The Origins of Language PDF

The Origins of Language The origins of language  The origins of language 1. The divine source 2. The natural sound source 3. The social interaction source 4. The physical adaptation source 5. The tool-making source 6. The genetic source  1. The divine sourc...

The Origins of Language The origins of language  The origins of language 1. The divine source 2. The natural sound source 3. The social interaction source 4. The physical adaptation source 5. The tool-making source 6. The genetic source  1. The divine source  Biblical Story (Adam)  Egyptian Pharaoh (Psammetichus)  King James 1. The divine source Biblical Story (Adam)  1. The divine source ▶Biblical Source In the book of Genesis, God created Adam and “whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.” ▶Hindu Tradition Language came from Sarasvati, wife of Brahma, creator of the universe.  Basic assumption of Divine Source Theory:  If human infants were allowed to grow up without hearing any language around them, then they would spontaneously begin using the original God-given language.  1. The divine source Egyptian Pharaoh (Psammetichus) The Greek writer Herodotus reported the story of an Egyptian pharaoh named Psammetichus (or Psamtik) who tried the experiment with two newborn babies more than 2,500 years ago. After two years of isolation except for the company of goats and a mute shepherd, the children were reported to have spontaneously uttered, not an Egyptian word, but something that was identified as the Phrygian word bekos, meaning bread.” The pharaoh concluded that Phrygian, an older language spoken in part of what is modern Turkey, must be  1. The divine source Egyptian Pharaoh (Psammetichus) That seems very unlikely. The children may not have picked up this “word” from any human source, but as several commentators have pointed out, they must have heard what the goats were saying. (First remove the -kos ending, which was added in the Greek version of the story, then pronounce be- as you would the English word bed without -d at the end. Can you hear a goat?) 1. The divine source King James’ experiment King James the Fourth of Scotland carried out a similar experiment around the year 1500 and the children were reported to have spontaneously started speaking Hebrew, confirming the King’s belief that Hebrew had indeed been the language of the Garden of Eden.  The origins of language 1. The divine source 2. Natural sound source 3. The social interaction source 4. The physical adaptation source 5. The tool-making source 6. The genetic source  2. The natural sound source A quite different view of the beginnings of language is based on the concept of natural sounds. The human auditory system is already functioning before birth (at around seven months). That early processing capacity develops into an ability to identify sounds in the environment, allowing humans to make a connection between a sound and the thing producing that sound. This leads to the idea that primitive words derive from  2. The natural sound source: The “bow-wow” Theory In this scenario, when different objects flew by, making a Caw-Caw or Coo-Coo sound, the early human tried to imitate the sounds and then used them to refer to those objects even when they weren’t present. The fact that all modern languages have some words with pronunciations that seem to echo naturally occurring sounds could be used to support this theory. In English, in addition to cuckoo, we have splash, bang, boom, rattle, buzz, hiss, screech, and of course bow- wow. 2. The natural sound source: The “pooh-pooh” theory Speech developed from the instinctive sounds people make in emotional circumstances. That is, the original sounds of language may have come from natural cries of emotion such as pain, anger and joy. By this route, presumably, Ouch! came to have its painful connotations. But Ouch! and other interjections such as Ah!, Ooh!, Phew!, Wow! or Yuck! are usually produced with sudden intakes of breath, which is the opposite of ordinary talk.  The origins of language 1. The divine source 2. The natural sound source 3. Social interaction 4. The physical adaptation source 5. The tool-making source 6. The genetic source  3. The social interaction source The “yo-he-ho” theory The idea is that the sounds of a person involved in physical effort could be the source of our language, especially when that physical effort involved several people and the interaction had to be coordinated. So, a group of early humans might develop a set of hums, grunts, groans and curses that were used when they were lifting and carrying  3. The social interaction source Apes and other primates live in social groups and use grunts and social calls, but they do not seem to have developed the capacity for speech.  The origins of language 1. The divine source 2. The natural sound source 3. The social interaction source 4. Physical adaptation 5. The tool-making source 6. The genetic source  4. The physical adaptation source Instead of looking at types of sounds as the source of human speech, we can look at the types of physical features humans possess, especially those that are distinct from other creatures, which may have been able to support speech production. 