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The OriginsofLanguage
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Introduction Otto Jesperson (1921) language
originated while humans werecourting or enjoying themselves.
Communicated to attract
attention by making sounds,particularly the opposite sex.
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Divine Source
Most religions claim that divinityprovides humans to communicate
with language.
Language came from god.
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The Divine Source
One view says that God created Adam
and whatsoever Adam called everyliving creature, that was the namethereof. (Genesis 2:19).
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According to Hindu tradition, language came
from the goddess Sarasvati, the wife of
Brahma, creator of the universe.
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In an attempt to test this theory, a few
experiments have been carried out, with rather
conflicting results.
E.g. An Egyptian pharaoh Psammetichus tried
to experiment with 2 born infants in 600BC,
where they are left in the company of goats
and a mute shepherd.
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Outcome of Experiment
After 2 years, children did not utter anyEgyptian words, but Phrygian word bekos,which means bread.
Pharaoh concluded that that the Phrygianlanguage is actually the original language ofgod.
Several people commented that the childrenmust have picked up the word from theshepherd.
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Other tests
Similar test was done by James IV of Scotlandwhere similar results were obtained.
In conclusion, children living without any access tohuman speech grow up without language at all.
NO SPEECH = NO LANGUAGE
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Aristotle, Poetics
Art is imitation, and thats all right, even good.
Imitation is natural to humans fromchildhood.
Imitation is how children learn, and we all
learn from imitations.
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Natural-sound Source
Primitive words can be the imitations of naturalsounds.
E.g. when a flying object went by and made thesound of cuckoo, that became the name of thebird.
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Natural-sound Source
Also known as the bow-
wow theory.
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It is true that there are onomatopoeic wordsin every language, words that echonatural sounds.
For example: CUCKOO, SPLASH,BANG, RATTLE, BUZZ, etc.
Natural-sound Source
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Cries of emotion like pain, anger,
joy brought in sounds of language
Natural-sound
Source
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The Oral-Gesture Source
Involves a link between physical gesture and
orally produced sounds.
After physical gestures were developed as
means of communication, oral gestures were
developed involving movements of the tongue,
lips, etc.
oral gestures were recognized to patterns of
movement similar to physical gestures.
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The Oral-Gesture Source
Many of ourphysical gestures,using body hands
and face, are meansofnonverbalcommunicationand are used by
modern humans,even with theirdeveloped linguistic
skills.
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The "oral-gesture
theory" proposes
an extremely
specific connection
between physical
and oral gestureinvolving a
"specialized
pantomime of thetongue and lips"
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Glossogenetics
Biological basis of the formation and
development of human language.
As we evolved, our development of thehuman language also evolved.
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Physiological Adaptation
Physical aspects of humans are not shared with
other creatures.
Human teethupright, not slanting and shorter
in height. [f, v, th]
Human lipsmore intricate muscle,
flexibility. [p, b, w]
Human larynx (voice box)differs in position.
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Human brain is lateralized.
Has two hemispheres where left isresponsible for language.
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Human and Monkey Brain
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There are two major functions of language use:
The interactional function has to do with howhumans use language to interact with each
other socially or emotionally.
How Humans started to interact
with each other?
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The transactional function
has to do with
communicating knowledge,
skills and information.
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This transactional function will have
developed, in part, for the transfer of
knowledge from one generation to the next.
And while there are cultures that rely mainly
on their oral tradition, in many cases, as speech
by its nature is transient, the desire for a more
permanent record must have developed:written language
http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~rober/linguistics/writing_dev.htmlhttp://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~rober/linguistics/writing_dev.htmlTop Related