LANGUAGE - Session Three
After surviving our bout with theories about the origin of language as 'the communication tool' for the human race - remember to do TWO things:
1. Comment on the blog, regarding last week's assignment. Ignoring it would not make it go away.
2. Make sure that you substantiate your claims for ONE of the THREE given statements (from the green board), with concrete examples, examples that could be verified from various documented sources.
posted by belag @ 6:27 AM
8 Comments:
Hi teacher Tessa here (damn, we should definitely open separate asccounts :D) I read the links (again) and I am gonna tell you my opinion this time. Frankly, this is not a subject I find myself pondering about quite often, so I'll have to try a bit harder to not suck completely.
As we said in class, the language originated a LONG time ago, and we can only presume how it all happened. Personally, I find all the theories probable. However, I guess the it started developing when man (if it could be called that) started becoming aware of self and surrounding. That's why I find the Bow-wow theory most probable. They started moving in herds and groupings, to avoid attacks from other groups of animals and provide food more efficiently. At a certain point they had to comunicate somehow and they started ooh-ing and boo-ing for different things. Let's say a wildcat attacks a part of the tribe which is in charge for hunting and a survivor runs back to their cave and starts RRRRR-ing! The rest of the tribe doesn't know what is going on, but they see the survivor all stressed out and they run with him, so the adopt the RRR as a sign for danger so next time they see a wildcat, they run to safety when one of them produces the RRR symbol.
I also find it more probable that language was greated by polygenesis, simply because different groups of bpeople had different oppinions and ways of putting things down. I'll use the wildcat example again. A tribe somewhere in Africa gets attacked my a wildcat and refers to it with RRR. On the other hand, a tribe in America sees a wildcat and reacts to it with a BOOOO. A month later, th Afrinac tribe dies out, but a different tribe takes their placde. They start communicating and develop a word for wildcat, let's say MEOW. So these tribes rise and fall, die out, mingle, separate etc. etc. and they create language groups and dialects and so on. This theory is more probable than the theory about monogenesis, since we see how language changes every day, even now that we have written language and it is less likely to be changed or forgotten. I can only imagine how rapidly it all changed tens of thousands of years ago, when there weren't societies, but thousands of tribes, all communicating in their own ways, and incredibly prone to influences.
Well, that is just about all that I have on my mind regarding this subject at the moment. Hopefully it's ok, especially cuz I'm pretty new to the subject. I guess we'll talk a bit more about this in class, so I'll improve my point of view on the subject.
Have a nice day, everyone!
Tessa <3
yea yea yea...language originated a looong time ago, tell me sth I don't know...
I think all the theories are possible, and seeing that none can tell what happened for sure, a guess in tne dark is all I have.
Since all the theories sound pretty logical to me, and I can't distinguish one and say this is the one, I can conclude that it was all those factors and theories combined that put the roots of the language we use today. For example, as we said in class, the mama theory is waht happens when a child first begins to speak...starts with mama and papa and turns into a blabbermouth noone can shut up-me.
Then again...the ta-ta theory is a really realiable thing too...ppl imitated sounds...kids at early ages do the same...so did early ppl.
The early ppl lived, fought, hunted, feared, saw things they couldn't explain and couldn't go without sharing their experiences, so they started to imitate, create, and with time a new, exciting thing developped, sth we now apparently call language. And so they used it and improved it and it became alive, it changed and evolved with the ppl...that's why it's so hard to define it and to place its creation at a certain time...as long as there have been ppl, the language has been there and it has gone from primitive...to highly developed (or not) as we have it today. And it keeps changing...it will never stop, it will never die...it's beautiful.
♥ Kiwi
Booo...u ppl need to comment!
they sure do
Hya teacher! Kiwi gots a new account! lol
♥ Kiwi
Yea....just testing...lol
♥ Kiwi
just a thought:
linguistically speaking, when a language 'dies' there is only stuctural death (for instance, the case with Latin); it either gets simplified or it leaves an imprint (continues to live) through/on other languages.
but sociolingustics states that there is also, formal, actual moment of death for a langauge - when the last remaining speaker dies (usually fatal when it is an orally transmitted language).
no all of you are doing a fine job...
the task was two-part: one involved commenting the links, the other infusing the class' discusion.
no need to panic
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