The first verifiable claim for a practically used bicycle belongs to German Baron Karl von

Drais, a civil servant to the Grand Duke of Baden in Germany. Drais invented his
Laufmaschine (German for "running machine") in 1817, that was called Draisine (English)
or draisienne (French) by the press.

Exactly who invented the automobile is a matter of opinion. If we had to give credit to
one inventor, it would probably be Karl Benz from Germany. Many suggest that
he created the first true automobile in 1885/1886.

The First Mobile Phone Call Was Made 40 Years Ago Today. OnApril 3, 1973, Motorola
employee Martin Cooper stood in midtown Manhattan and placed a call to the headquarters
of Bell Labs in New Jersey.3 abr. 2013

The history of tea dates back to ancient China, almost 5,000 years ago. According to
legend, in 2732 B.C. Emperor Shen Nung discovered tea when leaves from a wild tree blew
into his pot of boiling water. He was immediately interested in the pleasant scent of the
resulting brew, and drank some.

The First Electronic Television was Invented in 1927. The world's first electronic television
was created by a 21 year old inventor named Philo Taylor Farnsworth. That inventor lived in
a house without electricity until he was age 14.23 oct. 2015

Around 1450, in what is commonly regarded as an independent invention, Johannes

Gutenberg invented movable type in Europe, along with innovations in casting the type
based on a matrix and hand mould. This invention gradually made books less expensive to
produce, and more widely available.

Paper was invented around 100 BC in China. In 105 AD, under the Han Dynasty emperor
Ho-Ti, a government official in China named Ts'ai Lun was the first to start a paper-making
industry.2 oct. 2018

The first partially successful photograph of a camera image was made in

approximately 1816 by Nicéphore Niépce, using a very small camera of his own making and
a piece of paper coated with silver chloride, which darkened where it was exposed to light.

What’s a Language, Anyway?

The realities of speech are much more complicated than the words used to describe
it.

What’s the difference between a language and a dialect? Is there some kind of
technical distinction, the way there is between a quasar and a pulsar, or between a
rabbit and a hare? Faced with the question, linguists like to repeat the grand old
observation of the linguist and Yiddishist Max Weinreich, that “a language is a
dialect with an army and a navy.”

But surely the difference is deeper than a snappy aphorism suggests. The very fact
that “language” and “dialect” persist as separate concepts implies that linguists can
make tidy distinctions for speech varieties worldwide. But in fact, there is no
objective difference between the two: Any attempt you make to impose that kind of
order on reality falls apart in the face of real evidence.

And yet it’s hard not to try. An English-speaker might be tempted to think, for
example, that a language is basically a collection of dialects, where speakers of
different dialects within the same language can all understand each other, more or
less. Cockney, South African, New Yorkese, Black, Yorkshire—all of these are
mutually intelligible variations on a theme. Surely, then, these are “dialects” of some
one thing that can be called a “language”? English as a whole, meanwhile, looks like
a “language” that stands by itself; there’s a clear boundary between it and its closest
relative, Frisian, spoken in Northern Europe, which is unintelligible to an English-
speaker.
As such, English tempts one with a tidy dialect-language distinction based on
“intelligibility”: If you can understand it without training, it’s a dialect of your own
language; if you can’t, it’s a different language. But because of quirks of its history,
English happens to lack very close relatives, and the intelligibility standard doesn’t
apply consistently beyond it. Worldwide, some mutually understandable ways of
speaking, which one might think of as “dialects” of one language, are actually treated
as separate languages. At the same time, some mutually incomprehensible tongues
an outsider might view as separate “languages” are thought of locally as dialects.

I have a Swedish pal I see at conferences in Denmark. When we’re out and about
there, he is at no linguistic disadvantage. He casually orders food and asks directions
in Swedish despite the fact that we are in a different country from his own, where
supposedly a different “language”—Danish—is spoken. In fact, I’ve watched speakers
of Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian conversing with each other, each in their own
native tongues, as a cozy little trio over drinks. A Dane who moves to Sweden does
not take Swedish lessons; she adjusts to a variation upon, and not an alternate to,
her native speech. The speakers of these varieties of Scandinavian consider them
distinct languages because they are spoken in distinct nations, and so be it. However,
there is nothing about Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian in themselves that classifies
them as “languages;” especially on the page, they resemble each other closely enough
to look more like dialects of one “language.”

