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The origin of language

introduction. Spoken language must have developed between 100,000 and 50,000 years ago.Spoken language developed before written language.Written language developed about 5,000 years ago. . We never find any direct evidence or artifacts relating to the speech of our distant ancestors. . Divine so

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The origin of language

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    1. The origin of language By fitri

    2. introduction Spoken language must have developed between 100,000 and 50,000 years ago. Spoken language developed before written language. Written language developed about 5,000 years ago

    3. We never find any direct evidence or artifacts relating to the speech of our distant ancestors.

    4. Divine source In the Biblical tradition (Genesis), God created Adam Hindu tradition, Language comes from goddess Saraswati, wife of Brahma, creator of the universe

    5. experiment There were a number of experiments to discover the original divine language: Around 2,500 years ago, Psammetichus tried the experiment with two newborn babies. They were isolated with goats and mute shepherd for two years

    6. Around the year 1500, King James carried out similar experiment, and the children were reported to speak “Hebrew”

    7. The natural sound theory Primitive words are imitations of the natural sounds which early man and women heard around them. E.g.: object flew by ? cuckoo sound?name cuckoo

    8. Explanation for onomatopoeic words: E.g. splash, bang, boom, rattle, buzz, hiss

    9. Natural cries of emotion: pain, anger, joy:? e.g. ouch Yo-he-ho theory: sounds of a person involved in physical effort e.g. when lifting trees or mammoths

    10. Oral gesture theory Hypothesis: link between physical gesture and orally produced sounds Movement of the tongue when saying ‘goodbye’ resembles movement of waving of the hand

    11. Physiological adaptation theory Physical features of human beings: good clues for their capacity for speech Human teeth, lips, and tongue are designed in a way that makes them play a major role in producing speech sounds. Human lips: flexibility, needed for sounds like ‘p,b and w’

    12. The human larynx and pharynx are different than that of a monkey. Human larynx: position lower than with monkeys ? longer cavity called ‘pharynx’ acts as resonator

    13. The human brain controls the physical parts involved in sound production. The human brain is lateralized. Has special functions in each of the two hemispheres: Left hemisphere: analytic, tool using language Right hemisphere: holistic, music, visuo-spatial skills

    14. It may be that there is an evolutionary connection between the language-using and tool-using abilities of humans and that both are involved in the development of the speaking brain.

    15. The genetic theory The automatic set of developments and the complexity of the young child’s language have led some scholars to look for something more powerful than small adaptations of the species over time. The innateness hypothesis point out to something in human genetics as the source.

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