ACCOUNTS ON THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE

 Many religions provide an account of the Origin of Language. Since the 1960’s the theory of grammar has
come to dominate the ideas of Noam Chomsky.
 The Origin of language was widely studied and controversially debated in the Victorian period in a variety
of fields, including comparative philology and linguistics, philosophy, anthropology, and psychology.
 Language is both a cultural phenomenon and also the most salient distinguishing characteristic of modern
Homo sapiens as species.
 Thomas Sebeok and Noam Chomsky are the acknowledged founding fathers of two research fields which
are known respectively as Biosemiotics and Biolinguistics and which have been developed parallel during
the past 50 years.
 They both regard language as a faculty, or a modeling system, that appeared rapidly in the
history of life and probably evolved as an exaptation from the previous animal system.

BIBLICAL, MYTHOLOGICAL, HISTORICAL, AND SCIENTIFIC ACCOUNTS

 Biblical Origin of Language

 The Bible doesn’t describe an original development of language. Rather, language is shown to be a
trait of God himself.
 Another significant biblical point about language is that God allowed man flexibility and creativity in
developing his vocabulary, by coining new words.
 The Biblical view explains not only why all mankind (and only mankind) has language, but also why
mankind universally shares the smaller unique aspects of language.
 This explains early major changes in languages and the existence of “language isolates”- languages
with no known connection to or development from another language.
 The Biblical accounts explain why language is exclusively human and why it is hardwired into our
brains and vocals anatomy; because God deliberately designed it as such.

 Mythological Origin of Language

 There are countless theories about the origins of human language even if many linguists and
scientists in the past have claimed the search for the seed of that human language grew to be a
fruitless one.
 Three Myths about the Origin of Language:
1. The tower of Babel - Possibly the most well-known myth, at least where Judaism and Christianity
are common, is that found in the Hebrew Bible, specifically in Genesis.
- According to this story, the reason different areas of the world is the dispersion of the
population.

2. The Hindu World Tree - According to the Hindu myth, there was once a very tall tree that grew out
from the very center of the earth. It was called the “world Tree” or “knowledge Tree” and grew so
tall that it almost reach heaven.
- The god Brahma discovered the tree’s intentions and as punishment for it being so proud, he
cut off all the tree’s branches and scattered them all over the earth.

3. The Death of Wurruri - An aboriginal tribe from Southern Australia has a rather gruesome myth
regarding why we don’t all speak the same language.
- Thus, the different aboriginal tribes and their languages were a product of eating a different
body part.

 Historical Origin of Language

 The language dates back to roughly 150,000 years ago. However, all the linguistic evidence dates
back to around 6000 years ago, when writing began.
 For centuries, humans have wandered about the origins of language, and get nobody is any the
wiser due to a lack of agreement on the topics as well as evidence.
  The lack of evidence has meant that many experts shy away from this subject. In fact, in 1866 The
Linguistics Society of Paris banned any debates on the topic.

 Scientific Origin of Language

 Linguistics is the science of language, and linguists are scientists who apply the scientific method to
questions about the nature and the function of language.
 Linguists conduct formal studies of speech sounds, grammatical structures, and meaning across the
world over 6000 languages.
 Clearly, many of the questions linguists pose overlap with fields in the life sciences, social sciences,
and social humanities, thus making linguistics a multidisciplinary field.
 “Polyglot” is the term used for a person who knows multiple languages.

OTTO JESPERSEN’S LANGUAGE ORIGIN HYPOTHESES

 Jens Otto Harry Jesperson
 Born on July 16, 1860, in Randers, Denmark
 Died April 30, 1943, in Roskilde, Denmark at the aged of 82 years old.
 A Danish Linguist and a Foremost authority in English Grammar.
 He helped to revolutionize language teaching in Europe, contributed greatly to the advancement of
phonetics, linguistic theory, and the history of English, and originated on international language Navial (q.v).
 However, In the 19th century, philosophers and linguists proposed several hypotheses to explain the origin
of language, which are noteworthy for their names even if none of them have vanquished their competitors
in the battles for scientific credibility.

FIVE LANGUAGE THEORIES/HYPOTHESES

1. The Bow-wow
- according to this theory, language began when our ancestors started imitating the natural sound around them.
- what's wrong with this? Relatively few words are onomatopoeic, and their words vary from one language to another.