Meanwhile, one generally hears Mandarin, Cantonese, and Taiwanese described as

“dialects” of something called Chinese. But the only single “Chinese” language that
exists is on paper, in that all of its varieties have the same writing system, where
each word has its own symbol that (more or less) stays the same from one Chinese
“dialect” to another. Mandarin and Cantonese, for example, are more different than
Spanish and Italian. “I,” “you,” and “he” in Mandarin are wǒ, nǐ, and tā, but in
Cantonese they are, respectively, ngóh, léih, and kéuih. Dialects? A Mandarin-
speaker can no more “adjust” to Cantonese than a Swede could “adjust” to German.

There are cases of the Scandinavian and the Chinese kind worldwide. A Moroccan’s
colloquial “Arabic” is as different from the colloquial “Arabic” of Jordan as Czech is
from Polish. In order to understand each other, a Moroccan and a Jordanian would
have to communicate in Modern Standard Arabic, a version preserved roughly as it
was when the Koran was written. The cultural unity of Arab nations makes the
Moroccan and the Jordanian consider themselves to be speaking “kinds of Arabic,”
whereas speakers of Czech and Polish think of themselves as speaking different
languages. But then, while I’m on Czech, there is no such language as
“Czechoslovakian”—at least in name. A Czech and a Slovak can usually converse.
However, they consider themselves to speak different “languages” because of
historical and cultural factors.
It turns out that it’s also impossible to determine precisely where one “language”
leaves off and another begins.

An example is certain languages—um, dialects?—in Ethiopia. According to data from

Sharon Rose of the University of California, San Diego, speakers of Soddo say, for
“he thatched a roof,” kəddənəm. (The upside-down e is pronounced a lot like
the oo in foot.) Not far away, people speaking Muher say it starting with kh instead
of k: khəddənəm. A further ways distant, people who speak what they call Ezha say it
with an r in the place of the n: khəddərəm. In Gyeto, the same word is khətərə. Then in
Endegen they start with an h instead of a kh: həttərə. Now, where we started and
where we finished look like what one might call different languages:
Soddo’s kəddənəm and Endegen’s həttərə seem about as distinct as
French’s dimanche and Italian’s domenica for Sunday. But in between Soddo and
Endegen are several other stages—I only gave a few of them—that each differ from
the previous one by just a little change, such that the speakers can converse. If those
stages are “dialects,” what are they “dialects” of? Both Soddo and Endegen over on
the ends?

All of them are simply dialects—even though the ones on the ends are not mutually
intelligible and don’t feel like the same “language” to their speakers. Speech worked
this way from village to village across Western Europe until recently, when
unwritten, rural dialects started steadily disappearing. People now know this area as
home to a few “languages” like Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Italian, but on the
ground there once was basically a smudge of countless Romance “dialects” shading
gradually into one another from Portugal to Italy. In each nation, the serendipities of
history chose one “dialect” as a standard and enshrined it on the page, but in real
life, the situation was much like in Ethiopia. There are hints of this history today; in
Catalan in Spain, “key” is clau; to the north, in Occitan, it’s clau as well; but then a
little further north, in obscure rural varieties called Franco-Provençal, it’s clâ; in the
Romansh of the Swiss mountains it’s clav; in the northern Italian variety
Piedmontese it’s ciav (pronounced “chahv,”); and then in what’s known as standard
Italian it’s chiave (pronounced “KYAH-vay”).

The idea of distinguishing “languages” from “dialects” is of no logical use here. As

often as not, it’s more that speech is a little different from place to place, such that a
person can get along speaking when in the town a few valleys over; one starts having
trouble the further away he gets; and after a traveling a certain distance can no
longer understand a thing anyone is saying.

