1. Give reasons why secondary source are less reliable than primary source.

What is Primary Data?

Primary data is the kind of data that is collected directly from the data source without
going through any existing sources. It is mostly collected specially for a research
project and may be shared publicly to be used for other research.

Primary data is often reliable, authentic, and objective in as much as it was collected
with the purpose of addressing a particular research problem. It is noteworthy that
primary data is not commonly collected because of the high cost of implementation.

Advantages

 Primary data is specific to the needs of the researcher at the moment of data
collection. The researcher is able to control the kind of data that is being collected.
 It is accurate compared to secondary data. The data is not subjected to personal bias
and as such the authenticity can be trusted.
 The researcher exhibit ownership of the data collected through primary research. He
or she may choose to make it available publicly, patent it, or even sell it.
 Primary data is usually up to date because it collects data in real-time and does not
collect data from old sources. 
 The researcher has full control over the data collected through primary research. He
can decide which design, method, and data analysis techniques to be used.

Disadvantages

 Primary data is very expensive compared to secondary data. Therefore, it might be

difficult to collect primary data.
 It is time-consuming.
 It may not be feasible to collect primary data in some cases due to its complexity and
required commitment.

What is Secondary Data? 

Secondary data is the data that has been collected in the past by someone else but made
available for others to use. They are usually once primary data but become secondary when
used by a third party.

Secondary data are usually easily accessible to researchers and individuals because they are
mostly shared publicly. This, however, means that the data are usually general and not tailored
specifically to meet the researcher’s needs as primary data does.

For example, when conducting a research thesis, researchers need to consult past works done
in this field and add findings to the literature review. Some other things like definitions and
theorems are secondary data that are added to the thesis to be properly referenced and cited
accordingly.
 Some common sources of secondary data include trade publications, government statistics,
journals, etc. In most cases, these sources cannot be trusted as authentic.

Advantages

 Secondary data is easily accessible compared to primary data. Secondary data is

available on different platforms that can be accessed by the researcher.
 Secondary data is very affordable. It requires little to no cost to acquire them because
they are sometimes given out for free.
 The time spent on collecting secondary data is usually very little compared to that of
primary data. 
 Secondary data makes it possible to carry out longitudinal studies without having to
wait for a long time to draw conclusions. 
 It helps to generate new insights into existing primary data.

Disadvantages 

 Secondary data may not be authentic and reliable. A researcher may need to further
verify the data collected from the available sources.
 Researchers may have to deal with irrelevant data before finally finding the required
data.
 Some of the data is exaggerated due to the personal bias of the data source.
 Secondary data sources are sometimes outdated with no new data to replace the old
ones. 

Here are differences between Primary and Secondary Data

 Definition

Primary data is the type of data that is collected by researchers directly from main sources
while secondary data is the data that has already been collected through primary sources
and made readily available for researchers to use for their own research.

The main difference between these 2 definitions is the fact that primary data is collected
from the main source of data, while secondary data is not.

The secondary data made available to researchers from existing sources are formerly
primary data that was collected for research in the past. The availability of secondary data is
highly dependent on the primary researcher’s decision to share their data publicly or not.

 Examples: 

An example of primary data is the national census data collected by the government while
an example of secondary data is the data collected from online sources. The secondary data
collected from an online source could be the primary data collected by another researcher.

For example, the government, after successfully the national census, share the results in
newspapers, online magazines, press releases, etc. Another government agency that is
trying to allocate the state budget for healthcare, education, etc. may need to access the
census results.

With access to this information, the number of children who needs education can be
analyzed and hard to determine the amount that should be allocated to the education
sector. Similarly, knowing the number of old people will help in allocating funds for them in
the health sector.

 Data Types

The type of data provided by primary data is real-time, while the data provided by secondary
data is stale. Researchers are able to have access to the most recent data when conducting
primary research, which may not be the case for secondary data.

Secondary data have to depend on primary data that has been collected in the past to
perform research. In some cases, the researcher may be lucky that the data is collected close
to the time that he or she is conducting research.

Therefore, reducing the amount of difference between the secondary data being used and
the recent data.

