12 Intro to origins of lg LECTURE2014, filologia angielska, Językoznastwo

//-->.pos {position:absolute; z-index: 0; left: 0px; top: 0px;}2014-05-13Sources•Yule, 2006.The study of language.CUP.–Chapter 1: The origins of language.Introduction to linguisticsLecture 12: Origins and developmentof language•Fromkin, Victoria, Robert Rodman, NinaHyams. 2011.An introduction to language.–Chapter 1: In the beginning. The origin oflanguage, pp. 27-29.The origins of language•Spoken language developed approximatelybetween 100,000 and 50,000 years ago.•Writing was invented about 5,000 years ago.•That is why there isno evidenceabout thespeech of our ancestors: there areno theoriesabout the origins of language but onlyhypotheses(beliefs):–They can’t be proven or disproved given thepresent knowledge.2 main hypotheses•There is no agreement about the ultimateorigin or age of human language.1. Belief in divine creation:–language is the gift of the gods to humans.2. Natural evolution hypothesis:–language is an evolutionary development.The divine source•Christianity:in Genesis 2:20 Adam gave names toall living creatures; in Genesis 11:7-9 At the towerof Babel God confused people’s languages.–This belief suggests that humans were created with aninnate ability to use language.–There was only one language at the beginning.The divine source•The Americas:the only survivirs of a greatflood, a man Coxcox and a womanXochiquetzal, had many children. The childrencouldn’ speak until a dove gave them the giftof language. However, each child received adifferent speech so that they couldn’tunderstand each other.•Hinduism:languages grew from the branches of aknowledge tree that Brahma, the creator-god, cutoff as punishment for its pride.12014-05-13The divine source•Africa:in the beginning people knew only onelanguage but once a great famine happened.Hunger made people mad and they wandered inall directions uttering strange words.•Australia:Once there lived an old womanWurruri who used to scatter fires around. Whenshe died, people came to show their joy. They ateher corpse, which caused them to speak differentlanguages.–Diversity in language resulted from cannibalism.The divine source•In most religions, a divine source gives language tohumans.•Over the ages, people carried out experiments todiscover the original, God-given language.•Egyptian pharoahPsamtik I(7th c. BC) thought that ifinfants grew up in isolation, they would begin to usethe original language.–He let 2 babies grow up in the company of only goats and amute shepherd.–The children were believed to have started saying thePhrygian (Turkey) wordbekos(bread) – original lg?–Yet they probably only imitated the sounds goats made.The divine source•King James of Scotland(about 1500) did a similarexperiment:–The children were believed to have started speakingHebrew – original lg?The natural sound source:bow wow–First words originated as imitations of naturalsounds: if an object was making acuckoosound, itwas named a ‘cuckoo’–All lgs haveonomatopoeicsounds that echonatural noises.–BUT:such words are a minority;•most words name soundless entities, e.g.bring, if, dry,etc. so they can’t be of the bow-wow origin.•Language is more than just naming things.•20th century:there have been children who grewup in isolation (e.g. Genie), but they didn’t learnany language at all.•Sothe divine source hypothesis is impossible toprove or disprove and the original language isimpossible to reconstruct.The natural sound source:pooh pooh–Lg developed from people's instinctive soundscaused by pain, anger or other emotions.–Such interjections are universal.–BUT:these sounds are produced with suddenintakes of breath, unlike speech sounds – they arenot related to speech sounds.The social interaction source:yo-he-ho–The source of lg – the sounds of people workingtogether, involved in physical effort that has to becoordinated.–Grunts and groans could be the first words.–This hypothesis makes sense because earlyhumans lived in groups, which requiredorganization.–Development of lg is placed in a social context.–BUT:apes also live in groups and produce gruntsbut haven't developed speech.22014-05-13The social interaction source:la-la–What initiated language was the romantic side oflife – sounds associated with love, play, poeticfeelings or even song.–BUT:the theory does not explain the rationalaspects of speech expression.The physical adaptation source: thehominids•Homo erectus(spread fromAfrica to Europe and Asia):originated 1.8 million years ago,became extinct 0.5 million yearsago.–hunter-gatherers, madetools;–able to control fire;–brain larger than that of theirancestors;–the structures of the skull andneck suggest that they wereprobably able to make noisesmore complex than thegrunts and screams ofmodern apes – some kind ofhuman-like proto-language?The physical adaptation source: thehominids•Homo Neanderthalensis(Europe, originated 300,000years ago, extinct probably40,000 years ago).–brain larger than that ofmodern humans;–3D x-ray technology showedthat their hyoid bone (kośćgnykowa) is like that of modernhumans – they could probablyspeak.–The origins of language are farolder than it was previouslybelieved.The physical adaptation source•Evolutionary development of humans resultedin certainphysical adaptationsthat madespeech possible:–Transition to upright posture made front limbsfree.–Adaptations that helped the development ofspeech:teeth, lips, mouth, tongue, larynx andpharynx.The physical adaptation source•Teeth:upright and quite even, helpful in making suchsounds as [f] or [v].•Lips:more flexible, suitable for producing sounds like [p] or[b].•Mouth and tongue:smaller than those of other primates,can move faster, can shape a wide variety of sounds.•Larynx:due to the upright position the larynx is lowered.•Pharynx(cavity above the vocal folds, acts as resonator):became longer which led to an increased rnge and clarity ofsounds.•BUT:certain birds (e.g. parrots) can also produce a varietyof sounds; the changes alone would not lead to speechproduction.The tool-making source:oral-gesture•Humans started makingtools and manipulatingobjects using bothhands.•Manual gestures mayhave precededlanguage: bringingwords together was likebringing two rockstogether to make a tool.32014-05-13The tool-making source:oral-gesture•The functions for object manipulation and forspeaking arevery close to each other in theleft hemishere of the brain– there may havebeenan evolutionary connectionbetweenthe use of tools and the use of language inearly humans.•This hypothesis explains the structuralorganisation of all languages (including signlanguages).The genetic source: innateness theory•All human babies develop in the same way:–At first: small brain, the larynx high in the throat;–then changes take place: the brain grow, the larynxmoves lower in the throat.•Even deaf children become fluent users of a signlanguage.•These facts led to the claim thathumans areborn with a special capacity for language.•Perhaps this capacity is genetically hard-wiredinto newborn humans.The genetic source: innateness theory•There is a special“language gene”(FOXP2) that islinked to speech and language.–FOXP2 is also present in chimpanzees, but it differsslightly from the human one – so it is this tinymutation which gives us the ability to developlanguage.•This might mean that language did not resultfrom a gradual change but happened ratherquickly as a crucial genetic mutation.•It is not clear when the genetic change happenedor how it may relate to physical adaptation.4

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