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    Theories On Origin of Languages

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    merlin selastina
    The document discusses various myths and theories about the origin of human language. It describes myths from Christian, Hindu, Greek, Native American and African traditions involving events like the Tower of Babel or a severe famine causing language diversification. Early folklore theories proposed that language emerged from sounds mimicking nature, emotions, objects' qualities, or songs. In 1866, the Paris Linguistic Society banned debate on unscientific origin theories. Modern hypotheses explore ideas like language emerging from social interactions, ritual speech co-evolution, or theories involving genetics and cognitive science. The origin of language remains very difficult to determine with certainty.

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    Theories On Origin of Languages

    Uploaded by

    merlin selastina
    91 views6 pages
    The document discusses various myths and theories about the origin of human language. It describes myths from Christian, Hindu, Greek, Native American and African traditions involving events like the Tower of Babel or a severe famine causing language diversification. Early folklore theories proposed that language emerged from sounds mimicking nature, emotions, objects' qualities, or songs. In 1866, the Paris Linguistic Society banned debate on unscientific origin theories. Modern hypotheses explore ideas like language emerging from social interactions, ritual speech co-evolution, or theories involving genetics and cognitive science. The origin of language remains very difficult to determine with certainty.

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    Theories on Origin of Languages

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    The document discusses various myths and theories about the origin of human language. It describes myths from Christian, Hindu, Greek, Native American and African traditions involving events like the Tower of Babel or a severe famine causing language diversification. Early folklore theories proposed that language emerged from sounds mimicking nature, emotions, objects' qualities, or songs. In 1866, the Paris Linguistic Society banned debate on unscientific origin theories. Modern hypotheses explore ideas like language emerging from social interactions, ritual speech co-evolution, or theories involving genetics and cognitive science. The origin of language remains very difficult to determine with certainty.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    91 views6 pages

    Theories On Origin of Languages

    Uploaded by

    merlin selastina
    The document discusses various myths and theories about the origin of human language. It describes myths from Christian, Hindu, Greek, Native American and African traditions involving events like the Tower of Babel or a severe famine causing language diversification. Early folklore theories proposed that language emerged from sounds mimicking nature, emotions, objects' qualities, or songs. In 1866, the Paris Linguistic Society banned debate on unscientific origin theories. Modern hypotheses explore ideas like language emerging from social interactions, ritual speech co-evolution, or theories involving genetics and cognitive science. The origin of language remains very difficult to determine with certainty.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
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    of 6

    1

    J. JOHN SEKAR
    THE AMERICAN COLELGE

    Theories on the Origin of Language


    1 Introduction
    1.1 There had been innumerable stories about origin,
    development and reasons behind diversity in languages today.
    The myths have similarities, recurring themes, and differences
    passed on to successive generations through oral tradition.
    Recurring themes about language dispersal are floods and
    catastrophes that caused the people to scatter over the face of
    the planet. God’s punishment for wrong doing is another
    recurring theme.
    1.1.1 Christian myth
    • The Hebrew Bible attributes the origin of language per se
    to human beings. Adam was asked to name the creatures
    God had created.
    • The Tower of Babel from Genesis tells of God punishing
    humanity for arrogance and disobedience by confusing
    tongues. “And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one,
    and they have all one language; and this they begin to do:
    and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they
    have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there
    confound their language, that they may not understand one
    another's speech. (Genesis 11:5-6).
    2

    1.1.2 Hindu myth


    • God Brahma punished a proud tree and then differences in
    language and diversity in culture and customs into being.
    • Vāc is the Hindu goddess of speech, or "speech
    personified." She is presented as the consort of Prajapati,
    who is likewise presented as the origin of the Veda. She
    became conflated with Sarasvati in later Hindu mythology.
    1.1.3 Greek myth
    • People had lived without law under the rule of Zeus and
    spoke one language. It was gifted to them by gods.
    • The god Hermes brought diversity in speech and along
    with it separation into nations and discord ensued.
    1.1.4 Native American myth
    Native American tribes share the Great Flood stories of many
    cultures and civilizations that after water subsided speech
    was diversified.
    1.1.5 African myth
    In the beginning the peoples of the earth knew only one
    language, but after a severe famine, madness struck the
    people causing them to wander in all directions and this
    brought about languages.
    3