 Process

Researchers are usually very involved in the primary data collection process, while
secondary data is quick and easy to collect. This is due to the fact that primary research is
mostly longitudinal.

Therefore, researchers have to spend a long time performing research, recording

information, and analyzing the data. This data can be collected and analyzed within a few
hours when conducting secondary research.

For example, an organization may spend a long time analyzing the market size for transport
companies looking to talk into the ride-hailing sector. A potential investor will take this data
and use it to inform his decision of investing in the sector or not. 

 Availability

Primary data is available in crude form while secondary data is available in a refined form.
That is, secondary data is usually made available to the public in a simple form for a layman
to understand while primary data are usually raw and will have to be simplified by the
researcher.

Secondary data are this way because they have previously been broken down by researchers
who collected the primary data afresh. A good example is the Thomson Reuters annual
market reports that are made available to the public.
When Thomson Reuters collect this data afresh, they are usually raw and may be difficult to
understand. They simplify the results of this data by visualizing it with graphs, charts, and
explanations in words.

 Data Collection Tools

Primary data can be collected using surveys and questionnaires while secondary data are
collected using the library, bots, etc. The different ones between these data collection tools
are glaring and can it be interchangeably used.

When collecting primary data, researchers lookout for a tool that can be easily used and can
collect reliable data. One of the best primary data collection tools that satisfy this condition
is Formplus.

Formplus is a web-based primary data collection tool that helps researchers collect reliable
data while simultaneously increasing the response rate from respondents.

 Sources

Primary data sources include; Surveys, observations, experiments, questionnaires, focus

groups, interviews, etc., while secondary data sources include; books, journals, articles, web
pages, blogs, etc. These sources vary explicitly and there is no intersection between the
primary and secondary data sources.

Primary data sources are sources that require a deep commitment from researchers and
require interaction with the subject of study. Secondary data, on the other hand, do not
require interaction with the subject of study before it can be collected.

In most cases, secondary researchers do not have any interaction with the subject of
research.

 Specific

Primary data is always specific to the researcher’s needs, while secondary data may or may
not be specific to the researcher’s needs. It depends solely on the kind of data the
researcher was able to lay hands on.

Secondary researchers may be lucky to have access to data tailored specifically to meet their
needs, which mag is not the case in some cases. For example, a market researcher
researching the purchasing power of people from a particular community may not have
access to the data of the subject community.

Alternatively, there may be another community with a similar standard of living to the
subject community whose data is available. The researcher mag uses to settle for this data
and use it to inform his conclusion on the subject community.

 Advantage
Some common advantages of primary data are its authenticity, specific nature, and up to
date information while secondary data is very cheap and not time-consuming. 

Primary data is very reliable because it is usually objective and collected directly from the
original source. It also gives up-to-date information about a research topic compared to
secondary data.

Secondary day, on the other hand, is not expensive making it easy for people to conduct
secondary research. It doesn’t take so much time and most of the secondary data sources
can be accessed for free.

 Disadvantage

The disadvantage of primary data is the cost and time spent on data collection while
secondary data may be outdated or irrelevant. Primary data incur so much cost and takes
time because of the processes involved in carrying out primary research.

For example, when physically interviewing research subjects, one may need one or  more
professionals, including the interviewees, videographers who will make a record of the
interview in some cases and the people involved in preparing for the interview. Apart from
the time required, the cost of doing this may be relatively high.

Secondary data may be outdated and irrelevant. In fact, researchers have to surf through
irrelevant data before finally having access to the data relevant to the research purpose.

 Accuracy and Reliability

Primary data is more accurate and reliable while secondary data is relatively less reliable and
accurate. This is mainly because the secondary data sources are not regulated and are
subject to personal bias.

A good example of this is business owners who lay bloggers to write good reviews about
their product just to gain more customers. This is not the case with primary data which is
collected by being a researcher himself. 

One of the researcher’s aims when gathering primary data for research will be gathering
accurate data so as to arrive at correct conclusions. Therefore, biases will be avoided at all
costs (e.g. same businesses when collecting feedback from customers).  

 Cost-effectiveness

Primary data is very expensive while secondary data is economical. When working on a low
budget, it is better for researchers to work with secondary data, then analyze it to uncover
new trends.

