Origins Of Languages

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Intro

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Charles Darwin 's vision: Early humans had already developed musical ability prior to language and were using it to charm each other.

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Spoken languages

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We suspect that some types of spoken language must have developed between 100,000 and 50,000 years ago well before written languages (about 5,000 years ago)

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The divine source

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In most religions,there appears to be a divine source who provides humans with language

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Experiment 1

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One Experiment, with a conflicting result,showed that if human infants were allowed to grow up without hearing any language around them,then they would spontaneously begin using the original God-given language.

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Experiment 2

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The Greek writer Herodotus reported the story of an Egyptian pharaoh namedPsammetichus (or Psamtik) who tried the experiment with two newborn babies morethan 2,500 years ago. After two years of isolation except for the company of goats and amute shepherd, the children were reported to have spontaneously uttered, not anEgyptian word, but something that was identified as the Phrygian word bekos, meaning“bread.” The pharaoh concluded that Phrygian, an older language spoken in part of whatis modern Turkey, must be the original language. That seems very unlikely. The childrenmay not have picked up this “word” from any human source, but as several commenta-tors have pointed out, they must have heard what the goats were saying. (First removethe -kos ending, which was added in the Greek version of the story, then pronounce be-as you would the English word bed without -d at the end. Can you hear a goat

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Several commentators said that it is very unlikely ,and the children must have heard the goats.

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Experiment 3

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King James the fourth of Scotland carried out a similar experiment around the year 1500 and the children were reported to have spontaneously started speaking Hebrew ,conforming the king's belief that Hebrew had indeed been the language of the Garden of Eden.

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Conclusions

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It is unfortunate that all other cases of children who have been discovered living in isolation,without coming into contact with human speech,tend not to confirm the results of these types of divine - source experiments.

Very young children living without access to human language in their early years grow up with no language at all.

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Natural sound source

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The basic idea is that primitive words could have been imitations of the natural sounds which early men and women heard around them.

-bow wow tbeory: is when an object flew by making a 'caw-caw' sound,or another flying creature made a coo-coo sound the early human tried to imitate the sound and used it to refer to the thing associated with the sound .

ONOMATOPEIA: words that sound similar to the noises they describe or the use of words whose sounds suggest their meanings.

▪While it is true that a number of words in any language are onomatpoeic ,it is hard to see how most of the soundless things as well as abstract concepts in our world could have been referred to in a language that simply echoed natural sounds.We might also be rather skeptical about a view that seems to assume that a language is only a set of words used as 'names' for things.

▪It has also been suggested that the original sounds of language may have come from natural cries of emotion such as pain ,anger and joy.

Ouch! for cry

Other interejections such as ah! Ooh! Wow! Or yuck!.

Those are produced with sudden intakes of breath ,which is the opposite of ordinary talk.

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The social Interaction Source

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Yo he ho theory: is the idea that the sounds of a person involved in physical effort could be the source of our language.

▪The development of human language is in a social context.

▪Groups are necessarily social organizations, to maintain those organizations,some form of communication is required,even if it is just grunts and curses.

So,human sounds,however they were produced,must have had some principled use within the life and social interaction of early human groups.

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The social Adaptation Source:

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Only humans have the capacity for producing speech that is why it is called human speech.

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Teeth,Lips,Mouth,Larynx,Pharynx

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Teeth: human teeth are not like those of Apes.They are very helpful in making sounds such F ,V

Lips: have much more intricate muscle Interlacing than is found in other primates and their resulting flexibility certainly helps in making sounds like P,B

Mouth: is relatively small compared to other primates, can be opened and closed rapidly .

Tongue: thicker and muscular,and can be used to shape a wide variety of sounds inside the oral cavity.

The Larynx which contains the vocal folds or vocal cords ,differs significantly In position from the larynx of other primates such as monkeys

Pharynx ,above the vocal folds,which acts as a resonator for increased range and clarity of the sounds produced via the larynx and the vocal tract. (Larynx and pharynx are taking the proper position for making speech)

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The Tool-Making Source

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Anatomical Features: teeth,Lips

Manual Gestures: such as hands can be an evidence

Brain alongside with the hand creating a complex connections.

Humans may have developed a naming ability by producing a specific and consistent noise for a specific object.

The human brain is not only large relative to human body size, it is also lateralized that is, it has specialized functions in each of the two hemispheres.

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The Genetic Source

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Humans have the capacity to speak because of the physical changes

At birth ,the baby's brain is only a quarter of its eventual weight and the larynx is much higher in the throat ,allowing babies,like chimpanzees,to breathe and drink at the same time.In a relatively short period of time,the Larynx descends,the brain develops,the child assumes an upright posture and starts walking and talking.

Human offspring are born with a special capacity for language.

Inn at Ness hypothesis: the idea that humans are genetically hard-wired to acquire language.

Function that control:

-the motor movement involved in complex vocalization (speaking)

- object manipulation (making or using tools)

Very close to each other in the left hemisphere of the brain.

-》possibility: evolutionary connection between the language - using and tool - using abilities of humans and that both were in the development of the speaking brain.