4. The physical adaptation source 4. The physical adaptation source 4. The physical adaptation source 4. The physical adaptation source Teeth and lips: Human teeth are upright, not slanting outwards like those of apes, and they are roughly even in height. Such characteristics are not very useful for ripping or tearing food and seem better adapted for grinding and chewing. They are also very helpful in making sounds such as f or v. Human lips have much more intricate muscle interlacing than is found in other primates and their resulting flexibility certainly helps in making sounds like p, b and m. 4. The physical adaptation source Mouth and tongue: The human mouth is relatively small compared to other primates and can be opened and closed rapidly. It is also part of an extended vocal tract that has much more of an L-shape than the fairly straight path from front to back in other mammals. In contrast to the fairly thin flat tongue of other large primates, humans have a shorter, thicker and more muscular tongue that can be used to shape a wide variety of sounds inside the oral cavity. In addition, unlike other primates, humans can close off the airway through the nose to create more air pressure in the 4. The physical adaptation source Larynx and pharynx: The human larynx or “voice box” (containing the vocal folds or vocal cords) differs significantly in position from the larynx of other primates such as monkeys. In the course of human physical development, the assumption of an upright posture moved the head more directly above the spinal column and the larynx dropped to a lower position. This created a longer cavity called the pharynx, above the vocal folds, which acts as a resonator for increased range and clarity of the sounds produced via the larynx and the vocal tract.  The origins of language 1. The divine source 2. The natural sound source 3. The social interaction source 4. The physical adaptation source 5. Tool-making source 6. The genetic source 5. The tool-making source Manual gestures may have been a precursor of language. By about two million years ago, there is evidence that humans had developed preferential right-handedness and had become capable of making stone tools. Wood tools and composite tools eventually followed. Tool-making, or the outcome of manipulating objects and changing them using both hands, is evidence of a 5. The tool-making source The human brain The human brain is not only large relative to human body size, it is also lateralized, that is, it has specialized functions in each of the two hemispheres. Those functions that control the motor movements involved in complex vocalization (speaking) and object manipulation (making or using tools) are very close to each other in the left hemisphere of the brain. 5. The tool-making source 5. The tool-making source  The origins of language 1. The divine source 2. The natural sound source 3. The social interaction source 4. The physical adaptation source 5. The tool-making source 6. The genetic source 6. The genetic source The innateness hypothesis: Human offspring are born with a special capacity for language. It is innate, no other creature seems to have it, and it isn’t tied to a specific variety of language. It is possible that this language capacity is genetically hard-wired in the newborn human. 6. The genetic source 6. The genetic source 6. The genetic source The innateness hypothesis points to something in human genetics, possibly a crucial mutation, as the source. This would not have been a gradual change, but something that happened rather quickly. We are not sure when this proposed genetic change might have taken place or how it might relate to the physical adaptations. 6. The genetic source With this hypothesis, our speculations about the origins of language move away from fossil evidence or the physical source of basic human sounds toward analogies with how computers work (e.g. being pre- programmed or hard-wired) and concepts taken from the study of genetics. The investigation of the origins of language then turns into a search for the special “language gene” that only humans possess.  The origin of Theories Arguments for Arguments against Development (monogenetic) language The divine source Suddenly The natural sound Existence of Soundless things Gradually source (bow- and abstract wow/pooh-pooh) onomatopoe concepts ia Produced with intake of breath The social Early humans Other primates Gradually interaction source lived in groups also live in (yo-he-ho) groups and use grunts The physical There’s evidence for These changes Gradually adaptation source the evolutionary would not (teeth, lips, changes themselves lead mouth, larynx & to speech pharynx) production The tool-making Accounts for Gradually source (brain) structural organisation of language The genetic source Automatic set Suddenly (innateness theory) of Thank you so much Homework: Read Ch 2