In fact, a researcher might work with both primary data and secondary data for one
research. This is usually very advisable in cases whereby the available secondary data does
not fully meet the research needs.
 Therefore, a little extension on the available data will be done and cost will also be saved.
For example, a researcher may require a market report from 2010 to 2019 while the available
reports stop at 2018.

 Collection Time

The time required to collect primary data is usually long while that required to collect
secondary data is usually short. The primary data collection process is sometimes
longitudinal in nature.

Therefore, researchers may need to observe the research subject for some time while taking
down important data. For example, when observing the behavior of a group of people or
particular species, researchers have to observe them for a while.

Secondary data can, however, be collected in a matter of minutes and analyzed to dead
conclusions—taking a shorter time when compared to primary data. In some rare cases,
especially when collecting little data, secondary data may take a longer time because of
difficulty consulting different data sources to find the right data. 

2. List The major environment zones of Ethiopia and the horn?

The Wurch Zone

The Wurch-zone is an area having altitude higher than 3,200 meters above sea level and
mean annual temperature of less than 10 0C. Mountains having typically fitting characteristics
of this zone include mountain systems of RasDashen in SemineGonder, Guna in South
Gonder, Megezez in North Shoa, Batu in Bale, Choke, AbuneYoseph, etc.

Dega Zone

This is a zone of highlands having relatively higher temperature and lower altitude compared
to the wurch Zones. In Ethiopia, the Dega-zone is long inhabited and has dense human
settlement due to reliable rainfall for agriculture and absence of vector-borne diseases such
as malaria.Due to this high concentration of human population, the Dega zone has been
intensively cultivated and has a high rate of soil erosion, overgrazing and deforestation.

WeynaDega Zone

This zone has warmer temperature and moderate rainfall.  It lies between 1500-2,300 meters
above sea level.  It is the second largest zone covering more than 26% of the landmass of
Ethiopia. The temperature and rainfall of this category is highly suitable for majority of crops
grown in Ethiopia. Hence, the zone includes most of the agricultural land. The WeynaDega
zone has also two growing seasons.
 Kolla Zone

In Ethiopia, the geographic peripheries in south, southeast, west and northeastern part are
mainly in this category. Kolla is the climate of the hot lowlands with an altitudinal range of
500 to 1500 meters above sea level. Average annual temperature ranges between 20 oc and
30oc. Although mean  annual  rainfall  is  erratic,  it  can  be  as  high  as  1500  mm  in  the 
wet  western  lowlands  of Gambella. Rainfall is highly variable from year to year. The region
is boundary between the hot arid (Bereha) and the humid climates (WoinaDega).

Bereha Zone

Bereha is the hot arid climate of the desert lowlands. The Bereha agro-climatic zone is
largely confined to lowland areas with altitude of lower than 500 meters. Around Danakil
depression, the elevation goes below the sea level. Its  average  annual  rainfall  is  less  than 
200  mm, and average  annual  temperature  is  over  27.5oc.  Strong  wind,  high 
temperature,  low  relative humidity,  and  little  cloud  cover  usually  characterize  Bereha. 
Evapotranspiration is always in excess of rainfall. Djibouti,  majority  of  Somalia,  and 
coastal  areas  of  Eritrea  are  categorized  under Kolla and Bereha zones.

3. What does the environment view of the world say about the origin of
human beings?
Human evolution

Human evolution is the lengthy process of change by which people originated from apelike
ancestors. Scientific evidence shows that the physical and behavioral traits shared by all
people originated from apelike ancestors and evolved over a period of approximately six
million years.

One of the earliest defining human traits, bipedalism -- the ability to walk on two legs --
evolved over 4 million years ago. Other important human characteristics -- such as a large
and complex brain, the ability to make and use tools, and the capacity for language --
developed more recently. Many advanced traits -- including complex symbolic expression,
art, and elaborate cultural diversity -- emerged mainly during the past 100,000 years.

Humans are primates. Physical and genetic similarities show that the modern human
species, Homo sapiens, has a very close relationship to another group of primate species, the
apes. Humans and the great apes (large apes) of Africa -- chimpanzees (including bonobos,
or so-called “pygmy chimpanzees”) and gorillas -- share a common ancestor that lived
between 8 and 6 million years ago. Humans first evolved in Africa, and much of human
evolution occurred on that continent. The fossils of early humans who lived between 6 and 2
million years ago come entirely from Africa.