2. The Ding-Dong
- The theory favored by Plato and Pythagoras, maintains that speech arose in response to the essential qualities of
objects in the environment.
- what's wrong with this? Apart from some rare instances of sound symbolism, there is no persuasive evidence, in any
language of an innate connection between sound and meaning.

3. The La-La
- This theory is suggested by Otto Jespersen the Danish Linguist.
- What’s wrong with this? As David Crystal notes in “ How Languages Work” (Penguin, 2015), this theory still fails to
account for.

4. The Pooh- Pooh

- In this theory holds that speech began with interjections.
- What’s wrong with this? No language contains very many interjections, and Crystal points out, the click intakes of
breath, and other noises which are used in this way bear little relationship to the vowels and consonants found in
phonology.

5. The Yo-He-Ho
- According to this theory, language evolved from the grunts, groans, and snorts evoked by the heavy physical labor.
- What’s wrong with this? Through this notion may account for some rhythmic features of the language, but it doesn’t
go very far in explaining where words came from.

SEMIOTICS OR SIGN LANGUAGE

- Semiotics is the theory and study of signs and symbols, especially as elements of language or other systems of
communication.
- Linguistics and cultural semiotics investigate sign systems and the modes of representation that humans use to
convey feelings, thoughts, ideas, and ideologies.
- It is also a key study into the evolution of human consciousness. English philosopher John Locke (1632-1704) tied
the advancement of intelligence into three steps:
1. Understanding the nature of things.
2. Understanding what to do to achieve whatever you wish to achieve.
3. The ability to communicate these things to another.

- Charles Sanders Pierce (1839-1914) said that signs work only if there is an intelligence capable of learning from
experience.
 Pierce’s conception of semiotics was triadic; sign, meaning, and interpreting.
SEMIOTICS
- The study of signs and symbols as elements of communicative behavior; the analysis of systems of
communication.

THE FATHERS OF SEMIOTIC THEORIES

 Ferdinand de Saussure - he was a French linguist that was one of the first to produce a semiotic theory
during work in the early 1900s, Saussure stated that a sign is made up of two parts the signifier and the
signified.

 Charles Sanders Pierce - was an American philosopher that also formulated a semiotic theory around the
same time as Saussure in the early 1990s, Pierce stated semiotics to be the relationship between symbol,
icon, and index.
Sign a successful understandable form of communication.

SIGNIFIER - Any motion, gesture, image, sound, pattern, or event that Conveys meaning and
Communicates
SIGNIFIED - The Concept that a signifier refers to, the meaning it conveys.
CONNOTATION - The Feelings, ideas, and Cultural meanings which are associated with the word or object. Not the
literal meaning
DENOTATION - The literal meaning or primary meaning of a word, in contrast to the feelings or ideas that the word
suggests.
ICONS - Signs where the signifier resembles the signified (SYMTALM)
SYMBOLS - Signs where the relation between signifier and signified is purely conventional and culturally specific.
INDEXES - Signs where the signifier is caused by the Signified. (PARADIGM)

ADVANTAGES OF SEMIOTICS
• Allows us to break down a message into 45 component parts and examine them separately and in relationship to
one another.
• Allows us to look for patterns across different forms of communication.
• Helps us to understand how our cultural and social conventions relate to the communication we create and
consume
• Help us to get beyond the obvious which may not be obvious after all.

SIGNS AND SYMBOLS

• Sign as a symbol that is understood to refer to something" other than itself
• Symbols is an object that represents, stands for or suggest an idea or visual Images

FAMOUS THEORISTS
 Ferdinand De Saussure!
 Roland Barthes
 Stuart Hall
 Charles pierce
FERDINAND DE SAUSSURE
- He was a Swiss linguist who created the term "semiotics",
- He distinguished between signifier and signified
- Sign is made up of Signifier
- The image or sound that gives a meaning e.g. blue color: Signified
- The concept or meaning that the sign refers to e.g. blue color is often associated with sadness or the sea.
- Therefore, for a sign to be considered a sign it must have a signifier and a signified.
- Saussure argues that words are verbal signifiers that are personal to whoever is interpreting them
- A signifier can have many different representations which can turn into a different sign
 - Ex. signifier and signified in camera movement.
SIGNIFIER SIGNIFIED
Pan down Power/Authority
Pan up Small/weak
Dolly in Focus
Fade in/out Start or end
Cut Excitement
Wide Conclusion

ROLAND BARTHES
- He was a French literary theorist , critic and like Saussure was also interested in semiotics.
- His semiotic theory focuses on how signs and photographs represent different cultures and ideologies in
different ways.
• These messages are established in two ways through: Denotation
• The literal meaning of the sign: Connotation
• The suggested meaning of the sign and the cultural conventions associated with the
sign.

