Since language is about communication then certainly one should agree that symbols and pictograms should be included as a type of communication and indeed a way of expressing language in writing. Unfortunately symbols can be difficult to index and reference.

I have run across a very good online resource for Western Symbols at Symbols.com (they have an online reference and a book.) Great resource that I could spend hours lost in and browsing!

Another interesting note is that thanks to unicode there are now many symbols as well as non latin character sets supported by modern computers. It may be as simple as a keystroke combination and then enter the unicode for a character. (In gnome on linux for instance ctrl-shift-u starts the unicode input mode. Then you can follow it with the unicode character number df for instance gives the sharp s from German ß ) For other operating systems you’ll need to check the support for your computer. Also, unicode.org has indexes of all the supported characters. Just because a character or symbol is supported by unicode does not mean that it will display on your computer. The font you use must support that character by having a “glyph” for it. Most operating systems also let you copy and paste from a character map program.

In addition to non-latin character sets there are many included characters such as those listed at this page. Which include ☀ ★ ☏ and dozens of other symbols. (I was excited to see music symbols in unicode making it easier to enter. Again – your operating system not only needs to support that version of unicode, but your font must also have glyphs for those symbols.

In some cases Sindarin is referred to as Elvish due to its origins in the fiction works of J.R.R. Tolkein.

Elvish Phrases

101 Sindarin Phrases

The Sindarin Phrasebook

Lingua Franca Nova has a wikipedia available online and that is available from the following link.

Sindarin is an invented language that was used by J.R.R. Tolkien in his Lord of the Rings trilogy of books as well as the Silmarillion. The language has received quite a bit of interest from hobbiests and scholars and the following pages will link to resources related to the Sindarin language.

• Sindarin Language Resources Online

Lingua Franca Nova is an invented language that is designed to b used as an international auxiliary language. It was devised using the Romance languages as donors for vocabulary and has some simplified grammatical structures making it easy to learn.

The following pages will link to and include information about Lingua Franca Nova.

• Lingua Franca Nova Resources Online

Believe it or not, there is spoken latin available online. This came as a surprise to me at first, but the Finnish broadcasting company provides the following site:

http://www.yleradio1.fi/nuntii/ which provides news and current events in Latin. Their podcast (mp3 audio) can be more directly found from this page.

Latin is considered a dead language. Certainly Classical Latin is not widely spoken. However what was the day to day “Vulgar Latin” has become todays Romance languages of Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Catalan and perhaps others. In spite of it’s “dead” status, there are still many good reasons for studying and learning the latin language. First it can give students a good understanding of their own languages assuming their native language is in the indo-european family of languages.

Beyond that though, there is much to learn about grammar and studying it in a language other than your own can sometimes make those rules in your own native tongue simpler and clearer to understand.

The following sub-pages will have information and resources related to the study of Latin.

• Latin Language Audio

One of the great resources available for you to download for free online is that course that was designed for the United States government use via the Foreign Service Institute.

Foreign Service Institute Greek Language page with audio and pdf downloads.

There are many online resources for students of the Russian language. Amongst them:

How to learn the cyrillic alphabet in 5 minutes.

How to learn the cyrillic alphabet in two hours (more reading practice.)

Russian Cyrillic alphabet flash card deck for mnemosyne.

Random page from the Russian Wikipedia.

The wikipedia in Russian.

Google news in Russian.

This page will link to online resources for the Greek language. Some may be news sites, other resources such as translation sites or flash card related language learning decks that are related to the Greek language.

Of course, the first best place to start learning the language is to study its alphabet: Greek alphabet deck for mnemosyne.

Other Greek language decks for mnemosyne can be found here. There are a mix of ancient and modern Greek flash card decks.