Most scientists currently recognize some 15 to 20 different species of early humans.

Scientists do not all agree, however, about how these species are related or which ones
simply died out. Many early human species -- certainly the majority of them – left no living
descendants. Scientists also debate over how to identify and classify particular species of
early humans, and about what factors influenced the evolution and extinction of each
species.

Early humans first migrated out of Africa into Asia probably between 2 million and 1.8 million
years ago. They entered Europe somewhat later, between 1.5 million and 1 million years.
Species of modern humans populated many parts of the world much later. For instance,
people first came to Australia probably within the past 60,000 years and to the Americas
within the past 30,000 years or so. The beginnings of agriculture and the rise of the first
civilizations occurred within the past 12,000 years.

Paleoanthropology

Paleoanthropology is the scientific study of human evolution. Paleoanthropology is a

subfield of anthropology, the study of human culture, society, and biology. The field involves
an understanding of the similarities and differences between humans and other species in
their genes, body form, physiology, and behavior. Paleoanthropologists search for the roots
of human physical traits and behavior. They seek to discover how evolution has shaped the
potentials, tendencies, and limitations of all people. For many people, paleoanthropology is
an exciting scientific field because it investigates the origin, over millions of years, of the
universal and defining traits of our species. However, some people find the concept of
human evolution troubling because it can seem not to fit with religious and other traditional
beliefs about how people, other living things, and the world came to be. Nevertheless, many
people have come to reconcile their beliefs with the scientific evidence.

Early human fossils and archeological remains offer the most important clues about this
ancient past. These remains include bones, tools and any other evidence (such as footprints,
evidence of hearths, or butchery marks on animal bones) left by earlier people. Usually, the
remains were buried and preserved naturally. They are then found either on the surface
(exposed by rain, rivers, and wind erosion) or by digging in the ground. By studying
fossilized bones, scientists learn about the physical appearance of earlier humans and how it
changed. Bone size, shape, and markings left by muscles tell us how those predecessors
moved around, held tools, and how the size of their brains changed over a long time.
Archeological evidence refers to the things earlier people made and the places where
scientists find them. By studying this type of evidence, archeologists can understand how
early humans made and used tools and lived in their environments.

 The process of evolution

The process of evolution involves a series of natural changes that cause species (populations
of different organisms) to arise, adapt to the environment, and become extinct. All species
or organisms have originated through the process of biological evolution. In animals that
reproduce sexually, including humans, the term species refers to a group whose adult
members regularly interbreed, resulting in fertile offspring -- that is, offspring themselves
capable of reproducing. Scientists classify each species with a unique, two-part scientific
name. In this system, modern humans are classified as Homo sapiens.
 Evolution occurs when there is change in the genetic material -- the chemical molecule, DNA
-- which is inherited from the parents, and especially in the proportions of different genes in
a population. Genes represent the segments of DNA that provide the chemical code for
producing proteins. Information contained in the DNA can change by a process known as
mutation. The way particular genes are expressed – that is, how they influence the body or
behavior of an organism -- can also change. Genes affect how the body and behavior of an
organism develop during its life, and this is why genetically inherited characteristics can
influence the likelihood of an organism’s survival and reproduction.

Evolution does not change any single individual. Instead, it changes the inherited means of
growth and development that typify a population (a group of individuals of the same
species living in a particular habitat). Parents pass adaptive genetic changes to their
offspring, and ultimately these changes become common throughout a population. As a
result, the offspring inherit those genetic characteristics that enhance their chances of
survival and ability to give birth, which may work well until the environment changes. Over
time, genetic change can alter a species' overall way of life, such as what it eats, how it
grows, and where it can live. Human evolution took place as new genetic variations in early
ancestor populations favored new abilities to adapt to environmental change and so altered
the human way of life.

4. What does brain size have to do with it intelligence?

 Human brains vary considerably in size across adults, with males having slightly
larger brains than females.
 It is hard to pin down what makes the human brain exceptional among mammals
—neither brain size, relative brain size nor number of neurons is unique to
humans.
 More intelligent people do better in life, but there is only weak correlation
between brain size and intelligence, especially across species.