The only thing that can save an attempt to impose a formal definition on the terms
“language” and “dialect” now is perhaps to be found in popular usage, which
suggests that languages are written and standardized and have a literature, while
dialects are oral, without codified rules, and have no literature. Now, a typical
objection to using literature as the dividing line is that there is oral literature—
the Iliad and the Odyssey likely originated as memorized poems. But even allowing
that memories can only retain so much, and that perhaps it is legitimate to
distinguish what Greek bards knew from, say, Russian’s written literature, there’s
another problem.
Namely, it’s the implication that there is something lesser about a “dialect.” Is a
dialect, on some level, unsophisticated, as if it doesn’t have a literature because it is
unsuited to extended thought and abstraction? I recall an exquisite exchange I once
caught between a man Nathan Lane could easily play, wearing an ascot and a long
scarf and rather plummy of expression, and a man Sacha Baron Cohen would be cast
as, straight-backed, earnest, and a little wary. Nathan asked Sacha what he spoke.
Sacha said “Uzbek.” Nathan asked breezily, “Is that a dialect?” Sacha, almost
snapping, replied, “No, it is a beautiful language.”

Despite Sacha’s defensiveness, it’s not the case that what one is taught to think of as
“dialects” are somehow more lowly or simple. As often as not, obscure, unwritten
“dialects” are much more grammatically complicated than familiar “languages.” The
Foreign Service Institute ranks what it calls languages in terms of their difficulty for
English-speakers; the hardest to learn to speak include Finnish, Georgian,
Hungarian, Mongolian, Thai, and Vietnamese. However, just about any Native
American, Australian Aboriginal, or indigenous African tongue would easily rank
among these in terms of difficulty, and actually, many obscure tongues around the
world make any language on the FSI list look like a toy. For example, in Archi,
spoken in the Caucasus mountains, a verb can occur in 1,502,839 different forms—
that’s over a thousand times more forms than the number of people who even speak
it (about 1,200).

Meanwhile, here in the English “language,” there are walk, walks, walked, and
walking. If sophistication separated languages from dialects, Archi would have more
claim to the “language” title than English.

A language, then, is indeed a dialect with an army and a navy; or, more to the point, a
language is a dialect that got put up in the shop window. Yes, people can sit down in a
room and decide upon a standardized version of a dialect so that large numbers of
people can communicate with maximal efficiency—no more clau, clav, and ciav. But
standardization doesn’t make something “better”—donning a Catholic school
uniform isn’t “better” than wearing different clothes to school every day.

Or, yes, the written dialect will have its words collected in dictionaries. The Oxford
English Dictionary does have more words than Archi and Endegen do; the existence
of print has allowed English-speakers to curate many of their words instead of
letting them come and go with time. But words are only part of what makes human
speech: You have to know how to put them together, and knowing how to handle
Archi’s words (or Endegen’s) requires its own level of sophistication.

So, what’s the difference between a language and a dialect? In popular usage, a
language is written in addition to being spoken, while a dialect is just spoken. But in
the scientific sense, the world is buzzing with a cacophony of qualitatively equal
“dialects,” often shading into one another like colors (and often mixing, too), all
demonstrating how magnificently complicated human speech can be. If either the
terms “language” or “dialect” have any objective use, the best anyone can do is to say
that there is no such thing as a “language”: Dialects are all there is. “Is it a dialect?”
asks Nathan. Properly, Sacha could have answered, “Yes, a beautiful one.” And
Nathan should have understood that he was speaking a “dialect” too.

Quechua (Runasimi)

Quechua is a Quechuan language with about 8 million people in Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador,
Colombia and Argentina. Quechua was the language of the Inca empire which was
destroyed by the Spanish in the 16th century.

The Inca used a system of knotted strings known as quipu to send messages around their
empire. The number and shape of the knots and the colours of the strings helped to remind
messengers of the contents of the messages. Recent research suggests that
the quipu might have been used not just as mnemonic devices but also to record the
Quechua language phonetically.