MYTH
 Refers to the collective , unconscious meaning created as the result of a semiotic process.
 Barthes proposed that a myth is a chain of semiotic events which when experienced or seen by members of
society creates a subconscious meaning.
 Example:
 When members of society come across the signs of McDonalds, KFC and Pizza hut the myth would be consumerism ,
capitalism and obesity which
 Society members will not register on a conscious level whereas the literal meaning is that they are restaurants.

STUART HALL
- He is a cultural theorist and sociologist.
- Hall’s encoding/decoding model is a part of the reception theory that looks at how audience interpret and
respond to particular medium whether it be a newspaper or television show.
- He said that the institutions encode a particular media message which creates a new form of
communication and then the audience decodes this meaning using their own methods of logical
interpretation.
- For Hall the denotation and connotation process is an analytical tool.
- He also argues that it is very rare for signs to signify their literal meaning in the world and most of the signs
will combine both the denotative and connotative process and work simultaneously together to create
meaning.
- He also argued that for those decoding readings there can be a number of unlimited readings and that the
decoding process is “polysemic” meaning that one text can have a number of meanings.

CHARLES PIERCE
- He was born on 10 September 1839.
- He followed a career in math , philosophy and was a logician.
- Every thought is a sign and every act or reasoning of the interpretation of signs
- Signs function as mediators between the external world of objects and the internal world or ideas.
- Semiotics is the process of co-operation between signs, their objects and their interpretants.
FORMS OF SIGN
 ICON - The signifier is perceived as resembling the signified.
A pictorial representation , a photograph, an architect’s model of a building are all icons because they
imitate or copy aspects of their subjects
 INDEX - An index has a factual or casual connection that points towards a subject.
ex., A nest image is an icon but also an index of a bird.
  SYMBOL - A symbol has an arbitrary relationship between the signifier and the signified.
The interpreter understands the symbol through previous knowledge and experience. Spoken or
written words are symbols.
For example, flags.

SAPIR-WHORF HYPOTHESIS

 MOULD AND CLOAK THEORIES

- Within linguistic theory, two extreme positions concerning the relationship between language and thought are
commonly referred to as 'mould theories’ and 'cloak theories'.

Mould theories represent language as 'a mould in terms of which thought categories are cast.'
Cloak theories represent the view that 'language is a cloak conforming to the customary categories of thought of its
speakers.'
- It is named after the American linguists Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf, is a mould theory of language.
 Sapir (1929) Human beings do not live in the soceity alone. Language of the society predispose certain choices of
interpretation about how we view the world.
 Whorf (1930s) We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native languages. We categorize objects in the scheme
laid by the language and if we do not subscribe to this classification we cannot talk or communicate.

- The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis consists of two associated principle:

1. Linguistic Determinism - Language may determine our thinking patterns, the way we view and think
about the world. Linguistic Determinism is also called «strong determinism»
2. Linguistic Relativity - Linguistic Relativity: the less similar the languages more diverse their
conceptualization of the world; different languages view the world differently.

WHORFIAN PERSPECTIVE VS UNIVERSALISM

- The Whorfian perspective is that translation between one language and another is at the very least, problematic,
and sometimes impossible.
- According to the Whorfian stance, 'content' is bound up with linguistic 'form', and the use of the medium
contributes to shaping the meaning: 'it is impossible to mean the same thing in two (or more) different ways.'

- The Whorfian perspective is in strong contrast to the extreme universalism of those who adopt the cloak theory.
- Universalists argue that we can say whatever we want to say in any language, and that whatever we say in one
language can always be translated into another: Even totally different languages are not untranslatable.
- In the context of the written word, the 'untranslatability' claim is generally regarded as strongest in the arts and
weakest in the case of formal scientific papers (although rhetorical studies have increasingly blurred any clear
distinctions).
- And within the literary domain, 'untranslatability' was favoured by Romantic literary theorists, for whom the
connotative, emotional or personal meanings of words were crucial.

MODERATE WHORFIANISM
- differs from determinist Whorfianism in these ways:
• Patterns of thinking can be influenced rather than determined,
• Language influences the way we see the world and it is influenced by that also,
• Any influence should be ascribed to the variety in a language rather than the language itself (sociolect*),
• Influence can be seen on the social context but not in purely linguistic form.
Sociolect: the language used primarily by members of an articular social group.

