8 Language

It seems appropriate that after taking a look at who we are, what makes us human, how we think about ourselves, and the world that we take a look at how we communicate. Take a few minutes and jot down some of your ideas about these questions.

• How is our understanding of culture and society constructed through and by language?
• How can language be powerful?
• How can you use language to empower yourself?
• How is language used to manipulate us?
• In what ways are language and power inseparable?
• What is the relationship between thinking and language? How close or far are they apart?
• How does language influence the way we think, act, and perceive the world?
• How do authors use the resources of language to impact an audience?

Where did language come from? A question that never gets answered.

The origin of language and its evolutionary emergence in the human species have been subjects of speculation for several centuries. The topic is difficult to study because of the lack of direct evidence. Consequently, scholars wishing to study the origins of language must draw inferences from other kinds of evidence such as the fossil record, archaeological evidence, contemporary language diversity, studies of language acquisition and comparisons between human language and systems of communication existing among animals (particularly other primates). Many argue that the origins of language probably relate closely to the origins of modern human behavior, but there is little agreement about the implications and directionality of this connection.

This shortage of empirical evidence has caused many scholars to regard the entire topic as unsuitable for serious study. In 1866, the Linguistic Society of Paris banned any existing or future debates on the subject, a prohibition which remained influential across much of the Western world until late in the twentieth century.[1][2] Today, there are various hypotheses about how, why, when, and where language might have emerged.[3] Despite this, there is scarcely more agreement today than a hundred years ago, when Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection provoked a rash of armchair speculation on the topic.[4] Since the early 1990s, however, a number of linguists, archaeologists, psychologists, anthropologists, and others have attempted to address with new methods what some consider one of the hardest problems in science.[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_language

Read the article, “How Did Language Begin?: by Ray Jackendoff

Take some notes on the following Ted Talk. Look back at the questions from the beginning of this unit. Can you answer any here? Do you have any more ideas?

Let’s take a look at how Alex Gendler explains how linguists group languages into language families, demonstrating how these linguistic trees give us crucial insights into the past. Over the course of human history, thousands of languages have developed from what was once a much smaller number. How did we end up with so many? And how do we keep track of them all?

Currently there are more than 6,000 languages spoken around the world. This five-part series traces the history and evolution of language and attendant theories and controversies while evaluating the scope of linguistic diversity, the dissemination of language, the expansion of language into written form, and the life cycle of language.

Watch this 5 part series on Speaking in Tongues: The History of Language.

Mark Pagel: How language transformed humanity

Biologist Mark Pagel shares an intriguing theory about why humans evolved our complex system of language. He suggests that language is a piece of “social technology” that allowed early human tribes to access a powerful new tool: cooperation.