One feels insecure in a low cave or a narrow defile, exhilarated and powerful on a hilltop; these are psychological and motor reactions that result from measuring one's potential for movement against the surrounding spaces, and the same reactions take root even in language ("confining" circumstances and "elevating" experiences are spoken of).
Surfing the television stations on Sunday evening, I was detained by a programme that asked the sort of questions about language usually confined to specialists.
Suddenly, people who could not imagine using anything but polite honorifics to address those above them in the social pecking order let loose, criticizing leaders in ribald language normally confined to conversations with friends.
In the Americas, just four languages (English, French, Spanish and Portuguese) dominate the land from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, with native languages largely confined to high-altitude redoubts.
The Baltic-speaking area, however, contracted, and by the end of the 20th century Baltic languages were confined to Lithuania and Latvia.
Given the nature of the evidence, knowledge of these languages is confined largely to the sound system and a small part of the vocabulary, and no certain conclusions can be reached as to their historical development or the differences between them.
One possible explanation is that the previously reported associations between KIAA0319 and language skills were confined to individuals selected as language-impaired.
We found that from the earliest stages of lexical processing, words in the second language evoke greater activity in bilateral posterior visual regions, while activity to the native language is largely confined to classical left hemisphere fronto-temporal areas.
"The phrase — unnatural, forced and heretofore unused in the English language — suggests something confined to boudoirs or bathrooms," wrote the columnist, Karen Heller.