ADVANTAGES OF SAPIR-WHORF HYPOTHESIS

Advantages* of Linguistics Determinism:
– Language does exert great influence on patterns of thinking and therefore on culture
– Language may reinforce certain ideas and push them into attention
 Advantages of Linguistic Relativity:
– There can be differences in the semantic associations of concepts
– Encoding of life experience in language is not exclusively accessible to everyone but only to members of that
certain social group
– Linguistic structure doesn’t constrain what people think but only influence what they routinely think
– Language reflects cultural preoccupations
«Advantage» means in this context generally accepted or proved part of SWH.

DISADVANTAGES OF SAPIR-WHORF HYPOTHESIS

 Whorf claimed (1940): if, between two different languages, one has many words for closely related objects
while other has relatively limited vocabulary users of L1 should have noted perceptually characteristics of
the objects.
Eskimo lang English
snow Countless words describing Relatively limited vocabulary
shape, location and form

 BUT this doesn’t prove English speaking people do not have the ability to distinguish characteristics

 Sapir-Whorf hypothesis asserts that each language has a unique system and thus cross-cultural
undertanding is impossible. BUT we have:
 Perceptional universsals (different languages may express the same thought)
 Cultural universal (each language has taboos, implements, slang)
 Features to distinguish family and relatives (by seniority, biological bond or sex)
 Languages may exhibit a shared attitude towards one thing (respect for elderly, objects of fear,
concept of blasphemy)

 Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is self-conflicting. It claims that «language determines thought» but also «there is
no limits to diversity of languages».
 If there is no limit to diversity language cannot determine thought to a great extent to be called
«determination» rather than «influence».
 AND many scholars indicate that human thought is universal.
 From a historical stand pint it SHOULD be society and culture that determine language because social
enviroment exert great influence upon percptual ability. BUT decise factor is NOT the language.
 If language determines the world view there would be NO class conscious because every member of the
society would view the world same and think by the same thinking patterns.

FURTHER APPLICATION OF SWH

 There are many studies on Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis but a majority of these studies focus on these main
problems:
• Perception of time continuity in languages
 Dividing time periodically (i.e. English)
 Not dividing (i.e. Indonesian)
 Dividing time by source of knowledge (i.e. Turkish)

• Perception of snow
 Eskimo languages vs English
• Perception of colours
 Universal colours vs local colours

• Counting systems Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

 A study (Berlin & Kay) on colour perception which claimed that a regular, universal system of colour
categorisation existed across the world’s languages: while the number of names of discrete colours varies
across languages, these are based on a set of focal colours. Furthermore, research done on a stone-age
 cultural group in Indonesia, the Dani, by Rosch Heider (1972) suggested that members of the group, despite
only having two colour categories, perceived colours in much the same way as English speakers.

 Of course not all languages follow the predetermined order and too little is known about a great number of
the world’s languages to be able to formulate universally valid hypotheses.

ETHNOPOETICS
 It is a method of analyzing and interpreting oral literature and other forms of verbal art within their cultural
and historical contexts.
 The term was coined by the American poet Jerome Rothenberg in the 1960s, and it has since been used by
anthropologists, literary scholars, and folklorists to study the poetic traditions of various cultures around
the world.
 emphasizes the performance aspect of verbal art, rather than just the text itself.
 Recognizes that the meaning and significance of a poem or story can change depending on its context and
the way it is presented.
 It also emphasizes the use of translation to bridge the gap between different cultures and to preserve and
share the literary traditions of indigenous and marginalized communities.
 Ethnopoetic analysis involves studying the formal features of oral literature, such as rhythm, meter, and
sound patterns, as well as its content, themes, and symbols.
 It also involves examining the social and cultural contexts in which the literature is produced and
performed, including the role of the poet or storyteller and the audience for whom the literature is
intended.
 Through ethnopoetics, scholars aim to gain a deeper understanding of the role of poetry and other forms of
verbal art in human culture, and to challenge Western literary traditions that have often marginalized or
ignored the literature of non-Western cultures.

