Tuesday, May 30, 2017
My obsession with languages has developed from, simply an admiration
for the magnificent diversities from one language to another, to a fascination
for the creation or origin of the language itself.
Can you imagine how every basic, ancient word was created? What was the
first group of words people created to communicate? And how did they make some
agreements of how they call this and that, without even any written language to
make a note?
The definition of “language”:
First of all, let’s start with the definition of language itself.
Language is defined as following:
1. A body of words and the systems for their use common to a people who
are of the same community or nation, the same geographical area, or the same
cultural tradition.
2. Communication by voice in the distinctively human manner, using
arbitrary sounds in conventional ways with conventional meanings.
3. The system of linguistic signs or symbols considered in the abstract (opposed
to speech).
4. Any set or system of such symbols as used in a more or less uniform
fashion by a number of people, who are thus enabled to communicate intelligibly
with one another.
5. Any system of formalized symbols, signs, sounds, gestures, or the like
used or conceived as a means of communicating thought, emotion, etc.
Language is the ability to acquire and use complex systems of
communication, particularly the human ability to do so, and a language is any
specific example of such a system. The scientific study of language is called
linguistics.
Human is the only species who has developed languages that are more
than sounds and signs. We have this very unique, special section in our brain
that "organises sound and meaning on a rational basis", not instinct.
Language is processed in many different locations in the human brain, but
especially in Broca's and Wernicke's areas.
A TV show in National Geographic Channel, "Brain Games"
talked about the creation of language once. We have this cortical speech centre
that helps us connecting all of our five senses with words and meanings.
Human brain can create a word for a thing from the way it sounds,
appears, tastes, feels, and smells.
So, I found the link but couldn't watch the video. But I remember the
test. That TV show showed a simple test. The respondents got to match two
abstract images with two random, non-existing words. It turned out that
most--if not all--of them chose the same word for the same image.
Ugh I really wish I could play the video so I could explain it better.
Anyway, if your phone/computer/internet connection is able to play the video,
just watch that episode. That was one of my favorite episodes. In fact, that's
my favorite.
Anyway, the simple test showed how human brain makes a correlation
between the images and the words. And it gave me a little more imagination of
how languages are created from the beginning.
Fact is, to really address the origin of language is one of the hardest
problem in science. For centuries, many linguists, archaeologists,
psychologist, anthropologists, and other experts have made numerous hypotheses
about how, why, when, and where language might have emerged.
In 1866, the Linguistic Society of Paris even banned all discussion of
the origin of language, left it an unanswered problem. But, in the early 20th
century, the research for the origin of language started again, and it keeps
going until now.
So, here I can only post some summaries of what I learn from some
articles I found on Google. If you love to read, of course you can learn so
much better and so much more from the books.
(to be continued in the next post)
Check on my previous posts:
"Some Sorta Short Introduction"
"The Language I've Spoken, Learned, and am Recently Learning"
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