16 May 2016Prof. Marc van OostendorpLeiden UniversityNetherland

Miracles of Human Language

Objectives of this course is to answer the following questions?

• What makes language human?• What differentiate it from animal language (if any)?• What are differences & similarities between different languages?• How do we produce sounds?• How do we distinguish sounds?• How do we organize sounds in our minds?• How do languages create words?• How do languages organize words into sentences?• How do we give meanings to our words & sentences?• How do language used in every day life?• What is the relation between language & the brain?• How we receive the language in our brains?

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Human language & Animal Communication Systems

• What is language?• Do animals have languages?• How many languages are there?• How do we count languages?• How are languages related?• What do linguists do?• How do linguists get their data?• What are informants

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• Yes…Animal can communicate to us & to each others in some way

• Some animals have more complicated system of communication but they still can’t make a full conversation…like Apes

• We have more signs & words…but that is all the difference?

• The 3 dimensions that differentiate Human languages are:1. Discrete Infinity (A,B,C….)

Animals also have discrete number of codes, but they can’t combine them to make more & more complicated systems.

2. DisplacementExpressing about things NOT in here & now, past, future, imaginations….

3. Joint AttentionExpressing a shared goal, e.g. speeches & meetings

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Human language vs other languages

• Does every human being have a language?Yes…Language is on of the most distinguishing characteristics of human beings

We use languages to: Communicate ideas To think To who we are

We can’t imagine a society or a social life without language

What do mean by (other languages):Computer language, language of Flowers, language of Music…

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What are important & distinguishing for human language?

1. Native speakers

2. One can speak about everything

3. Recognized by a group of people as their shared language

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What about Sign language? Is it a language?

• Being SPOKEN (Speech) is not one of the characteristics to Human language!

• So YES it is a Human language!

• Sign language as a system has all of the distinguishing criteria for Human language (native speakers, can express everything, communities of deaf people)

• There is a lot of variations that makes there hundreds of sign languages

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Are there people without languages?!

Yes… Unfortunately very rare exceptions for people don’t have language due to some physical, psychological or social impairments of combination of them:

1. Wolf children: children growing up without parents or learned language

2. If there is a physical & psychological abuse (Jene, locked up in her room since age of 12 months till age of 13!! Without any human interaction)

3. Aphasia: the partial loss of language ability as a result of brain damage, like strokes. Discovered first in the 19th century, then scientists started to study the relation between language & the brain

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What is the evolutionary origin of language?

• Is it as old as us? Started with beginning of human beings?

• There is no fossil evidence for that, language is something abstract that vanish directly after being spoken.

• Theories about that are:A. Continuity based theories: language is based on animal communication, just

somewhat more complicated & developed form

B. Discontinuity based theories: Human language is different & there must be something happened or developed in human beings to develop it

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Language diversity

1. Why don’t we all speak the same language?

2. Do all languages have the same origin? May be…in Eastern Africa…but no evidence because language started to be written since only 6,000 years ago…but it will never be known what language it was.

Do constructed language qualify as language? In Sci-fi moviesDo linguists can make or create a language?

Vowels (some have 20 & some have only 1)Some languages tend to put many meanings in one long word (Turkish)Others tend to use short words (Vietnamese) In Chinese they have different word for the older brother of father & the younger.

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Ethnologue

• How many languages in the world?About 6,000 to 7,000….but it is a guess….some are unknown yet…others can be classified as a dialect

• Top 10 languages:1. Chinese 1,200 M2. Spanish 414 M3. English 335 M4. Hindi 260 M5. Arabic 240 M6. Portuguese 203 M7. Bengali 193 M8. Russian 167 M9. Japanese 122 M10. Javanese 85 M

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LANGUAGE FAMILIES

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Germanic (German & English)Romance (French & Italian)Indo-European (Germanic & Romance)Dravidian (in South Asia)Niger-Congo (in Africa)Some languages are still can’t be related to any other language in the world!

Why can languages be similar?

1. Reason of contact between people & languages

2. Physical reason: we all have the similar brains, similar bodies, similar needs…

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What do linguists do?

1. The most famous American social linguists William Labov (1970) said :

2. Linguists work in 5 different :A. In the library (or internet)B. In the closetC. In the bushD. In the streetE. In the lab

3. May be in a 100 years from now only few hundreds of languages will remain. Which is a bad thing unfortunately because every language tells us something about human beings & our history

4. Migration for career & other reason, especially if they didn’t leave any writtin thing behind!

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SOUNDS OF LANGUAGE

2 sub-disciplines of linguists:1. Phonetics: studies physical & physiological aspects of sounds. The way they

vibrate in the air2. Phonology: studies sounds as part of language, omitting linguistically

irrelevant details

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet): it is a way to write down all diff sounds of every individual language in the world

Sounds composed of finite set +/- 20-200 vowels & consonants. Building blocks for constructing words

Some sounds are never used in language although they are so easy, like clapping.

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Distinguishing consonants from vowels & production of speech sounds:

1. In the production of vowels there is no impediment of airstream2. In many languages every syllable has a vowel but not necessarily a

consonant

There are 3 dimensions in which consonants can differ from other:• The place of articulation (where in the mouth)

1. At the lips (labial sounds)2. When your tongue is tipping in the front upper side of mouth (Alveolar) 3. When the body of tongue is tipping in the back part of mouth (Velar)

• Manner of articulation (How)1. Stop/Plosive (K, T, P, B)2. Fricative (closing lips slightly) (S, F)3. Nasal sounds (close mouth & open nose) (M, N)4. Sonorant, sounds goes completely freely (L, GH)

• Voicing (using the vocal cords) (P-B, T-D)

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1. Are there consonants that occur in all languages? (M & T)

What set of consonants is there?Few hundreds

There is one language that has most cons of all?In southern Africa (100-150 different sounds)

Are there also so many vowels?No…fewerConsonants are the ones giving the meaning to words

Are there Vowels that occur in all languages?(A, E, O)

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• In Phonology sounds are constituted of Features (Place, Manner & Voicing)

• In Turkish all words every consonant is voiceless (without moving the vocal cords)

• In Hawaiian language, it has really few consonants, no difference between K & T in the meaning or words.

• Path of acquisition in children:1. P & T2. Then nasal sounds (M, N)3. Then Fricatives (F, S)

• They don’t learn all at once, they learn place & manner of articulation one by one

• Mostly we used different set of sounds 10,000 years ago

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