engineering

Mundolingua

Mundolingua is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Mundolingua rather than just read about it. In short: Mundolingua is a museum situated in the 6th arrondissement of Paris. Its purpose is to present information, objects and documents relating to language, linguistic diversity and linguistics to the general public.

Key takeaways

Mundolingua belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Mundolingua to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Mundolingua from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Mundolingua is a museum situated in the 6th arrondissement of Paris. Its purpose is to present information, objects and documents relating to language, linguistic diversity and linguistics to the general public.

History The concept of the museum was launched in 2010 by Mark Oremland, a New Zealander who studied linguistics at Paris Descartes University and who wanted to make this field accessible to the widest possible public. Between 2010, and 2013, the documentary resources were collected, and the pedagogical material was designed. In 2013, a team of craftspeople, computer specialists, students, professors and translators worked on building, organizing and presenting this material in the different spaces of the museum. The museum was inaugurated on 11 October 2013, by Jean-Pierre Lecoq, mayor of the 6th arrondissement.

Collections Split into two levels (ground floor and basement), the museum presents its information via touchscreens accompanied by recordings (headphones), along with games and objects that illustrate the various subjects.

Ground floor

Language The first section deals with language in general – things that apply to all languages: the particularities of human language in contrast with animal communication, double articulation and the vocal apparatus. Amongst the various objects on the ground floor there is a large head that shows the vocal apparatus, on which the visitor can, by pressing chosen phonetic characters, listen to the corresponding sound and see the physical place of articulation lit up.

Learning The second room is dedicated to the acquisition of one's own language(s) (mother tongue), learning foreign languages and language difficulties (stuttering, etc.). There is a small library, and in the booth of a reconstructed language lab one can listen to recordings of 1700 different languages.

Basement The basement is a vaulted cellar of approximately 100 square metres (1,100 sq ft), divided into three sections.

Languages: Past and Present This section is dedicated to the diversity of languages, their evolution and their alphabets. On the ceiling, there are 3D tree models showing the generally accepted genealogies of the major language families (Indo-European, Amerindian, Altaic, Chamito-Semitic, Austronesian, Sino-Tibetan, etc.). There is also a globe showing the geographic distribution of these language families. Visuals and audios explain the different ways in which languages evolve and influence one another, along with the idea of language policies. There is also a life-sized facsimile of the Rosetta Stone, made by the British Museum. A large scale model of the braille alphabet enables one to read a phrase in braille.

Playing with language The section that follows is a fun area devoted to codes, slangs, humour, invented languages, proverbs and other games with language. In addition to the visual and audio information, there are board games in different languages (including a giant Scrabble board), as well as an Enigma machine (coding machine used in the Second World War).

New Technologies and Linguistics The 5th and last section is dedicated to the history of the science of linguistics from the ancient Greeks to Chomsky, along with an alcove on new technologies connected with language, such as machine translation and speech recognition. One can find a variety of machines used in the transmission or recording of language: a telex, a microfiche reader and a typewriter with both normal and phonetic alphabet keyboards.

Activities The museum has two levels of visit plans for school groups, including questionnaires to fill out and a workshop; a visit plan for children; and another for blind visitors. There are also thematic evenings, including lectures and debates.

Notes and references

External links Official website

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Mundolingua

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Mundolingua claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Mundolingua before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Mundolingua ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Mundolingua

In research: Mundolingua appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Mundolingua in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Mundolingua is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 2013 establishments in France, Buildings and structures in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, History of linguistics, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Mundolingua outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Mundolingua in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Mundolingua means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Mundolingua out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Mundolingua in simple terms?

Why does Mundolingua matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Mundolingua?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Mundolingua.