Board Thread:Linguistics/@comment-25438171-20141012054235

Any good conlanger knows just how widely varied the world's languages are. Everything from Piraha to Fox through Jingulu to Vanuatuan highlights just how diverse the linguistic scene is. However, there are some things not one terrestrial language has managed to avoid (note: some of the following are not true of sign languages). All languages have nouns and verbs (or something similar), consonants and vowels, grammar, and a definitive division between phonemes (see this page for a fuller list and records of agreed ways to break them). What would you consider to be a way to violate these? Can you think of any others? Please note that by default, it is assumed that solutions are designed to be exploitable by Homo Sapiens, and communication is presumed to be by vocalisation. 