ORAL GESTURE THEORY

 Oral Gesture Theory, also known as Dynamic Model Theory, is a linguistic theory proposed by David Paget
in the 1980s that seeks to explain the relationship between speech production and perception.
 The theory emphasizes the importance of gestural movements of the vocal tract in speech production and
how these movements are perceived by listeners.
 According to Oral Gesture Theory, speech is produced through a series of coordinated gestures or
movements of the vocal tract.
 Each gesture represents a specific sound or phoneme, and the combination of gestures results in the
production of words and sentences.
 These gestures are not static, but rather are dynamic, with each gesture influencing the shape and timing of
subsequent gestures.
 In perception, listeners use their knowledge of these gestural movements to interpret the speech they hear.
 They are able to recognize the phonetic segments of speech based on the acoustic and visual cues that
correspond to the gestures made during speech production.
 Oral Gesture Theory has been used to explain a variety of phenomena in speech production and
perception, including sound change and speech errors.
 The theory has also been influential in the development of speech technology, such as speech recognition
and synthesis, by providing a framework for modeling the relationship between gesture and sound.

HISTORICAL TIMELINE OF SOME NOTEWORTHY LINGUISTS AND THEIR CONTRIBUTIONS

  Aristotle (384-322 BCE)
 One of the first Western philosophers to write about language, Aristotle's work on semantics and
syntax influenced later thinkers in the field.
 Panini (c. 4th century BCE)
 An Indian grammarian who is credited with developing the first formal system for describing the
grammar of a language, known as Panini's grammar.
 Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi (936-1013 CE)
 A Muslim physician and polymath who wrote about the anatomy of the vocal tract and its role in
speech production.
 William Jones (1746-1794)
 A British philologist who is known for his discovery of the Indo-European language family and his
contributions to the study of Sanskrit.
 Robert Lowth (1710-1787)
 A British bishop and grammarian who wrote "A Short Introduction to English Grammar," which became
a widely-used textbook in English language education.

 Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913)

 A Swiss linguist who is considered one of the founders of modern linguistics. His work on the structure
of language and the relationship between signifier and signified has been highly influential.
 Leonard Bloomfield (1887-1949)
 An American linguist who is known for his work on the structure of languages and the relationship
between form and meaning.
 Noam Chomsky (born 1928):
 An American linguist who is known for his theories of generative grammar and the innate structure of
language. His work has had a significant impact on the field of linguistics and cognitive science.

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE (EVOLUTIONARY OR DARWINIAN)

 The historical development of language is an area of ongoing research and debate among linguists,
anthropologists, and evolutionary biologists.
 While the specifics of language evolution are still uncertain, there are several theories and hypotheses that
attempt to explain how and why language developed over time.
 According to this Darwinian view of language evolution, the development of language was driven by the
need to communicate important information, such as warnings of danger, the location of food, or the
availability of mates.
 Some researchers have proposed that language may have developed in response to environmental
pressures, such as changes in climate or the need to coordinate group activities.
 Others have suggested that language evolved as a byproduct of other cognitive abilities, such as problem-
solving or social interaction.
 There are also many unanswered questions about the specifics of language evolution, such as the timing
and location of its development, the role of genetics and culture in its evolution, and the relationship
between language and other cognitive and social abilities.
 Despite these uncertainties, the Darwinian view of language evolution has become a widely accepted
framework for understanding the historical development of language and its role in human evolution.

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

 Old English (c. 450-1100 CE)
 Old English had a complex grammar system, with inflections for nouns, verbs, and adjectives, and a
vocabulary that was largely Germanic in origin.

 Middle English (c. 1100-1500 CE)

 A period of significant change in the English language, marked by the Norman Conquest of England in
1066 and the influence of French on the English vocabulary.
 Middle English also saw the development of a more simplified grammar system and the emergence of
dialectal differences across the country.

 Early Modern English (c. 1500-1800 CE)

 A period of great expansion for the English language, marked by the Renaissance, the Reformation, and
the Age of Exploration.
 During this time, English borrowed many words from Latin and other European languages, and also
developed a standard grammar and spelling system.

 Modern English (c. 1800-present):

 A period of continued growth and development for the English language, marked by the spread of
English as a global language and the influence of technology and mass media.
 Modern English has continued to borrow words from other languages, especially in scientific and
technical fields, and has also developed new words and expressions to reflect changing cultural and
social trends.
 Today, English is spoken by over 1.5 billion people worldwide and is the official or primary language in
over 50 countries.
 It is also a dominant language in many international organizations, such as the United Nations and the
European Union.
 The historical development of English has been shaped by many factors, including migrations, wars, and
cultural exchanges, and its continuing evolution reflects its status as a global language.