak.
native speaker: With reference to a given language, any person whose native language (q.v.) that language is.
native word: A word which belongs to the original linguistic stock of a given language, i.e., which historical linguistics cannot identify as a loan-word from another language.
nativistic theory: The theory proposed by Max Muller, maintaining that a mystic harmony exists between sound and meaning, and human speech is the result of an instinct of primitive man which made him give a vocal expression to every external impression.
natural gender: Gender distinction based on and corresponding to natural sex, at times to the distinction between animate beings and inanimate objects.
natural gender system: The gender (q.v.) system in which animate beings are classified as masculine or feminine according to their natural sex, and inanimate objects or things usually as neuter.
naturalized word: A word borrowed from another language, but changed in written form or sound so as to be more similar to the words native to the borrowing language.
Navajo: A North American Indian language spoken in Arizona and New Mexico; a member of the Athapascan family.
necessitative aspect: A verbal aspect, also termed obligatory.expressing that the action or state denoted by the verb must be performed or exist.
negative aspect: A verbal aspect (e.g., in Turkish), expressing negation of the performance or existence of the action or state denoted by the verb.
negative conjugation: Those forms of a verb which deny the action expressed by the verb itself; negative forms of the verb may be expressed in different languages by negative particles, negative inflexional endings, and by various other means.
negative conjunction: A conjunction (q.v.) with a negative meaning. (E.g., nor.)
negative particle: Any word which when used with another word denies or inverts the meaning of the latter.
Negro-African: See African.
Negro-English: A creolized language (q.v.) spoken in Dutch Guiana, representing a combination of English, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese and French elements. Its two varieties are: Bush-Negro English and Ningre Tongo (qq.v.).
Negroism: In English linguistics, a word, expression or grammatical or syntactical construction peculiar to or characteristic or reminiscent of the speech of the American Negro.
Nenets: See Samoyed.
Neo-Aryan: A term occasionally used to designate the modern Indo-Iranian vernaculars, especially the modern Indic dialects.
Neogrammarians: Generally, this term is used as the English translation of the German term Junggrammatiker (q.v.). Some authors apply this term at times also to the structural linguists, although not to the functional and structural linguists.
Neolinguists: Adherents to the school of linguistics which believes in the primacy of the expressive and esthetic aspects of language and maintains that linguistic change is the result of individual creations which spread and become assimilated on an ever-increasing scale. This school rejects the Neogrammarian theory of sound laws which admit of no exception.
neologism: (1) A newly coined and as yet not generally accepted word or expression.—(2) The coining and the use of new words or the use of established words in a new sense.
Nepali: An Indic language, spoken in Nepal, India, by approximately 6,000,000 native speakers. (Also called Nepalese or Gurkhali.)
Ne-su: See Lo-lo.
neuter: One of the grammatical genders (q.v.).
neutral vowel: In the grammar of the Finno-Ugric languages, the vowel [i], which may occur both in words containing back vowels and in words containing front vowels. (Cf. vowel harmony.)
neutralization: The temporary suspension of an otherwise functioning opposition (q.v.) (tie x die, but for many speakers of American English, wetting-wedding, articulated in identical fashion). Since the t and d, normally in opposition, do not oppose each other here, we have an actualization (q.v.) of the archiphoneme.
New Akkadian: See Akkadian.
new word: See neologism (1).
nexus: Jespersen’s term for a group of words, one of which is a verb, forming a sentence.
nigori mark: In Japanese syllable writing (kana), the superscript [“] which indicates that the consonant in the syllable is voiced.
Ningre Tongo: A creolized form of English spoken in Suriname (Dutch Guiana). (Also called taki-taki.)
noa word: A word that may not be uttered because of its profane meaning. (Cf. taboo.)
noeme: The meaning of a glosseme (q.v.).
nomenclature: The set of names used in relation to a specific subject or field of science or study.
nominal definition: The definition which explains the meaning of a word which names a thing. (Cf. real definition.)
nominal language: See noun language.
nominal sentence: A sentence in which the principal part (Graff calls it “pivotal part”) is a noun or nominal form.
nominative: That case-form in which a noun, pronoun, adjective, etc., is used when standing alone and without any syntactical context or relationship, or when used as the grammatical subject of a sentence.
non-compound flexion: In Irish grammar, the conjugation of the simple verbs.
non-distinctive: Cf. acoustic features.
non-objective conjugation: See subjective conjugation.
non-phonemic: See irrelevant.
non-sentence: A group of words which does not express a complete thought in itself and therefore does not constitute a sentence.
non-standard: The use of speech sounds or forms in a given language, which differ markedly from the so-called standard language, and are frequently labeled “vulgar” and “incorrect”; also called sub-standard.
non-syllabic: In a syllable, any sound other than the syllabic (q.v.).
nonce word: A word coined for a special occasion.
