Presiding Officer Training module 2024 lok sabha elections
The Origins Of Language.pptx
1. T h e O r i g i n s O f L a n g u a g e
‘’Where did the language originate from? When did it start and how did it evolve?’’
➷ The Birth Of Language
➷ The Theories on The Origin
Of Language
➷ The Universal Grammar
➷ Q&A’s
2. Everything has a beginning. Stories, people, and arguably time all
have a beginning, and so does language. But, when and where did
human language start evolving? What is the story when it comes
to the origin of language?
✪ The Birth Of Language
The language dates back to roughly 150,000 years ago.
However, all the linguistic evidence dates back to around 6000
years ago, when writing began. Consequently, the major history
of language is discovered through guesses and written evidence
that is much newer than the era that the linguists study.
3. The origin of language can be sub-divided according to some
underlying assumptions.
There have been a lot of discussions of the origin of language. Some
people think that the origin of words is onomatopoeias. Meanwhile,
according to expressive theories, the origin of words and language is the
innate cries of pain or pleasure produced by nonhuman animals. Others
insist that language originated as a means of communication. Another
theory holds that a learned vocalization systems, more like birdsong
than innate calls, formed a middle term in language evolution. (Araki
Naoki, 2017.)
4. ✪ Theories On The Origin Of Language
˗ˏˋ꒰Divine source꒱ ˗ˏˋ꒰Natural sound source꒱
˗ˏˋ꒰The social interaction source꒱
˗ˏˋ꒰The physical adaptation source꒱
˗ˏˋ꒰The tool making source꒱ ˗ˏˋ꒰The genetic source꒱
5. ➳ Divine source:
ꕥ The oldest theory
ꕥ Miracle theory
ꕥ In Christianity, God gave Adam the kingdom of all animals in the
ꕥ Garden of Eden and the first thing Adam did was to name these animals.
That is how language started according to religious sources.
(A painting of Adam naming
the animals by St. Nicholas
Anapavsa Monstery )
6. ꕥ Today people speak many different languages rather than only
one language because ancient humans became too proud and they
tried to build the Tower of Babel in order to reach God. So, God
punished them by separating their languages
(A painting of
Tower of Babel
by Pieter Bruegel
The Elder)
7. ꕥ Herodotuse, the Greek historian, wrote about an Egyptian pharaoh. He had
these newborns isolated to see what language they would speak.
The language they first spoke was primordial language, and they thought
that was the first language.
Supposedly their first word was “bread” in Phrygian. This was false however
since if you take “bekos” and remove “kos” it just becomes “be” which
sounds like the noise a goat makes, proving that the kids weren't speaking
any language but just mimicking the goats they were isolated with
Frederick the second, king of cecil and germany concluded that children
cannot be raised without verbal communication.
ꕥ Kings james the fourth also did an experiment.
He raised children on the island in Scotland, by mute Women. The
children ended up speaking Hebrew
However, people are skeptical since similar experiments did not prove
the same results
8. ➳ Natural Sound Source
1-) Bow-wow Theory:
The idea behind it is that the first humans imitated animal sounds in order to
refer to a certain animal.
For example, when thet heard a dog barking they imitated the ‘’bow-wow’’
sound.
⚠ What's wrong with this theory?
Relatively few words are onomatopoeic, and these words vary from one
language to another. For instance, a dog's bark is heard as au au in
Brazil, ham ham in Albania, and wang, wang in China. In addition, many
onomatopoeic words are of recent origin, and not all are derived from
natural sounds.
9. 2-) pooh-pooh Theory:
According to this assumption language originated with the use of
sounds that reflect emotions such as pain, fear, hunger, surprise, and
the sounds of laughter and crying, etc.
For example: Yabba dabba do, Ha Ha, Ouch…
And some Turkish examples: Vay, Ayy, Yaa…
It coincides with Darwin's theory of evolution, he argued that there
was a continuity between monkey and ape vocalization systems and
the vocalization systems of humans
⚠ What's wrong with this theory?
No language contains very many interjections, and, Crystal points
out, "the clicks, intakes of breath, and other noises which are used in
this way bear little relationship to the vowels and consonants found
in phonology."
10. 3-) Ding-Dong Theory:
This theory, favored by Plato and Pythagoras, maintains that speech
arose in response to the essential qualities of objects in the
environment. The original sounds people made were supposedly in
harmony with the world around them.
For example: Boom, Splash, Peep Peep…
⚠ What's wrong with this theory?
Apart from some rare instances of sound symbolism, there is no
persuasive evidence, in any language, of an innate connection
between sound and meaning.
11. ➳ The Social Interaction Source
According to this theory, children learn language out of a desire to
communicate with the world around them. Language emerges from,
and is dependent upon, social interaction.
