The Origins Of Language
“ Chewing, licking and
sucking are extremely widespread mammalian activities, which, in terms of
casual observation, have obvious similarities with speech.”~MacNeilage (1998).
In short, those kind of
actions show the observation that can lead to interesting speculations about
the origins of spoken language.
As far as I am
concerned, there were six early speculations ;
a) The Divine Source
b) The Natural Sound
Source
c) The Physical
Adaptation Source
d) Teeth, lips, mouth,
larynx and pharynx
e) The Human Brain
f) The Genetic Source
In term of "The Divine Source, in the biblical tradition, God
created Adam and "whatsoever Adam called every living creature,that was the
name thereof". While for Hindu tradition, language came from Sarasvati,
wife of Brahma, creator of the universe. Therefore, in most religions, there
were appears to be a divine source who provides humans with language.
In term of "The Natural Sound
Source", all modern languages have some words with pronunciations
which 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 forms such as bow-wow
that holds those vocabularies developed from imitations of animal
sounds. In other words, the first human words were a type of index, a sign
whose form is naturally connected with its meaning in time and space. Therefore, one term so-called onomatopoeic (echoing
natural sounds) has come up right away.
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In term of "The
Physical Adaptation Source", one scholar named Theodosius Dobzhansky has summarized “Adaptation” as
the evolutionary process whereby an organism becomes better able to live in its habitat or
habitats. Extend to that, the humans possess some physical features in order to provide the ability of
speech production. In the evolutionary development, the Neanderthal is supposed
to be developed from apes where the physical adaptation of a human being is
more relevant to speech than the one of apes. Therefore, language has started
with the human evolution.
In term of "Teeth, lips, mouth, larynx and pharynx”,
basically the teeth themselves serve to
rip, tear, grind and chew any food before entering our body. It was also very
helpful in making sounds such f or v. Human lips have extra special intricate
muscle in making sounds such as p or b. The human mouth is usually quite small
among all which it can be opened and closed rapidly as well as containing a
smaller, thicker and more muscular tongue which can be used to shape a wide
variety of sounds inside the oral cavity. While larynx or voice box consists
vocal cords and pharynx which acts as a resonator for increasing range and
clarity of the sounds produced via the larynx.
In term of "The
Human Brain", it is lateralized and has specialized functions
in each of two hemispheres. These two hemispheres will control motor movements
such as speaking and object manipulation (making or using tools) . The left
hemisphere of the brain was quite prominent part for most human as it was known
as an evolutionary connection between language-using and tool-using abilities
of humans.
Lastly, in term of "The Genetic
Source", it looks like to indicate that human offspring are born with a
special capacity for language. This kind of innateness hypothesis leads upon
something in human genetics especially crucial mutation (the act or process of being altered or changed) as the source. For instance, a computer is known as
hard-wired or being pre-programmed which indicates how language moving away
from the physical source of basic human sounds. As a result, this kind of investigation
leads into the special “language gene” which is only human possess.
#ByGabriel
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