While “size does not matter” is a universally preached dictum among the politically correct,
everyday experience tells us that this can’t be the whole story—under many conditions, it
clearly does. Consider the size of Woody Allen’s second favorite organ, the brain. Adjectives
such as “highbrow” and “lowbrow” have their origin in the belief, much expounded by 19th-
century phrenologists, of a close correspondence between a high forehead—that is, a big
brain—and intelligence. Is this true? Does a bigger brain make you necessarily smarter or
wiser? And is there any simple connection between the size of a nervous system, however
measured, and the mental powers of the owner of this nervous system? While the answer to
the first question is a conditional “yes, somewhat,” the lack of any accepted answer to the
second query reveals our ignorance of how intelligent behavior comes about.

Bigger is slightly better

The human brain continues to grow until it reaches its peak size in the third to fourth decade
of life. An MRI study of 46 adults of mainly European descent found that the average male
had a brain volume of 1,274 cubic centimeters (cm 3) and that the average female brain
measured 1,131 cm3. Given that a quart of milk equals 946 cm 3, you could pour a bit more
than that into a skull without any of it spilling out. Of course, there is considerable variability
in brain volume, ranging from 1,053 to 1,499 cm 3 in men and between 975 and 1,398 cm 3 in
women. As the density of brain matter is just a little bit above that of water plus some salts,
the average male brain weighs about 1,325 grams, close to the proverbial three pounds
often cited in U.S. texts.

Removing brains after their owners died revealed that Russian novelist Ivan Turgenev’s
brain broke the two-kilogram barrier, coming in at 2,021 grams, whereas writer Anatole
France’s brain could barely bring half of that weight to the scale at 1,017 grams. (Note that
postmortem measures are not directly comparable to data obtained from living brains.) In
other words, gross brain size varies considerably across healthy adults.

What about smarts? We all know from our day-to-day interactions that some people just
don’t get it and take a long time to understand a new concept; others have great mental
powers, although it is impolite to dwell on such differences too much. Think of Bertie
Wooster, an idle but clueless rich man, and Jeeves, his genius valet, in a series of novels by P.
G. Wodehouse and their successful British adaptation to the small screen.

Individuals differ in their ability to understand new ideas, to adapt to new environments, to
learn from experience, to think abstractly, to plan and to reason. Psychologists have sought
to capture these differences in mental capacities via a number of closely related concepts
such as general intelligence (g, or general cognitive ability) and fluid and crystalline
intelligence. These differences in people’s ability to figure things out on the spot and to
retain and apply insights that they learned in the past to current circumstances are assessed
by psychometric intelligence tests. These observations are reliable, in that different tests
strongly correlate with one another. They are also stable across decades. That is, measures
such as the intelligence quotient (IQ) can be repeatedly and reliably obtained from the same
subjects nearly 70 years later.

Differences in general intelligence, assessed in this way, correlate with success in life, with
social mobility and job performance, with health and with life span. In a study of one million
Swedish men, an increase in IQ by one standard deviation, a measure of variability, was
associated with an amazing 32 percent reduction in mortality. Smarter people do better in
life. Whereas a high IQ may not predispose people to be happy or to understand the finer
points of dating, the highly intelligent are more likely to be found among hedge fund
managers than among supermarket checkout clerks.

What about any numerical relation between brain size and intelligence? Such correlations
were difficult to establish in the past when only pathologists had access to skulls and their
content. With structural MRI imaging of brain anatomy, such measurements are now
routine. In healthy volunteers, total brain volume weakly correlates with intelligence, with a
correlation value between 0.3 and 0.4 out of a possible 1.0. In other words, brain size
accounts for between 9 and 16 percent of the overall variability in general intelligence.
Functional scans, used to look for brain areas linked to particular mental activities, reveal
that the parietal, temporal and frontal regions of the cortex, along with the thickness of
these regions, correlate with intelligence but, again, only modestly so. Thus, on average, a
bigger brain is associated with somewhat higher intelligence. Whether a big brain causes
high intelligence or, more likely, whether both are caused by other factors remains
unknown.

