HISTORY OF
LANGUAGE
A.
The origins of language
What is
language? Language is a part of culture. It is a part of human behavior.
Language is an acquired of systematic vocal activity representing meanings
coming from human experience.[1]
Language is the most important aspect in the life of
all beings. We use
language to express inner thoughts and emotions, make sense of complex and
abstract thought, to learn to communicate with others, to fulfill our wants and
needs, as well as to establish rules and maintain our culture. Language can be defined as verbal,
physical, biologically innate, and a basic form of communication.[2]
Language is system of communication in speech and writing used by
people of particular country.[3]
Since long time
ago, there have been endearing speculations about the origins of language,
which might be due to the absence of physical evidence. We simply do not know
how language originated. We only know that spoken language developed well
before written language. Here some speculation of origins of language.[4]
1.
The divine source
In most religions there appears to be a divine source who provides
human with language. As an effort to discover the original divine language, a
few experiments have been carried out with rather conflicting results:
a.
The first hypothesis says that if infants were allowed to grow up
without hearing any language, then they would spontaneously begin using
“god-given language”.
b.
Around 600 B.C an experiment with two newborn infants was carried
out by an Egyptian pharaoh named psammetichus. After 2 years in the company of
the sheep and a mute shepherd, the children were reportedly uttered phyrgian
word bekos mean “bread”. According to several commentators, those
children must have heard what the sheep were saying.
2.
The natural sounds source
The first view is what has been called the “ bow-wow”
theory. The theory suggest that simple words could have been imitations
(onomatopoeic) of the natural sounds which early men and women heard around
them. Therefore, when an object flew and made a caw-caw sound the early human
imitated the sound and used it to refer to the object associated with the
sound.
Second well-known `natural sound` proposal is the `yo-heave-ho-theory`.
This theory places the development of human language in some social context.
Human sounds, however produced, may have had some principled use within the
social life of human group. The sound of a person involved in physical effort,
such as a set of grunts and groans and swear words, could be the source of our
language especially when that physical effort involved several people and had
to be coordinated.
3.
The oral-gesture source
Another theory states that the origins of the sounds of language
involve a link between physical gesture and oral sounds. However reasonable the
physical gesture as a means of communication, the “oral-gesture theory”
proposes an extremely specific connection between physical and oral gesture. It
is claimed that originally a set of physical gestures was developed as a means of communication. For example, the
movement of the tongue (oral gesture) in a “I think so” message as
representative of the nod of the head (physical gesture) for the same
message.
First we can use a mime or specific gestures for variety of
communicative purpose, but it is hard to visualize the actual “oral” aspect
which would mirror many such gestures. Second, there is a quite large number of
linguistic messages which would appear to describe transmission via this type
of gesturing.
4.
Physiological adaptation
The view of the origin of human speech concentrates on some of the
physical aspects of humans, which are not shared with other creatures, even
with primates. These physical features are part of adaptation. These features
are good clues that if a creature possessing such features, it has the capacity
for speech. The features is such as human teeth, larynx, and brain.
5.
Speech and writing
Two major function of language use are:
a.
Interactional function
Function of language which relates with how humans are language to
interact
with each other, socially or emotionally: how they indicate friendliness,
cooperation, hospitality, or annoyance, or pain, or pleasure.
e.g.: natural sounds : cuckoo, ding-dong
emotional
reaction : wow, ugh, Oops
b.
Transaction function
Language function in which humans use their linguistics abilities
to communicate knowledge, skills and information. Transactional function must
have developed, in part, for the transfer of knowledge from one generation to
the next. This function of language remains fairly restricted in time and space
as long as it can only be realized in speech. By its nature, speech is
transient.
The desire for a more permanent record of what was known must have
been the primary motivation for the development of markings and inscriptions
and eventually of written language.
B.
The development of writing
A very large
number of languages in world are only used
in the spoken form because they do not have a written form. Much of the
evidence
used in the reconstruction of ancient writing systems comes from inscription on
stone or tablets found in the rubble of ruined cities. Tracing the development
those inscriptions allows us to discover the roots of a writing tradition going
back a few thousand years whereby human has to sought to create a more
permanent record of what was thought and said.
1.
Pictograms and ideograms
Pictograms are
a form a picture-writing which represents particular images in a consistent
way. For example : the form is a representative of `sun` an essential part of
this use a representative symbol is that everyone should use similar forms to
convey roughly similar meaning.
Ideograms are
more fixed symbolic forms pictures, which are considered to be part of system
of idea-writing. The symbol such as is a fixed symbol used for `heat` and
`daytime`. The distinction between pictograms and ideograms is essentially a
difference relationship between the symbol and entity it represents. Pictograms
are the more `picture like` forms. Ideograms are the more abstract and derived
forms.
A key property of both pictograms and ideograms is that they do not
represent words of sounds in particular language.
2.
Logograms
Symbols come to be used to represent words in a language, they are
described as examples of word-writing. A good example of logographic writing is
Sumerians. Much of our information on the development of writing stems from the
records they left. The sumerians were ancient people of unknown origin who
built a civilization in southern mesopotaima over 5000 years ago. They left innumerable clay tablets
containing business documents, epics, prayers, poems, proverbs, and so on. So
copious are these written records that scholars studying Sumerians are
publishing a seventeen-volume dictionary of their language the first of these
volumes appeared in 1884.
3.
Rebus writing
One way of using existing symbols to represent the sound of language
is via a process known as rebus writing. A rebus is
representative of words or syllables of object whose names sound like the
intended syllables. In this process, the symbol for one entity is taken over as
the symbol for the sound of the spoken word used to refer to that entity.