    1.2 Folklore myths


    1.2.1 Bow-wow theory: Discourse emerged from individuals
    mirroring the sounds that things influence. Language began
    when our ancestors started imitating the natural sounds
    around them. The first speech was onomatopoeic—marked
    by echoic words such as moo, meow, splash,
    cuckoo, and bang
    Limitations
    Relatively few words are onomatopoeic, and these words
    vary from one language to another. For instance, a dog's bark
    is heard as au au in Brazil, ham ham in Albania, and wang,
    wang in China. In addition, many onomatopoeic words are of
    recent origin, and not all are derived from natural sounds.
    1.2.2 Pooh-pooh theory: Discourse originated from the
    programmed vocal reactions to torment, dread, shock, or
    different feelings. Speech began with interjections—
    spontaneous cries of pain ("Ouch!"), surprise ("Oh!"), and
    other emotions ("Yabba dabba do!").
    Limitations
    No language contains very many interjections, and, Crystal
    points out, "the clicks, intakes of breath, and other noises
    which are used in this way bear little relationship to
    the vowels and consonants found in phonology."
    4

    1.2.3 Ding-dong theory: Discourse mirrors some magical


    reverberation associated with things on the planet. Speech
    arose in response to the essential qualities of objects in the
    environment. The original sounds people made were
    supposedly in harmony with the world around them.
    Limitations
    Apart from some rare instances of sound symbolism, there is
    no persuasive evidence, in any language, of an innate
    connection between sound and meaning.
    1.2.4 Yo-he-ho theory: Discourse began with cadenced serenades
    and snorts individuals use to arrange their physical activities
    when they cooperated. Language evolved from the grunts,
    groans, and snorts evoked by heavy physical labor.
    Limitations
    Though this notion may account for some of the rhythmic
    features of the language, it doesn't go very far in explaining
    where words come from.
    1.2.5 La-la theory: Discourse rose up out of the hints of roused
    energy, adore, graceful sensibility and tune. The Danish
    linguist Otto Jespersen suggested that language may have
    developed from sounds associated with love, play, and
    (especially) song.
    Limitations
    5

    As David Crystal notes in "How Language Works" (Penguin,


    2005), this theory still fails to account for "... the gap
    between the emotional and the rational aspects of speech
    expression..."
    1.3 Paris Linguistic Society
    1.3.1 Such speculation was restricted when the Paris Linguistic
    Society was established in 1866.
    1.3.2 Shortage of empirical evidence treats such hypotheses as
    unsuitable for serious study.
    1.3.3 The Society banned existing and future debates on the subject
    and it remained influential across much of the western world.
    1.3.4 In the late 20th century, a number of hypotheses were again
    proposed, of course with a lot of scientific basis.
    1.3.5 a) mother tongues hypothesis, b) obligatory reciprocal
    altruism hypothesis, c) gossip & grooming hypothesis, d)
    ritual/speech co-evolution, e) humanistic theory, f)
    Chomsky’s single step theory, g) Romulus and Remus
    hypothesis, h) Gestural theory, i) motor theory, j) Mirror
    neuron theory, k) putting the baby down theory, l) from
    where to what theory, m) grammaticalization theory, n)
    evolution progression model, o) self-domesticated ape
    theory.
    6

    1.4 Conclusions
    1.4.1 As Peter Farb says in "Word Play: What Happens When
    People Talk" (Vintage, 1993): "All these speculations have
    serious flaws, and none can withstand the close scrutiny of
    present knowledge about the structure of language and about
    the evolution of our species."
    1.4.2 But does this mean that all questions about the origin of
    language are unanswerable? Not necessarily.
    1.4.3 Over the past 20 years, scholars from such diverse fields as
    genetics, anthropology, and cognitive science have been
    engaged, as Kenneally says, in "a cross-discipline,
    multidimensional treasure hunt" to find out how language
    began. It is, she says, "the hardest problem in science today."
    1.4.4 As William James remarked, "Language is the most
    imperfect and expensive means yet discovered for
    communicating thought."

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