Phonology -the sound system:  

    1. differences in type of sounds present in a language

    !kung (Southern Africa)  - has click sounds

    Swahili - has implosives

    Georgian - has ejectives (glottalized sounds)

    Quileute - has 7 different K-like sounds

      --number of sounds: (European languages tend to have about 40 distinctive sounds) Hawaiian, Rotokas--Kabardian, Abkhaz.

Morphology-word building 

    Most European languages - words add endings for plural and for a few meanings such as possession, object

    Finnish - 15 case forms 

    Chinese -virtually no endings, most words one or two syllables.

    Quileute - words with lots of prefixes but no suffixes

Kazakh very long words with lots of suffixes:  qAm-s´z-dAn-d´r-´l-mA-ÂAn-d´q-tAn-in view of the fact that it wasn't guaranteed (agglutination)

Syntax--phrase and sentence formation

    Hixkaryana - object comes first in the sentence

    Georgian - both subject and object markers on verbs

    Nootka - no difference between a word and a sentence: 

inikwihlminih'isita-several small fires were burning in the house)