Recent experiments take into account the particular connections among neurons in certain
regions of an individual’s brain, much like a neural fingerprint. They do better at predicting
fluid intelligence (the capacity to solve problems in novel situations, to find and match
patterns, to reason independently of specific domains of knowledge), explaining about 25
percent of the variance in this measure from one person to the next.

Our ignorance when it comes to how intelligence arises from the brain is accentuated by
several further observations. As alluded to earlier, the adult male’s brain is 150 grams heavier
than the female’s organ. In the neocortex, the part of the forebrain responsible for
perception, memory, language and reasoning, this disparity translates to 23 billion neurons
for men versus 19 billion for women. As no difference exists in the average IQ between the
two genders, why is there a difference in the basic number of switching elements?

It is also well established that the cranial capacity of Homo neanderthalensis, the proverbial
caveman, was 150 to 200 cm 3 bigger than that of modern humans. Yet despite their larger
brain, Neandertals became extinct between 35,000 and 40,000 years ago, when Homo
sapiens shared their European environment. What’s the point of having big brains if your
small-brained cousins outcompete you?

Brain size across species

Our lack of understanding of the multiplicity of causes that contribute to intelligence

becomes even more apparent when we look outside the genus Homo. We observe that
many animals are capable of sophisticated behaviors, including sensory discrimination,
learning, decision-making, planning and highly adaptive social behaviors.

Consider honeybees. They can recognize faces, communicate the location and quality of
food sources to their sisters via the waggle dance, and navigate complex mazes with the
help of cues they store in short-term memory. And a scent blown into a hive can trigger a
return to the site where the bees previously encountered this odor, a type of associative
memory that guides them back and that was made famous by Marcel Proust in his
Remembrance of Things Past (À la Recherche du Temps Perdu). The insect does all of this with
fewer than one million neurons that weigh around one thousandth of a gram, less than one
millionth the size of the human brain. Yet are we really a million times smarter? Certainly not
if I look at how well we govern ourselves.

The prevailing rule of thumb holds that the bigger the animal, the bigger its brain. After all, a
bigger creature has more skin that has to be innervated and more muscles to control and
requires a larger brain to service its body. Thus, it makes sense to control for overall size
when studying brain magnitude. By this measure, humans have a relative brain-to-body mass
of about 2 percent. What about the big mammals—elephants, dolphins and whales? Their
brains far outweigh those of puny humans, up to 10 kilograms for some whales. Given their
body mass, ranging from 7,000 kg (for male African elephants) up to 180,000 kg (for blue
whales), their brain-to-body ratio is under a tenth of a percent. Human brains are far bigger
relative to people’s sizes than those of these creatures. Smugness is not in store, though.
We are outclassed by shrews, molelike mammals, whose brain takes up about 10 percent of
their entire body mass. Even some birds beat us on this measure. Hmm.

One small consolation is an invention of neuroanatomists called the encephalization

quotient (EQ). It is the ratio of the mass of the brain of the species under investigation
relative to a standard brain belonging to the same taxonomic group. Thus, if we consider all
mammals and compare them against the cat as a reference animal (which therefore has an
EQ of 1), people come out on top with an EQ of 7.5. Stated differently, the human brain is 7.5
times bigger than the brain of a typical mammal weighing as much as we do. Apes and
monkeys come in at or below five, as do dolphins and other cetaceans. We finally made it to
the top, validating our ineradicable belief in humanity’s exceptionalism.

Yet it is not quite clear what all this means in terms of the cellular constituents of brains.
Neuroscientists always assumed that humans have more nerve cells where it counts, in the
neocortex, than any other species on the planet, no matter the size of their brain.

A 2014 study of 10 long-finned pilot whales from the Faeroe Islands plays havoc with this
hypothesis. Caught as part of a local hunt in the cold waters of the North Atlantic between
Scotland and Iceland, these graceful mammals—also known as blackfish—are actually
dolphins. The number of nerve cells making up their highly convolved neocortex was
estimated in a few sample slices and then extrapolated to the entire structure. The total
came to an astonishing 37.2 billion neurons. Astonishing because this implies that the long-
finned pilot whale has about twice as many neocortical neurons as humans do!