For example, the logogram È pronounced ba (boat in Eng.) we
can then produced a symbols for the word pronounced baba (father in
Eng.) which would be ÈÈ.
·
Three types of writing systems used in the world.
a.
Word writing
In a word writing system the written symbol represent a whole word.
The awkwardness of such system is obvious. For example, the editors of webster’s
third new international dictionary claim more than 450000 entries. All
these words are written using only twenty –six alphabetic symbols, a dot, a
hyphen, an apostrophe, and a space. It is understandable why, historically,
word writing gave way to alphabetic systems in most places in the world.
b.
Syllabic writing
In syllabic writing system each syllable in the language is
represented by its own symbol, and words are written syllable by syllable. Thus
syllabic writing is a writing system that employs a set of symbols, which
represent the pronunciation of syllables.
For example:
I /ay/ V an /æn/ VC
Key /ki/ CV ant /ænt/ VCC
Ski /ski/ CCV pant /pænt/ CVCC
c.
Alphabetic writing
If you have a set of symbols being used to represent syllables
beginning with, for example, a b sound or an m sound, then you
are actually very close to a situation in which the symbols can be used to
represent a single sound types in a language. This is the basis of alphabetic
writing. An alphabet is essentially asset of written symbols which each
represent a single type of sound.
d.
Written English
If the origins of the alphabetic writing system were based on
correspondence between single symbol and single symbol type, then one might
reasonably ask why there is such frequent mismatch between the forms of written
English and the sounds of spoken English.
C.
SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF LANGUAGE
1.
Language is sound
The statement that language is sound may appear natural, since the
most common experience all men have of language is in speaking and listening to
it. But this statement is meant to point out that the sounds of language come
before and are more important than their representation in writing.
2.
Language is systematic
Language can be presented by a string of symbols. An examination of
many languages will show that the number of symbols required will not be
unlimited. As few as a dozen may be enough, while perhaps fifty or more may be
required. But whatever the number of symbols not all possible combinations of
sounds (and, therefore, symbols) will occur. This illustrates part of what is
meant by saying that language is systematic it can be described in terms of
limited number of units that can combine only in a limited number of ways.
3.
Language is system of system
Language have
both phonological (or sound)and grammatical system, each with its proper units
and rules of acceptable combination and order. Units are not permitted to
combine for several reasons, phonological, grammatical, stylistic, or semantic.
Language is system of system, all of which operate at the same time, but we can
distinguish, for the sake of analysis, the units and combination rules proper
to each.
4.
Language is meaningful
The reason the linguist, or anyone else, is interested in studying
language us that the sounds produced in speech are connected with almost every
fact of human life and communication. There is relation between the kinds of
sounds speakers of various languages make and their cultural setting, it is
basically through the learning of language that the child becomes an active
member of the community, and the leaders on society preserve and advance their
leadership largely through their ability to communicate with people through
language.
5.
Language is arbitrary
When we say that language is arbitrary we are simply
pointing out the condition acquired for the existence of more than one language
that there be no direct, necessary connection between the nature of the things
or ideas language deal with and the linguistic units or combinations by these
things or ideas are expressed. This statement is clear enough when we consider
that there are different expressions for baby and infant in
English. and this occur too in others
languages.
6.
Language is conventional
Language can be said to be conventional as a consequence of this
apparent agreement. This agreement is not, nor could it be, stated; rather it
is an agreement of fact, of action. Speakers in a given community, for example,
use the same sorts of expressions to name the same things, and same sorts of
construction to deal with similar situations. It is this convention that makes
up and fixes linguistic systems. An important result of the conventional nature
of language is that we can be sure that a correct description of the speech of
a single representative speaker will apply to the speech habits of others in
the same community.
7.
Language is a system of contrasts
One reason why a description of a single speaker’s habits can
represent the speech of community is that language is a system of differences
to be observed. For example: parakeets cannot produce sound exactly like human
speakers because they do not have the vocal cords or nasal cavities that men
have. Yet the sounds that they produce differ from each other in a manner
similar to speech sounds and are understood to represent human speech.
8.
Language is creative
Language can be understood as a system of patterns and a system of
contrast. Each pattern can be represented by an unlimited number of utterances.
Each utterance can differ completely in reference from other utterances. This
patterning is the basis of our ability to produce new sentences or to understand
sentences we hear for the first time. By using the phonological, grammatical,
and lexical systems in a creative way, poets and writers or speakers can make
us more aware of possible relations among things. In this way they may be said
to create a new world for us through language.
9.
Languages are unique
Since languages are arbitrary, systematic patterns of contrast,
each language must be considered unique. For example: two languages may differ
in the number of parts of speech, or may require quite different combinations
of these parts, even though the number is the same. For such a reasons we have
new patterns to learn in the study of foreign languages.
10.
Languages are similar
All speakers experience the material world about languages with the
same sense and basically the same way. The differences in the phonological,
grammatical, lexical systems mentioned above reflect the social organization of
speech. While this arbitrary selection of important features of experience
makes learning languages that are unrelated to one’s own difficult, there are
still many similarities to be found among different languages. That’s way
languages can be learned.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Raja T.Nasr, the
essential of linguistic science, Britain, London. 1984.
Oxford “learner’s
pocket dictionary, 4th edition”, 2008.
Eni Maharsi, Introduction to linguistics, Citra Mentari Group ,
Malang, 2002.
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