WHAT IS LANGUAGE?
According to F.T.Wood, “Language is a refined human cry” which was used by Ancient Man Before the existence of words. Ancient Man used to cry or shout to express their emotions and thoughts. A language is a tool for communication that is used as a medium for the expression of thoughts. It is an outlet for emotions. There are two forms of language. (1.) A system of vocal symbols (Spoken). (2.) A system of symbols(Written).
WHAT IS THE SOURCES OF LANGUAGE ?
1. DIVINE SOURCES: According to the Bible and the Christian belief, Adam was the first man in the world. Thus he might be a speaker of the language and taught his children and it followed generation after generation in different forms of language.
2. CAVE ARTS: There are enormous sources of cave art that were found all over the world. Most of them were written/ drawn even thousands of centuries. F.T wood proposes cave art Might be one of the sources in the origin of language.
3. UNREFINED CRIES: A trivial movement of the mouth and breathing can produce audible sounds. So, In Ancient times, even though Man doesn’t know how to speak properly. He must have cried or laughed to call someone or express that he feared for something.
EVOLUTION OF LANGUAGE:
The evolution of language is the study of the development of language. The primary need of language is only to communicate. When people need to record a particular thing, they used written form or printing form Language is an evolutionary process that is not stable all the time and constantly changes from one period to another. For example Chaucer’s Age vs Modern Age. Changes in pronunciation, Grammar, and meaning are one of the evolution in language.
FOUR BASIC THEORIES OF LANGUAGE:
1. BOW-WOW THEORY: Bow-wow theory is defined by sounds. This theory was coined by Max Muller. Bow Wow theory hypothesis is the most popular but perhaps the most far-fetched hypothesis of all. It is the idea that human language and vocabulary originated as a form of imitation. Words are coined by the imitations are called onomatopoeia. For example, the imitation of animal sounds, such as bow wow for a dog’s bark or a-choo for a sneeze.
2. DING DONG THEORY: The Dingdong theory was adopted by German scholar Max Muller. This theory holds that the beginning of language is to be found in the sense of Rhythm. For example: whenever we try to push our car or let’s take a group of workers pushing some big rock will make sound like Ho Ho or Yo Yo .
3. POOH POOH THEORY: Pooh pooh theory was first proposed by Jean Jacques Rousseau. This theory holds that speech began with the intersection: Spontaneous cries of pain (“ouch”), Surprise(“oh!”), and other such emotions. Rousseau says that language is a refinement of pain, pleasure, Surprise, Wonders etc.
4. GESTURE THEORY: This theory was first produced by Wilhelm Wundt, and later restarted by Sir Richard Paget. In his Book, Human Speech which we may call the gesture theory. This theory states that Man first started using gestures to communicate. These gestures began to Accompany by sounds that eventually developed into a language.
Published by Ayisha Shabana
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