If what matters for cognitive performance is the number of neocortical neurons, these
dolphins should be smarter than all other extant creatures, including us. Whereas the highly
playful and social dolphins exhibit a variety of skills, including the ability to recognize
themselves in a mirror, they do not possess language or any readily discernible powers of
abstraction that stand out from those of other nonhuman animals. So what gives? Is the
complexity of the nerve cells themselves substantially less than cells found in people, or is
the way these neurons communicate or learn less sophisticated? We don’t know.

People forever ask for the single thing that distinguishes humans from all other animals, on
the supposition that this one magical property would explain our evolutionary success—the
reason we can build vast cities, put people on the moon, write Anna Karenina and compose
Eroica. For a while it was assumed that the secret ingredient in the human brain could be a
particular type of neuron, so-called spindle or von Economo neurons, named for Baron
Constantin von Economo (1876–1931).

But we now know that not only great apes but also whales, dolphins and elephants have
these neurons in their frontal cortex. So it is not brain size, relative brain size or absolute
number of neurons that distinguishes us. Perhaps our wiring has become more streamlined,
our metabolism more efficient, our synapses more sophisticated.
 As Charles Darwin surmised, it is very likely a combination of a great many different factors
that jointly, over the gradual course of evolution, made us distinct from other species. We
are unique, but so is every other species, each in its own way.

5. What is language classification?

All languages are composed in a way that includes universal characteristics, such as
phonemes and double instances, while languages that are similar between each other have
inherent features that allow different ways to learn about their related structures.

What is Linguistic Typology?

Linguistic typology is largely aimed at cognitive and reliable sociocultural aspects and
defining the differences between languages, especially in the area of semantic differences.

These allow for good use and understanding between people who use foreign languages.
The differences between languages around the world have not been studied fully, and the
number of languages that exist has not been established, as it a challenge to definitively
determine an amount.

The History of Linguistic Typology

In writings published in 1989, it was estimated that there were between 5,000 to 7,000
distinct languages, although the Linguistic Center in Washington has registered 18,000
languages since 1970.

This number may be unreliable, though, depending on how many different entries there are
for one language and any of its dialects.

Linguistic Typology Classifications

To be able to discuss certain linguistic types, we must list the largest language groups in the
shortest terms.

They are specified according to three criteria:

 Genealogical familiarity
 Structural familiarity
 Geographic distribution

According to these criteria, the below are the important language family groups:

 Indo-European
 Sino-Tibetan
 Niger-Congo
 Afroasiatic
 Austronesian
 Altaic
 Japonic
 Austroasiatic
 Tai-Kadai

The most commonly spoken are languages in the Indo-European and Sino-Tibetan language
groups. These two groups are used by 67% of the global population.

To scientifically classify languages, the following criteria are used:

 Language criteria
 Historical criteria
 Geographical criteria
 Sociopolitical criteria

The classification of languages shows us the precise connections between the languages of
the world.

Applying Linguistic Typology Classifications

According to the implementation of these criteria, there are various classifications and
different observations of the relationships between languages. The three basic
classifications for languages of the world are:

 Genealogical
 Typological
 Areal

1. Genealogical Classification

This classification of linguistic typology indicates the historical connection between the
languages, and it uses the historical and linguistic criteria as a basis. There are also languages
that cannot be classified in to any language family group. For example, in Europe, the
Basque language is called a language isolate, as it cannot relate to any other language.

2. Typological Classification

Languages are grouped into language types on the basis of formal criteria, according to
their similarities in grammatical structure. There are several types: flexile (morphological
resources), agglutinative (affixes), and rooted (the root of the word as a morphological
resource).

3. Areal Classification

It involves geographic criteria, and covers those languages that are close by and have
developed similar characteristics in terms of structure. Under the influence of intensive
mutual influences, these kinds of languages are creating language unions such as the Balkan
Language Union, encompassing Macedonian, Bulgarian, Serbian, and Albanian, for example.
Apply linguistic typology for higher quality translations

Every translator and language researcher could benefit from having a basic knowledge of
language classifications and origins, as this would help achieve better results in their work,
and make it more accessible to a global audience.