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Philosophy and Language

Do Languages Exist?

And how does language work anyway? Antony Tomlinson weighs the arguments.

Languages seem an important feature of our lives. The languages we speak determine who we can communicate with, where we can work, and what we can read or listen to. Languages are also political. For instance, recent years have seen laws requiring migrants to the UK to learn English. An apparent decline in numbers of Welsh speakers led to calls for government money to be spent on Welsh language promotion.

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