Grunts to Grammar

[twinc]

Did language evolve from grunts to grammar 1? - twinc

 

[thistle]

Did language evolve from grunts to grammar 1? - twinc

Can you please explain what this has to do with Sacred Scripture or indeed anything to do with the Catholic Faith which is what these forums are for.

 

[06convert]

I grunt from time to time…

 

[Mark77]

**“and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.” (Ro 8:23) **

i too, grunt & groan often, as words are not sufficient!

Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, Ora Pro Nobis Peccatoribus!

mark

 

[COPLAND_3]

No, God probably endowed Adam and Eve with a language, St. Augustine suggested Hebrew, and after the Babel situation other languages were formed. There are lots of civilizations that spoke but did not write with any sophistication, which would have been nice if the Native Indians, like the Adenas, would have left us with books instead of picture types of writings.

 

[twinc]

No, God probably endowed Adam and Eve with a language, St. Augustine suggested Hebrew, and after the Babel situation other languages were formed. There are lots of civilizations that spoke but did not write with any sophistication, which would have been nice if the Native Indians, like the Adenas, would have left us with books instead of picture types of writings.

Yes COPLAND,but the question was to try and kill two or more birds with one stone and was aimed at those who try to tell us that we have evolved as primates and God is an ape in whose image and likeness we are made - but nevertheless the real question is did language also evolve viz from simple to complex - twinc

 

[COPLAND_3]

Yes COPLAND,but the question was to try and kill two or more birds with one stone and was aimed at those who try to tell us that we have evolved as primates and God is an ape in whose image and likeness we are made - but nevertheless the real question is did language also evolve viz from simple to complex - twinc

Opinions are the only thing I know that we can make our case on. I choose to take a theological approach, and that Hebrew was probably the original language, as St. Augustine suggested. Now after Babel, I could imagine that many isolated groups of people probably started off very simple and then had to develop their language. Interesting topic you have come up with!

 

[juliamajor]

I’m with Thistle.This is not a scripture or Catholic question but an anthropological and language one.What the heck is it doing here and why hasn’t it been removed to it’s proper spot?

 

[twinc]

I’m with Thistle.This is not a scripture or Catholic question but an anthropological and language one.What the heck is it doing here and why hasn’t it been removed to it’s proper spot?

yes it is for it seems according to scriptures God spoke to Adam or did he or did he not “Adam where art thou” and the languages etc at Babel or is it the evolution bit that is causing you concern - twinc

 

[juliamajor]

yes it is for it seems according to scriptures God spoke to Adam or did he or did he not “Adam where art thou” and the languages etc at Babel or is it the evolution bit that is causing you concern - twinc

If they spoke in grunts or grammar is unimportant and has nothing to do with the story.It may be an interesting topic but has nothing scripturally to offer.They coud have used sign language or Morse - Code for all I know but it still would not make one iota of an impact on the Creation story- gives us no insight into Genesis nor does it tells us anything about the connection between God and man.So why IS IT in Sacred Scripture?

 

[twinc]

If they spoke in grunts or grammar is unimportant and has nothing to do with the story.It may be an interesting topic but has nothing scripturally to offer.They coud have used sign language or Morse - Code for all I know but it still would not make one iota of an impact on the Creation story- gives us no insight into Genesis nor does it tells us anything about the connection between God and man.So why IS IT in Sacred Scripture?

come now -do you mean to imply that Babel and speaking in tongues and not being understood and speaking in tongues and being understood has nothing to do with scriptures or that the serpent spoke to Eve etc or that parrots and other birds speak - twinc - btw hebrew and sanscrit are two of the world’s most ancient non pictorial written languages - of course some say sumerian or egyptian or some other - twinc

 

[juliamajor]

come now -do you mean to imply that Babel and speaking in tongues and not being understood and speaking in tongues and being understood has nothing to do with scriptures or that the serpent spoke to Eve etc or that parrots and other birds speak - twinc - btw hebrew and sanscrit are two of the world’s most ancient non pictorial written languages - twinc

Excuse me but what you’ve put down is not the clearest of statements. Very garbled at best.Writing is different from spoken language.Both evolved from simple to complex. There is no proof that it went from complex to simple. The bible is not science and was never meant to be neither is it history, geography or anthropology . Creations stories are etiological stories not taken literally. Tower of Babel is a perfect exampe. An etiological story asks why does mankind speak different langauages. An etiological story tells in simple folkloric terms how the world became diverse in tongues. It has nothing to do with how language came to be ,how it has changed or how writing came to be. The Torah is not concerned with such ‘banal’ concerns. It is concerned with God , his relationship with people and the rules that guide us through our journey.It might have science(of it’s time) history etc. that is not and never was it’s primary focus.

