Dorsey- Ong

When I think of language, I think of oral along with written. Ong says there are 3000 languages in the world and 78 have written text. This blows my mind because with all of the literature out there one would think that most of the languages would be represented. It also shows me how shut off we are as a society to so many other parts of the world. A huge amount of people do not think about language the way we do with a literate language. Along with this, a lot of people relate and understand the world in ways that I do not. Without literature it makes so many other aspects of language so much more important. Things like dialect, tone, speed of speech, and body language have increased meaning in languages that do not contain literature.

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