The Origin of Language

Where did language come from? Since the early 1990s, a growing number of professional linguists, archaeologists, psychologists, an thropologists, and others have attempted to address with new methods what they are beginning to consider "the hardest problem in science." [4]linguistsarchaeologistspsychologistsan thropologists [4] …the origin of language.

How old is human language? Language is at least 50,000 years old, the date that modern humans dispersed from Africa, and some experts say it is at least 100,000 years old.

What or who created language?

#1 Belief in the Divine Creation of Language Many societies throughout history believed that language is the gift of the gods to humans. The most familiar is found in Genesis 2:20, which tells us that the first man, Adam, gave names to all living creatures. This belief predicates that humans were created from the start with an innate capacity to use language. It can't be proven that language is as old as humans, but it is definitely true that language and human society are inseparable. Wherever humans exist language exists.

#2 Natural Evolution Hypothesis At some point in their evolutionary development humans acquired a more sophisticated brain which made language invention and learning possible. The simple vocalizations and gestures inherited from our primate ancestors soon became a creative system of language. As soon as humans developed the capacity for creative language, cultural development would have been an inevitable next step.

#3 Invention Hypotheses If humans acquired the capacity for language either by divine gift or by evolution, then exactly how might humans have devised the first language? There are several hypotheses as to how language might have been consciously invented by humans. Most linguists agree that the origin of language is still a mystery.

Regardless of whether language was a special gift from the gods, a natural evolutionary acquisition, or an ingenious, conscious human invention, language came to exist! Since there are over 5,000 languages spoken on Earth today, a second question arises: Was there one or more than one original language? We know that there were even more spoken in the past, when most people lived in small bands or tribes rather than in large states.

What did man’s original language sound like? How did so many diverse languages come to exist today? No one is sure—only theories exist. We will explore some of those theories.

There are three age-old beliefs regarding the origin of the world's present number of languages.

The Hypothesis of Parallel Evolution (or the Candelabra Theory) As humans evolved at the same time in more than one location; each group developed its own unique language. This hypothesis is called the Candelabra theory. Each of the original languages then would have changed into numerous forms. The major language families of today would be descended from these separate mother tongues.

The Mother Tongue theory (or the Original Language) This theory holds that one original language spoken by a single group of Homo sapiens perhaps as early as 150 thousand years ago gave rise to all human languages spoken on the Earth today. As humans colonized various continents, this original mother tongue diverged through time to form the numerous languages spoken today. Since many scientists believe that the first fully modern humans appeared in Africa, the mother tongue theory is connected with a more general theory of human origin known as the Out of Africa theory.

Migration of Languages

Religious theories: The oldest belief is that there was a single, original language. In Judeo-Christian tradition, the original language was confused by divine intervention, as described in the story of the Tower of Babel in Genesis. There is a similar story from the Toltecs of pre- Columbian Mexico, who tell of the building of the great pyramid at Cholula, and the dispersal of the builders by an angry god. And other similar stories are found in other parts of the world.

Some humorous theories proposed by scholars: A German scholar of the last century stated that German was the first language and that all other languages are inferior corruptions of it. Other European linguists conferred the same exalted status on Greek or Sanskrit! One Swedish scholar claimed that in the Garden of Eden God spoke Swedish, Adam spoke Danish and the serpent spoke French!

The Twelve Super-families of Present-Day Human Language Linguists like Joseph Greenberg believe that all of man's languages are descended from a common ancient language, and that twelve distinct language families exist. Their evidence is that words like ``akwa'' (water) and ``dik'' (finger/one/ten) are used by distinct languages all over the world. Different linguists will divide the world's languages into `super-families” in different ways.

How do linguists create these theories? First, to try to trace the original mother tongue (or mother tongues), comparative linguists compare modern languages to try to reconstruct ancient languages.

Second, because languages change slowly, they contain all sorts of indications of ancient culture. Study a language--any language--and you will learn much about the history of the people who speak that language. You will also be taking a crucial step toward understanding the contemporary culture of the speakers. Linguists who study language from this cultural standpoint are called anthropological linguists.

So what does this mean for my language: English? The Comparative Method finds regular similarities between languages that cannot be explained by coincidence or word-borrowing, and estimates ancient language forms from these similarities. The ancestor language of English can be traced by this method.

Where does English come from? English is one of many modern language derived from Proto-Indo-European. Linguists have determined a “family tree” of languages which descended from Proto- Indo-European. The next slide is an artistic representation of this language family tree of which English is a part.

Videos/Images (Before Babel: In search of the first language) From 0:00 to 7:40 minutes and 41:40-47:30 min.

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