 

[twinc]

The only clear statement we have from you,for which I was waiting is that according to you, and no one else,that language went from simple to complex.Actually that is not so and exactly the opposite is the case and this is the problem that we are and have been educated on and accepted incorrect and false information - of cpurse the Bible is not science and just as well since science changes from time to time whereas the Bible does not change and has stood the test of time.The Bible is not a science,history or geography textbook but where it touches on any of these it is accurate and inerrant - btw there are no creation stories,or fairy tales or myths there are only creation accounts which must be taken as literal unless reason or necessity dictate otherwise - twinc

 

[Mintaka]

Actually, folks, the story of the Tower of Babel is precisely a story of language going from simple – a single tongue understood by all – to complex.

You might say that the effects of sin came down upon language like a ton of Babel bricks, in this story. But you certainly can’t say that it got simpler.

There’s also no reason at all for even the most literalist person to believe that Hebrew was the first language. The folks who first investigated language families took their existence as proof of the common origin of humanity, in contrast to those who argued that humans (especially white people) must have evolved independently in many places. (Especially black people, because they wanted to believe them to be more like apes than white people.)

Babel isn’t a story I believe in a literalist way; but I surely believe that it’s literally true about how arrogant people’s projects tend to disintegrate due to lack of communication, and how nothing can be built without God behind it. And if something really really bad happened once during the construction of a ziggurat (which were believed to be connections between earth and heaven), I would not be surprised.

I will say that one of the funny things about languages is that they all just about equal in sophistication. Give up one way of being more subtle and expressive, and another way is coming around the back. Get rid of one sound, and another shows up. None of them are too difficult for babies to learn. All of them have ways to say just about anything that a human can think up. They’re amazing technology, really, and yet we hardly even notice them unless we have to try to learn another one.

 

[COPLAND_3]

Mintaka

I’m very comfortable with trusting St. Augustine’s ideas, and I find his thoughts on Hebrew being the original language to be interesting, and I would not be so quick to pass the thought off as being that crazy. Here is his words on it

Chapter 11.— That the Original Language in Use Among Men Was that Which Was Afterwards Called Hebrew, from Heber, in Whose Family It Was Preserved When the Confusion of Tongues Occurred.
Wherefore, as the fact of all using one language did not secure the absence of sin-infected men from the race—for even before the deluge there was one language, and yet all but the single family of just Noah were found worthy of destruction by the flood,— so when the nations, by a prouder godlessness, earned the punishment of the dispersion and the confusion of tongues, and the city of the godless was called Confusion or Babylon, there was still the house of Heber in which the primitive language of the race survived. And therefore, as I have already mentioned, when an enumeration is made of the sons of Shem, who each founded a nation, Heber is first mentioned, although he was of the fifth generation from Shem. And because, when the other races were divided by their own peculiar languages, his family preserved that language which is not unreasonably believed to have been the common language of the race, it was on this account thenceforth named Hebrew. For it then became necessary to distinguish this language from the rest by a proper name; though, while there was only one, it had no other name than the language of man, or human speech, it alone being spoken by the whole human race. Some one will say: If the earth was divided by languages in the days of Peleg, Heber’s son, that language, which was formerly common to all, should rather have been called after Peleg. But we are to understand that Heber himself gave to his son this name Peleg, which means Division; because he was born when the earth was divided, that is, at the very time of the division, and that this is the meaning of the words, “In his days the earth was divided.” Genesis 10:25 For unless Heber had been still alive when the languages were multiplied, the language which was preserved in his house would not have been called after him. We are induced to believe that this was the primitive and common language, because the multiplication and change of languages was introduced as a punishment, and it is fit to ascribe to the people of God an immunity from this punishment. Nor is it without significance that this is the language which Abraham retained, and that he could not transmit it to all his descendants, but only to those of Jacob’s line, who distinctively and eminently constituted God’s people, and received His covenants, and were Christ’s progenitors according to the flesh. In the same way, Heber himself did not transmit that language to all his posterity, but only to the line from which Abraham sprang. And thus, although it is not expressly stated, that when the wicked were building Babylon there was a godly seed remaining, this indistinctness is intended to stimulate research rather than to elude it. For when we see that originally there was one common language, and that Heber is mentioned before all Shem’s sons, though he belonged to the fifth generation from him, and that the language which the patriarchs and prophets used, not only in their conversation, but in the authoritative language of Scripture, is called Hebrew, when we are asked where that primitive and common language was preserved after the confusion of tongues, certainly, as there can be no doubt that those among whom it was preserved were exempt from the punishment it embodied, what other suggestion can we make, than that it survived in the family of him whose name it took, and that this is no small proof of the righteousness of this family, that the punishment with which the other families were visited did not fall upon it?