Quechua first appeared in print in 1560 in the form of a dictionary by Domingo de Santo
Tomás. Other early texts include collections of hymns by Cristóbal de Molina and a
Quechua cathechism by Juardo Palomino.
Pronunciation of Quechua (Cuzco/Bolivian dialect)

Hear the Quechua alphabet:

Sample text in Quechua
Tukuy kay pachaman paqarimujkuna libres nasekuntu tukuypunitaj kikin
obligacionesniycjllataj, jinakamalla honorniyojtaj atiyniyojtaj, chantaqa razonwantaj
concienciawantaj dotasqa kasqankurayku, kawsaqe masipura jina, tukuy uj munakuyllapi
kawsakunanku tian.
Translation
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with
reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
(Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights)
WHY IS QUECHUA SO IMPORTANT? An indigenous language family, Quechua, the mother
tongue of the Incan empire is still spoken widely today in the Americas.
Quechua is a language steeped in illusion for me. The Inca civilization used this language, but with no
true written form based on its origins, it could have been lost to time. The only thing that could
potentially be considered a written form of language for the Incas were the ornate quipus, or, the
woven threads that expressed economic issues or important messages for rulers.
Luckily this language has remained relatively untouched despite the damage the Spanish
Conquistadors had caused not only on the words themselves but the Incan culture as well. The
Spanish introduced many themes that the Incan population was sometimes forced to adopt, but
overall, Quechua has stayed relatively original. Some words and phrases were adopted from the
Spanish language as the decades progressed, but with some secluded tribes, these influences are
nowhere to be found. Why you may ask, is Quechua so important?
Throughout South America, 11 million people still speak Quechua, some only using that as their sole
means of communication amongst themselves, as well as the outside world. For tourists, this may
mean adding a few new phrases to their terminology. If you plan to hike, travel down the Amazon, or
visit remote locations, you will more than likely run into these people in the form of guides, porters, or
chefs. Outside of America, the general consensus seems to lean towards additional respect if you
attempt to learn and speak the local language. You can also give yourself a pat on the back for doing
something to better yourself.
The spine of the Andes (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
My first dive into Quechua has proven difficult. Quechua is like no other language save for the few
added Spanish familiarities, but then again, there are multiple variations because of how segregated
some sects are. In some areas of Peru, they may end up using a more original form, while in others, it
could be highly influenced by Spanish. All forms of Quechua were not created equal, because you may
get strange looks if you use the wrong variation.

Travel down into remote areas of the Amazon, and you will find a w hole new world set
out before you. On a more personal note, keeping old languages alive can be highly important
culturally. Applications like Duolingo are at the forefront of language learning software, as languages
such as Irish (Gaelic) are seeing new life in a way they haven’t before. Breathing new life into any
culture can be important to the world as a whole, as keeping a link to the past can be helpful in
understanding it, as well as better preparing for the future. Keep part of the spirit of the Incas alive,
take the time to study Quechua. You may end up using it at some point when you visit Peru.

Aymara (Aymar aru)

Aymara is an Aymaran language with about 2.2 million speakers in Bolivia, Peru, where it is
an official language, and also in Chile and Argentina. The majority of Aymara speakers,
about two million, are found in Bolivia, several hundred thousand live in Peru, and a few
thousand in Chila and Argentina.

The Aymara originally used a collection of symbols, mainly pictures of people or things, as
a mnemonic device. The symbols represented the things they portrayed or similar
sounding words but never developed into a complete writing system. The symbols were
originally written on animal skins using plant or mineral pigments but paper was
substituted after the arrival of the Spanish in the 16th century. The symbols were never
standardised and there was considerable variation in the way they were used among
different Aymara groups.

Under the influence of the Spanish, the Latin alphabet was adopted to write Aymara. Many
different spelling systems have been divised over the years. In 1985, the Peruvian
goverment introduced a new spelling system known as the Aymara Official Alphabet or
Unified Alphabet (Alfabeto Único).
The Aymara Official Alphabet