Monday, December 13, 2010

More on language and its origins…



Language is a very interesting and complex subject, and finding its true origins is something that we can only guess at. It is a field that is ever changing and growing to accommodate our new technologies and ways of life.  It is, as Christine Kenneally describes it, “Language is the real information highway, the fist virtual world.  Language is the worldwide web and everyone is logged on.”  Through this blog we have tried to outline what we know about the origins of language to the best of our ability.  However, this is such a controversial and widely hypothesized topic that we are only able to scratch the surface.  There is much more information available on the topic and since we have run out of time we will leave you with some further reading on the subject.  Here is a list of three books that elaborate more on the subject…

By: Christine Kenneally

By: Boris Mitrofanovich VelichkovskiÄ­, and Duane M. Rumbaugh

By: John H. McWhorter

Happy Reading!





Friday, December 10, 2010

Noam Chomsky’s View: On the Evolution of Language

            Noam Chomsky is commonly known as the father of modern linguistics. He has heavily influenced what we understand linguistics to be and he has made contributions as a philosopher and cognitive scientist. Noam Chomsky is one of the most influential scientists of modern and has given us a much better understanding of the human condition. His main contributions as a linguistic have been his theories of generative grammar and Chomsky hierarchy. With all of these contributions to language, his theory on the evolution of language is quite limited.
With regards to the evolution of language, Chomsky has not given much importance to the development of language. Mostly because he cannot imagine how the evolution of language came about. An example of Chomsky’s belief can be seen in the following quote:
Perhaps at some time hundreds of thousands of years ago, some small change took place; some mutation took place in the cells of pre-human organisms. And for reasons of physics, which are not yet understood, that led to the representation in the mind/brain of the mechanisms of discrete infinity, the basic concept of language and also of the number system. Perhaps that was the origin of human language. (Chomsky 1988, 183)
This is the common belief of Chomsky when it comes to the evolution of language. For the most part he is indifferent to the various theories presented on the evolution of language and to the importance of understanding it.  His ending sentence, “Perhaps that was the origin of human language” is a clear example of his apathy to the subject. For a man who has theories on almost everything (not just language) it is interesting that he is yet to formulate a strong theory for the evolution of language. His claim is that if language came to us by some random small mutation in our cells then that would not do much for understanding of language in the first place. Chomsky cannot see where the Darwinism component of natural selection would have occurred to give humans this common form of language.
We must take Chomsky’s point of view with a grain of salt, just because he does not have a strong theory about the evolution of language does not mean that learning it is not important. The difficulty of understanding the evolution of language should not be an indictment on its’ important rather it could be more of an indictment of our own intelligence. The evolution of language is complicated and still one of the great mysteries of the world. It may have been a random mutation without any clear advantages, but we still do not know. To better understand ourselves we must continue develop theories and research the evolution of language, because language is what separates us from other animals.
Sources:
Chomsky, Noam 1988. Language and Problems of Knowledge: The Managua Lectures. Cambridge, Mass. / London, England: MIT Press (Current Studies in Linguistics Series 16).


Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Communication Versus Language

We often see animals communicate with other animals; at least with the same species by making different kinds of noises that superficially resemble language. The bird songs, monkey alarms and honey bee dances are some of the examples that show animal characteristics resemble human beings learning of language but still, these characteristics do not prove that animals have languages.  Even if these parallels are considered as language, no non-human species have the cognitive ability to put these facets of language into an arranged rule generated system. The sounds that animals make are not equivalent to words and are far different if compared to nouns, verbs and sentences that make up human languages. The question is then what is language?  Are languages just forms of communication or do they have more to it? Human beings use many gestures in order to communicate but those gestures are not considered as language therefore, languages have more characteristics other than just to communicate. In the book called ‘The Symbolic Species,’ Terrence W. Deacon explains why the communication system used by the animals is not language and why there is no such thing as a simple language.

The author breaks down the book to three sections: the first part of the book talks about the nature of language, and the reasons why it is virtually confined to human beings. The second part of the book is about the brain, the uniqueness about the human brain that corresponds with the unique problems posed by language. The third part of the book talks about the co evolution of human brain and language. In the book, language is explained as an outward expression of an unusual mode of thought that help people to organize memories and ideas, shape thoughts and grasp the physical world in a better way.  The author mentions that the symbolic thoughts do not come innately but, grow by internalizing the symbolic process that underlies language. Grammar differentiates language from other forms communication that resembles language.

