language started in a very basic form, most likely as verbal expressions of the sensations. “Ohhhh” and “Ahhhh” from the warmth of the Sun is kind of an illustration. Language is just like evolution, gradually upgrading over time.
First comment -
There is a difference between communication and language I think.
Animals can communicate with each other with noises - “Tweets” and “whistles”, “grunts” and “barks”…In human terms maybe they mean something like, “I need food”, “get out of my way”, “I’m looking for a mate”…One or more noises may indicate these things, but it is a way of communicating but not truly language.
A human baby in an environment surrounded by people who talk/speak may babble and point to communicate things such as “I want milk” or “I want the cookie” that moms and dads can figure out because they are around them but guests rarely can understand the child at all. It is limited selective communication in a sense. But in most cases early on, the infants just cry and mom or dad has to figure out what is wrong.
I would contend that none of these examples are truly language but rather forms communication.
Language in itself is fascinating.
As Third Day pointed out, the babies in the experiment by Akba never heard nor were taught language, so they did not know how to have language either.
Yes, in this study they communicated with hand gestures somewhat but it does not sound like true language.
And the hearing children of deaf parents are in similar situations from what I understand. They never ‘hear’ nor are they taught language. They may be able to communicate a message by gestures but it is not language initially. They must be taught often by speech therapists as Third Day commented.
We see primates who can learn sign language to communicate, but they have never been shown to use it for true language in that they never have asked the experimenters questions. They use the signs in a limited way for communication.
If man evolved and now has a more complex brain than the chimpanzees, how is it that man just does not have language? Why is it that it still must be learned as shown above with the babies with Akba and in the cases with deaf parents?
Without being taught or without hearing language, it is not able to be learned or used by humans even today.
It is not something that just is, it is learned.
BUT what if you go back to the beginnings…If there was no language around, HOW was it learned?
How did it go from babbles used for communication to the complex notion of language??
Even those with the developed complex human mind today CANNOT know language without hearing it or learning it!
I find it difficult to explain from an evolutionary standpoint…
Secondly -
Humans are social creations and so where humans are, language will be found.
Having said that, technologies may be simple or complex BUT languages are never simple and are always complex.
It even seems in many cases that languages in pre-industrialized times were much more complex than English.
As an example, I found a source that says that English has about 7 tense forms and 3 noun genders, whereas Kivunjo, a Bantu language spoken on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro has 14 tenses and about 20 noun classes!
And we think English is hard to learn!
There is no evidence that there are primitive languages now in existence, nor is there any evidence that these primitive languages have existed in the past–even among the most remote tribes of stone age hunter-gatherers.
Another comment -
If language evolved, the earliest languages should be the simplest. Correct?
But language studies show that the more ancient the language (for example: Latin, 200 B.C.; Greek, 800 B.C.; Linear B, 1200 B.C.; and Vedic Sanskrit, 1500 B.C.), the more complex it is with respect to syntax, case, gender, mood, voice, tense, verb form, and inflection.
Even the people with the least complex cultures have highly sophisticated languages.
The best evidence shows that languages devolve; that is, they become simpler instead of more complex.
Most linguists reject the idea that simple languages evolve into complex languages.
I have read it stated that because of the interconnectedness of humans and language, if humans evolved, then so did language.
All available evidence indicates that language did not evolve, so what does that say about humans?..
Frances
