11–20 of 93 posts
Historians and linguists generally agree that Sumerian, Akkadian and Egyptian are the oldest languages with a clear written record. All three are extinct Umm, what? Coptic is a (barely) living Egyptian. It is close enough for us to have deciphered hieroglyphs, hieratic, and demotic, at the old, middle, and late stages. Yes the Greek on the Rosetta stone helped but Coptic sealed the deal, particularly with translitera…
Historians and linguists generally agree that Sumerian, Akkadian and Egyptian are the oldest languages with a clear written record. All three are extinct Umm, what? Coptic is a (barely) living Egyptian. It is close enough for us to have deciphered hieroglyphs, hieratic, and demotic, at the old, middle, and late stages. Yes the Greek on the Rosetta stone helped but Coptic sealed the deal, particularly with translitera…
Historians and linguists generally agree that Sumerian, Akkadian and Egyptian are the oldest languages with a clear written record. All three are extinct Umm, what? Coptic is a (barely) living Egyptian. It is close enough for us to have deciphered hieroglyphs, hieratic, and demotic, at the old, middle, and late stages. Yes the Greek on the Rosetta stone helped but Coptic sealed the deal, particularly with translitera…
Coptic is as dead as Latin. No one speaks it as a native language.
There are so many fascinating things about languages. Here are a couple: - Toss people together who don't really have a common language, and they quickly evolve a pidgin, which is a very simplified kind of language that lets them communicate. Over a couple of generations, the pidgin evolves into a full language. This has happened repeatedly over history, often through things like conquering or enslaving other groups…
Yes, and full creole languages, ones with relatively little of the grammar of their parent languages, have a number of similarities in their grammar. These similarities persist whatever the parent languages. Different continents, different parent languages, grammatical similarities.
For example, plurals are often formed by reduplication (dog -> dog-dog = dogs), word order is subject-verb-object or subject-object-verb, suffixes follow the morpheme they're attached to. The grammars are extremely regular, almost no exceptions, no complex sound-fusion rules. It's generally thought that creole languages, immediately after formation, are actually simpler than most other languages grammatically. Which may have been like creoles at one point but then picked up a bunch of useless nonsense you just have to memorize. (This view is sometimes challenged, and it must be admitted, it is hard to define and measure complexity in language.)
That is one of those small hints that language may be physiologically innate, or an emergent phenomenon that recreates itself in similar ways each time it is invented by people who need to communicate -- i.e., universal grammar, that ever-so-tempting yet ever-so-unprovable idea that got everyone tangled up last century.
Very disappointing article, and a reminder to me that, when the headline is a question, the article rarely contains the answer. It's as though the author went down a rabbit hole of her own curiosity for a couple hours, came up with next to nothing, but had to justify the time spent.
There are so many fascinating things about languages. Here are a couple: - Toss people together who don't really have a common language, and they quickly evolve a pidgin, which is a very simplified kind of language that lets them communicate. Over a couple of generations, the pidgin evolves into a full language. This has happened repeatedly over history, often through things like conquering or enslaving other groups…
Swiss German is not regarded as a its own language by any nation, though from a purely linguistic perspective it could very well be classified as its own language. What is deemed a language vs. a dialect usually comes down to politics. The saying usually goes something like: "A language is just a dialect with an army".
What makes them think that there was just one proto-language not several ones that appeared independently from each other?
There are a few more concrete reasons to specifically believe against independent development of language. If you believe that language faculties arise very quickly after evolution of a biological organ to facilitate language, that suggests that the ability to have language is a key part of Homo sapiens and therefore language would have originated only once in the development in Homo sapiens as a species.
What makes them think that there was just one proto-language not several ones that appeared independently from each other?
There’s no evidence that Homo Sapiens, aside from some interbreeding with other hominids interacted with other hominids who were capable of complex language for that to be possible. And a multiple origin scenario for behaviourally modern humans flies in the face of modern science, archaeology, and palaeontology to such a degree that it would basically require magic.
What makes them think that there was just one proto-language not several ones that appeared independently from each other?
There are apparent examples of languages being invented, with no clear parent language. [1] When education for the deaf is first introduced, children from many different families are brought together. Most do not have full language - they cannot communicate with language with anyone. Some are part of small clusters, families or small villages where many are deaf. [2] They often do have full languages. These languages are usually untraceable in origin. They're not related to each other, usually.
Pool these kids these together in a school and they will create a full language, a creole [3], in just a few years.
It's unclear, IMO, exactly how to interpret that effect. The children are not completely without language. They're obviously aware of the concept of language, a few of them may even have full languages (even if they can't use it with the other kids) and the teachers are also trying to teach them language, usually American sign if there's nothing local. So it can't be said to be language popping up in a true vacuum. But it is certainly curious.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaraguan_Sign_Language
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha%27s_Vineyard_Sign_Langu...
What makes them think that there was just one proto-language not several ones that appeared independently from each other?
There’s no evidence that Homo Sapiens, aside from some interbreeding with other hominids interacted with other hominids who were capable of complex language for that to be possible. And a multiple origin scenario for behaviourally modern humans flies in the face of modern science, archaeology, and palaeontology to such a degree that it would basically require magic.