Deacon references Noam Chomsky’s argument that the ability of children to acquire the grammar of their first language and the ability of adults effortlessly to use this grammar can only be explained if we assume that all the grammars are variations of a single generic “Universal Grammar,” and that all human brains come with a built in language organ that comes with a language blue print. Language did not replace our other forms of communication as the non linguistic forms of communication co-evolved with language. This is proved by the fact that innate calls and gestures of other primates co-exist with human language.
Other aspects that prove language is exclusively for human beings is our exceptionally large brain and differently designed vocal tract. Our vocal tract beside chewing, breathing and swallowing can also make a wide variety of sounds that help humans to speak. Researches were conducted to evaluate how fast chimps pick up languages as they are human being’s closest primate but they master in communication with only a number of sign. In contrast, a human baby of age two or three pick up language very fast and this happens without any formal teaching. This proves that learning language is an innate part of human beings. The left part of human brain deals with language and the neuronal mechanism dealing with it is very different from the part of brain with general intelligence.   In an uncommon type of impairment called Specific Language Impairment, affected people have problems in grasping language whereas the other forms of cognition are normal. The opposite happens in spina bifida where the affected people have mental retardation yet they are fluent in language. The example of these two disorders shows that language is handled by human brain in a very unique way.
Work cited
The Symbolic Species by Terrence W. Deacon

Thursday, December 2, 2010

How Many Languages Are There?

The top nine widely spread languages are Mandarin (Chinese), Arabic, Spanish, English, Portuguese, Bengali, Hindi/Urdu, Russian and Japanese but there is no certainty to the exact number of languages that exist in this world.  Linguists give a figure from 3,000 to 10,000. The reason there is such a diverse range is that language is under constant change and many languages died and evolved over that period of time. Language is under constant change because it is transmitted to generations by learning. Every generation learn language from a different peer and see people interacting differently.           
Over the time, many languages died for example a language named Trumai. This language grew in Lower Culuene River of Brazil. In 1962, an epidemic influenza hit that place and by the end of that influenza the number of Trumai speakers drastically fell and became less than ten people and the language eventually died down. This example explains how some languages with very few speakers die after its speakers die. It is surprising to see how fast some languages can die for instance in Amazonia, the tribal language was superseded by the western language so that the tribal people can communicate better with the outside world. The new generation accepted and learned the new language fast and the tribal languages died as the earlier generation tribal people died. According to the record of the nineteenth century there were 1000 native Amazonian Indian languages and now, only 200 of those languages are ‘alive.’ Even today, all the languages in this world are not discovered. In the isolated places like Amazonia, Central Africa, New Guinea there are various tribal languages that are not discovered because linguistic studies is not yet completed in all parts of the world.  It is a common assumption that people living in the same location speak their known language or dialect but there can be no guarantee of that unless it is investigated because even the languages that sound and seem similar can be different.
Language and dialect:
         A language can have many versions like English has American, UK, Australian, New Zealand version and they have distinct dialects. These different versions of English have differences in spelling and pronunciation but there is no dispute that it is one language, English. There are no differences in the written form of English. But other factors like politics, ethics, religion and culture can differentiate languages in spite of their many similarities. For instance, Urdu and Hindi are very similar but still they are considered as different languages. For some cases, the opposite occurs. Languages that are completely different are considered the same language because of politics, history, and culture. For example the hundred of dialects of Chinese can be categorized into eight groups but they share the same written version. So there are different versions of Chinese, but they are still considered the same language.                                                           
After considering all these above reasons, it is not possible to give an exact count to the number of languages in the world. According to Ethnologue there are over 37,000 languages of which approximately 6,500 are living languages. The International Encyclopedia of Linguistics states that there are approximately 6600 languages that include the 300 extinct languages. So, some of the linguists have agreed that there are 6000 to 7000 living languages but there are many confusions and contradictions to how many total number of languages, both ‘dead’ and ‘alive’ existed in this world.
Work cited:
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