 

[COPLAND_3]

continue

But yet another question is mooted: How did Heber and his son Peleg each found a nation, if they had but one language? For no doubt the Hebrew nation propagated from Heber through Abraham, and becoming through him a great people, is one nation. How, then, are all the sons of the three branches of Noah’s family enumerated as founding a nation each, if Heber and Peleg did not so? It is very probable that the giant Nimrod founded also his nation, and that Scripture has named him separately on account of the extraordinary dimensions of his empire and of his body, so that the number of seventy-two nations remains. But Peleg was mentioned, not because he founded a nation (for his race and language are Hebrew), but on account of the critical time at which he was born, all the earth being then divided. Nor ought we to be surprised that the giant Nimrod lived to the time in which Babylon was founded and the confusion of tongues occurred, and the consequent division of the earth. For though Heber was in the sixth generation from Noah, and Nimrod in the fourth, it does not follow that they could not be alive at the same time. For when the generations are few, they live longer and are born later; but when they are many, they live a shorter time, and come into the world earlier. We are to understand that, when the earth was divided, the descendants of Noah who are registered as founders of nations were not only already born, but were of an age to have immense families, worthy to be called tribes or nations. And therefore we must by no means suppose that they were born in the order in which they were set down; otherwise, how could the twelve sons of Joktan, another son of Heber’s, and brother of Peleg, have already founded nations, if Joktan was born, as he is registered, after his brother Peleg, since the earth was divided at Peleg’s birth? We are therefore to understand that, though Peleg is named first, he was born long after Joktan, whose twelve sons had already families so large as to admit of their being divided by different languages. There is nothing extraordinary in the last born being first named: of the sons of Noah, the descendants of Japheth are first named; then the sons of Ham, who was the second son; and last the sons of Shem, who was the first and oldest. Of these nations the names have partly survived, so that at this day we can see from whom they have sprung, as the Assyrians from Assur, the Hebrews from Heber, but partly have been altered in the lapse of time, so that the most learned men, by profound research in ancient records, have scarcely been able to discover the origin, I do not say of all, but of some of these nations. There is, for example, nothing in the name Egyptians to show that they are descended from Misraim, Ham’s son, nor in the name Ethiopians to show a connection with Cush, though such is said to be the origin of these nations. And if we take a general survey of the names, we shall find that more have been changed than have remained the same.

 

[jmcrae]

Did language evolve from grunts to grammar 1? - twinc

Based on the contents of this forum, and comparing them to my 400 year old books, I would have to say that language has actually devolved from precise, articulate grammar to barely comprehensible grunting and waving - at least, over the period of 400 years in question.

I would venture to say that, in contrast to our ancestors, who made every effort to convey their meaning as clearly as possible to others, the people of today have no idea what they mean to say when they begin, but since they hope to gain enlightenment regarding what might be going on in their own minds, they start making random noises at other people, in the hopes that someone will glean a meaning from it, and then tell them what that meaning is.

Or perhaps I am just particularly cynical, today.

 

[twinc]

Actually, folks, the story of the Tower of Babel is precisely a story of language going from simple – a single tongue understood by all – to complex.

You might say that the effects of sin came down upon language like a ton of Babel bricks, in this story. But you certainly can’t say that it got simpler.

There’s also no reason at all for even the most literalist person to believe that Hebrew was the first language. The folks who first investigated language families took their existence as proof of the common origin of humanity, in contrast to those who argued that humans (especially white people) must have evolved independently in many places. (Especially black people, because they wanted to believe them to be more like apes than white people.)

Babel isn’t a story I believe in a literalist way; but I surely believe that it’s literally true about how arrogant people’s projects tend to disintegrate due to lack of communication, and how nothing can be built without God behind it. And if something really really bad happened once during the construction of a ziggurat (which were believed to be connections between earth and heaven), I would not be surprised.

I will say that one of the funny things about languages is that they all just about equal in sophistication. Give up one way of being more subtle and expressive, and another way is coming around the back. Get rid of one sound, and another shows up. None of them are too difficult for babies to learn. All of them have ways to say just about anything that a human can think up. They’re amazing technology, really, and yet we hardly even notice them unless we have to try to learn another one.

Mintaka - cutting through what is mostly superfluous,the basic question was and is "are the modern languages of today more evolved i.e more sophisticated than the ancient language/s of yesterday day and yester year or is the case vice versa - twinc

 

[twinc]

Actually, folks, the story of the Tower of Babel is precisely a story of language going from simple – a single tongue understood by all – to complex.

You might say that the effects of sin came down upon language like a ton of Babel bricks, in this story. But you certainly can’t say that it got simpler.

There’s also no reason at all for even the most literalist person to believe that Hebrew was the first language. The folks who first investigated language families took their existence as proof of the common origin of humanity, in contrast to those who argued that humans (especially white people) must have evolved independently in many places. (Especially black people, because they wanted to believe them to be more like apes than white people.)