“yo-he-ho” theory:
According to this proposal, early human beings used some sounds when they
were doing some collaborative work. For example, when they were lifting a
huge animal that they hunted, they used sounds to do their task for physical
coordination and to reach their message to their friends that they share the
burden of their job. It is claimed that these sounds eventually turned out into a
language.
12. ⚠ What's wrong with this theory?
Though this notion may account for some of the rhythmic features of the
language, it doesn't go very far in explaining where words come from.
As Peter Farb says in "Word Play: What Happens When People Talk"
(Vintage, 1993): "All these speculations have serious flaws, and none can
withstand the close scrutiny of present knowledge about the structure of
language and about the evolution of our species."
But does this mean that all questions about the origin of language are
unanswerable? Not necessarily. Over the past 20 years, scholars from such
diverse fields as genetics, anthropology, and cognitive science have been
engaged, as Kenneally says, in "a cross-discipline, multidimensional
treasure hunt" to find out how language began. It is, she says, "the hardest
problem in science today."
As William James remarked, "Language is the most imperfect and
expensive means yet discovered for communicating thought."
13. ➳ The physical adaptation source
Unlike human beings, no other species can use language because other animals
have a very different physiology than human beings. Modern human beings
have vocal tract for speaking.
Human mouth is small, which makes it easier to open and close for fast speech
production.
Human teeth are in upright position and are regular in size, which allows us to
produce sounds such as, f and v. Human mouth has a complicated muscle
system, which allows us to produce various vowels.
Our tongue can move backwards, forwards, up and down. This allows us to
produce various speech sounds. In fact without these speech organs, human
beings could not have spoken.
In addition, to these changes, human brain has gone through a number of
changes, it became much bigger and specialized for language.
Researchers have claimed that human beings adapted all these physiological
changes throughout their history and these changes caused the emergence of
human language.
14. The larynx or voice box is an organ in the neck housing the vocal folds,
which are responsible for phonation. In humans, the larynx
is descended, it is positioned lower than in other primates. This is because
the evolution of humans to an upright position shifted the head directly
above the spinal cord, forcing everything else downward. The
repositioning of the larynx resulted in a longer cavity called the pharynx,
which is responsible for increasing the range and clarity of the sound being
produced. Other primates have almost no pharynx; therefore, their
vocal power is significantly lower. Humans are not unique in this respect:
goats, dogs, pigs and tamarins lower the larynx temporarily, to emit loud
calls. Several deer species have a permanently lowered larynx, which may
be lowered still further by males during their roaring displays. Lions,
jaguars, cheetahs and domestic cats also do this. However, laryngeal
descent in nonhumans (according to Philip Lieberman) is not accompanied
by descent of the hyoid; hence the tongue remains horizontal in the oral
cavity, preventing it from acting as a pharyngeal articulator.
16. ➳ The Tool-Making Source:
Humans started making tools and manipulating objects while using both
hands.
Manual gestures may have been a precursor of language (oral gesture
theory).
Bringing words together like bringing two rocks together to make a tool.
The functions for object manipulation and for speaking are very close to
each other in the left hemisphere of the brain.
Lateralisation: There may have been an evolutionary connection between
the use of tools and the use of language in early humans.
This theory allows for structural organisation inherent to all language
(even sign languages), not only articulation of sounds to donate objects.
17. ➳ The genetic source
innateness hypothesis:
It proposes that humans are born with a special capacity for
language, so language is genetic.
Even children who are born deaf become fluent in sign language.
There is one gene that may be involved in language, it is known as
FOXP2.
(The gene FOXP2, was initially identified in
1998 as the genetic cause of a speech disorder
in a British family designated the KE family.
FOXP2 affects the development of speech and
language starting in early childhood.)
18. ✪ The Universal Grammar
It is the idea that human languages, as superficially diverse as they are,
share some fundamental similarities, and that these are attributable to
innate principles unique to language: that deep down, there is only one
human language.
For example, every language has a way to ask a question or make
something negative. In addition, every language has a way to
identify gender or show that something happened in the past or
present.
19. Universal grammar is a genetic related theory in which the
human brain contains an innate mental grammar, that is basic
and common between babies all around the world.
⚠ What's wrong with this theory?
Universal grammar has no coherent formulation and is indeed
unnecessary. Universal grammar is in conflict with biology: it
cannot have evolved by standardly accepted neo-Darwinian
evolutionary principles.
20. 1-) How did language start according to Christianity?
(Hint: Divine source)
2-) What were the changes needed for humans to be able to
speak?
(Hint: Physical adaptation source)
3-) What is the idea behind the Universal Grammar? And how is
it related to the Genetic source?