Nootka: A language of Vancouver Island.
Norman: A French dialect, spoken in Normandy, and often used as a literary vehicle in the Middle Ages.
normative grammar: See prescriptive grammar.
Norse: See Old Norse.
North Arabic: A Southern West Semitic language, the sacred tongue of Islam and the common literary language of the Mohammedan countries; spoken, in a great number of dialects or vernaculars, by approximately 37,000,000 native speakers. Usually referred to simply as Arabic.
North Aryan: See Khotanese.
North Assamese: See Lo-lo-Mo-so.
North Caucasian: A family of languages spoken by about 1,000,-000 persons in the Caucasus area in Asia. These languages, characterized phonetically by a great variety of consonants (including many lateral affricates and labialized consonants) are divided in two groups: Eastern Caucasian or Checheno-Lesghian and Western Caucasian or Abasgo-Kerketian.
North Chinese vernacular: One of the Mandarin dialects of China, spoken by about 250,000,000 people.
North Germanic: A branch of the Germanic group of the Indo-European family of languages; it comprises Icelandic, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Faroese and Gotlandic (or Gutnian). Also called Scandinavian.
North Italian: A term used by some Romance linguists as a collective designation of the Gallo-Italian and Venetian dialect groups (qq.v.).
Northern Mongol: See Buryat.
Northern West Semitic: A subdivision of the Semitic group of the Semito-Hamitic family of languages, comprising two subgroups: Canaanite (Old Canaanite, Hebrew, Phoenician and Moabite) and Aramaic (Eastern and Western Aramaic).
Northumbrian: An Old English (Anglo-Saxon) dialect, which was the parent of the Northern division of Middle English.
Norwegian: A Scandinavian (North Germanic) language, spoken by about 3,000,000 native speakers. (Cf. Landsmål and Riksmål.)
noun: A word designating or naming a person, living being, object, thing, etc. A proper noun is the name of one specific entity, whereas a common noun designates an entire class, category or group or any member thereof.
noun-equivalent: A word (pronoun, participle, adjective) or group of words used in the sense and function of a noun.
noun language: A language which uses mainly or solely nominal sentences (q.v.).
noun numeral: A numeral used as a noun.
noun sentence: See nominal sentence.
noun-word: A term used by Sweet collectively for nouns and other words used in a noun function.
Novial: An artificial language created by Otto Jespersen in 1928.
Nubian: An African Negro language, spoken by about 300,000 persons in the Nile valley and the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan; a member of the Sudanese-Guinean family of languages.
nucleus: See kernel.
number: The grammatical distinction, common to the majority of the principal families or groups of languages, based on a morphological differentiation according as the speaker intends to designate one object, thing, etc., or more than one. The form designating one is called the singular, that designating more than one is the plural. Some languages have also distinct forms to designate two (dual), some even forms to designate three (trial) and even four (quatrial). On the other hand, certain languages attach no importance to number distinction and indicate number, by special linguistic devices, only when especially emphasized or absolutely necessary for the proper interpretation of the utterance.
number concord: The grammatical agreement, as to number, of those words in a sentence which are syntactically interrelated.
numeral: A word indicating number or quantity and relationship as to number and quantity. Numerals answer the question “How many?” (cardinals), “Which one in sequence?” (ordinals), “How many times?” (iteratives), “How many fold?” (multiplicatives), “What fraction?” (partitives), etc.
numeral classifier: See auxiliary numerals.
numeral pronoun: A term occasionally used for a word which denotes an indefinite number of persons or things.
numerative classifiers: Various words which in Japanese, in Chinese, and in other languages are inserted between a numeral and the substantive to which the numeral refers, also between a demonstrative and a noun.
numerical metanalysis: Jespersen’s term for the change which causes a word which was originally singular to be regarded now as plural, or vice-versa.
nunation: In Arabic, the suffixation, in certain cases, of the letter nun [n] to words ending in a short vowel.
Nyamwezi: An East African Negro language, member of the Bantu family of languages.
Nyanja: An African Negro language (also called Nyanza, Nyasa, Nyassa, etc.) spoken, in various dialects, by about 1,500,000 persons in Nyasaland in eastern Central Africa; a member of the Bantu family of languages.
Nyaturu: An East African Negro language, member of the Bantu family of languages.
Nyoro: An African Negro language, member of the Bantu family of languages.