Babel isn’t a story I believe in a literalist way; but I surely believe that it’s literally true about how arrogant people’s projects tend to disintegrate due to lack of communication, and how nothing can be built without God behind it. And if something really really bad happened once during the construction of a ziggurat (which were believed to be connections between earth and heaven), I would not be surprised.

I will say that one of the funny things about languages is that they all just about equal in sophistication. Give up one way of being more subtle and expressive, and another way is coming around the back. Get rid of one sound, and another shows up. None of them are too difficult for babies to learn. All of them have ways to say just about anything that a human can think up. They’re amazing technology, really, and yet we hardly even notice them unless we have to try to learn another one.

Mintaka - cutting through what is interesting but superfluous,the basic question was and is "are modern languages more sophisticated than the ancient languages of yesterday and yester year - twinc

 

[juliamajor]

very limited number of languages is attested from before the Bronze Age collapse and the rise of alphabetic writing: The Sumerian, Hurrian, Hattic and Elamite language isolates, Afro-Asiatic in the form the Egyptian and a number of ancient Semitic languages, and Indo-European (Anatolian languages, Mycenaean Greek and traces of Indo-Aryan[1]). There are a number of undeciphered Bronze Age records, possibly encoding a Minoan (Cretan hieroglyphs, Linear A), a Proto-Elamite and a “Harappan language” (Indus script).

Date Language Attestation Notes
c. 3100 BC Sumerian Jemdet Nasr see Sumerian cuneiform; “proto-literate” period from about 3500 BC (see Kish tablet)
c. 2700 BC Egyptian tomb of Seth-Peribsen (2nd Dynasty, Umm el-Qa’ab see Egyptian hieroglyphs; “proto-hieroglyphic” inscriptions from about 3300 BC (Naqada III; see Abydos, Egypt, Narmer Palette)
c. 2400 BC Eblaite
c. 2300 BC Akkadian
c. 2250 BC Elamite Awan dynasty peace treaty with Naram-Sin
c. 2000 BC Hurrian fragmentary, known only from a few glosses in Hittite texts
c. 1800 BC West Semitic / proto-Canaanite Middle Bronze Age alphabets
c. 1800 BC Luwian Luwian hieroglyphs
c. 1650 BC Hittite Various cuneiform texts and Palace Chronicles written during the reign of Hattusili I, from the archives at Hattusas see Hittite cuneiform, Hittite texts
c. 1500 BC Canaanite Proto-Canaanite alphabet
c. 15th-14th / 13th century BC Greek Linear B tablet archive from Bronze Age Knossos
c. 1400 BC Hattic
c. 1300 BC Ugaritic see Ugaritic script
c. 1400 BC - 1000 BC Old Chinese Oracle bone script and bronze inscriptions[2] Because of the logographic nature of the Chinese script, it is difficult to date the age of the oldest Chinese texts, and the Shi Jing may date to as early as 1000 BC, which would still correspond to the Chinese Bronze Age. Old Chinese is a reconstructed language, dependent on the reconstruction of Middle Chinese.

[edit] First millennium BC
With the appearance of alphabetic writing in the Early Iron Age, the number of attested languages increases. With the emergence of the Brahmic family of scripts, languages of India become attested from after about 300 BC.[3]

Phoenician - about 1000 BC
Aramaic - c. 950 BC
Hebrew - c. 950 BC: Gezer calendar
Phrygian - c. 800 BC
Moabite - c. 800 BC
Ammonite - c. 800 BC
Old South Arabian - c. 800 BC
Etruscan - c. 700 BC
Umbrian - c. 600 BC
North Picene - c. 600 BC
Lepontic - c. 600 BC
Tartessian - c. 600 BC
Lydian - c. 600 BC
Carian - c. 600 BC
Eteocypriot - c. 600 BC
Thracian c. 6th c.BC
Venetic c. 6th c.BC
Old Persian - 525 BC: Behistun inscription
Latin - c. 500 BC: Duenos Inscription[4]
South Picene - c. 500 BC
Messapian - c. 500 BC
Gaulish - c. 500 BC
Old North Arabian - c. 500 BC
Mixe-Zoque - c. 500 BC: Isthmian script (disputed)
Oscan - c. 400 BC
Iberian - c. 400 BC
Meroitic - c. 300 BC
Faliscan - c. 300 BC
Mayan languages - c. between 300 BC and 200 BC[5]
Volscian - c. 275 BC
Sanskrit, Prakrit - c. 260 BC: Edicts of Ashoka[6][7]
Tamil - c. 254 BC: Tamil[8]
Galatian - c. 200 BC
Celtiberian - c. 100 BC
Korean - adoption of Hanja c. 100 BC, evidence of proto-Idu c. 500 AD[9]
[edit] First millennium CE
This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.