1. The origins of language

2. We don’t really know how language originated.
Some type of language must have developed between 100,000 and 50,000 years ago.
Much before the written form (5000 years)

3. The divine source Bible:
God created Adam and “whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.”
Egyptian pharaoh’s experiment:
Baa baa (mee mee)
King James the Fourth of Scotland:
Hebrew

4. Very young children living without access to human language in their early years grow up with no language at all.
If human language did emerge from a divine source, we have no way of reconstructing that original language, especially given the events in a place called Babel,
“because the Lord did there confound thelanguage of all the earth,” as described in the book of Genesis in the Bible (11: 9).

5. The natural sound source
Language began with the concept of natural sounds.
onomatopeia:
….splash, bang, boom, rattle, buzz, hiss, screech, and forms such as bow-wow…
Türkçeler eklenecek

6. 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.

7. The social interaction source
the “yo-he-ho” theory:
a group of early humans might develop a set of hums, grunts, groans and curses that were used when they were lifting and carrying large bits of trees or lifeless hairy mammoths.
The development of language is placed in a “social context”

8. does not answer our question about the origins of the sounds produced.
Apes and other primates live in social groups and use grunts and social calls, but they do not seem to have developed the capacity for speech

9. The physical adaptation source
Instead of looking at types of sounds as the source of human speech
We can look at the types of physical features humans possess – diffrent than other creatures
We can start with the observation that, at some early stage, our ancestors made a very significant transition to an upright posture, with bipedal (on two feet) locomotion, and a revised role for the front limbs

10. Teeth, lips, mouth, larynx and pharynx

11. The tool-making source

12. The genetic source
that human offspring are born with a special capacity for language. It is innate, no other creature seems to have it, and it isn’t tied to a specific variety of language. Is it possible that this language capacity is genetically hard-wired in the newborn human?

13. Questions
1. Why is it difficult to agree with Psammetichus that Phrygian must have beenthe original human language?
First, his conclusion was based on very little evidence and, second, it seems morereasonable to assume that the children in his study were producing a goat-likesound from their immediate environment rather than a Phrygian sound from adistant language.

14. 2. What is the basic idea behind the “bow-wow” theory of language origin?
Primitive words could have been imitations of the natural sounds that early humans heard around them and all modern languages have words that are onomatopoeic in some way (like “bow-wow”).

15. 3. Why are interjections such as Ouch considered to be unlikely sources of human speech sounds?
Interjections contain sounds that are not otherwise used in ordinary speech production. They are usually produced with sudden intakes of breath, which is the opposite of ordinary talk, produced on exhaled breath.

16. 4. Where is the pharynx and how did it become an important part of human sound production?
The pharynx is above the larynx (or the voice box or the vocal folds). When the larynx moved lower, the pharynx became longer and acted as a resonator, resulting in increased range and clarity of sounds produced via the larynx.

17. 5. Why do you think that young deaf children who become fluent in sign language would be cited in support of the innateness hypothesis?
If these deaf children do not develop speech first, then their language ability would not seem to depend on those physical adaptations of the teeth, larynx, etc. that are involved in speaking. If all children (including those born deaf) can acquire language at about the same time, they must be born with a special capacity to do so. The conclusion is that it must be innate and hence genetically determined.

18. 6. With which of the six “sources” would you associate this quotation?
Chewing, licking and sucking are extremely widespread mammalian activities, which, in terms of casual observation, have obvious similarities with speech. (MacNeilage, 1998)
The physical adaptation source.