the human language

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marwen

marwen

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We talk with different languages in this world. But all these languages have one common amazing thing : the complexity.

When you see how our "linguistic" system works when we are speaking (in any language) you will be stupefied by the number of moves that we do with our tongue, teeth, lips and throat to produce a number of sounds : letters or phonems. And the amazing way how skillfully we join these sounds one to another to make words. And how we use this faculty of designating every object around by a sequence of sounds : a name.

All this is amazing !

I can say it's impossible for the first humans on earth to invent such a complex system.
A human being can't create a language. All the theories saying that the man found himself on earth dumb (mute) an then he created his own language after hearing the sound of animals and nature, all these theories seems to me superficial and irrealistic with regard to the complexity of the process of talking. I'd rather say that the language is innate with the first human on earth.

I know it's easy to derive a language from another (english,french from latin...) but it's quite unrealizable for a human to invent a language from nothing.

The idea I support is that the language is innate (in the first human mind) :
The first human(s) spoke one language : the original language, and his descendants derived from it the different languages we speak today. Or the first human(s) spoke a group of original languages, and from them we derived our languages, and I have three arguments for that :

1) My first argument is the complexity of the speaking process.

2) My second argument is an interpetation(my interpretation can be wrong) of some verses in the qur'an :
‏1 ـ وعلم آدم الأسماء كلها‏[‏ البقرة‏:31].‏
002.031 And He taught Adam the names of all things; then He placed them before the angels, and said: "Tell me the names of these if ye are right."

‏2 ‏ ـ الرحمن‏*‏ علم القرآن‏*‏ خلق الإنسان‏*‏ علمه البيان‏[‏ الرحمن‏:1‏ ـ‏4].‏
055.001 (God) Most Gracious!
.002 It is He Who has taught the Qur'an.
.003 He has created man:
.004 He has taught him speech (and intelligence).

3‏ ـ اقرأ باسم ربك الذي خلق‏*‏ خلق الإنسان من علق‏*‏ اقرأ وربك الأكرم‏*‏ الذي علم بالقلم‏*‏ علم الإنسان ما لم يعلم‏*[‏ العلق‏:1‏ ـ‏5].‏
096.001 Proclaim! (or read!) in the name of thy Lord and Cherisher, Who created-
.002 Created man, out of a (mere) clot of congealed blood:
.003 Proclaim! And thy Lord is Most Bountiful,-
.004 He Who taught (the use of) the pen,-
.005 Taught man that which he knew not.
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3) My third argument is the conformity between the speaking organs (mouth, tongue, lips, teeth..)
and the speaking process(the language) : Allah who created our speaking organs, created also the language that fits to them.

I have to say that it's not explicitely the Islamic point of view, but it's the point of view of a number of muslim scholars an scientists, one of them is Dr. Zaghlool Najar.
if you understand arabic here is an article in arabic of Dr.Zaghlool in the Ahram egyptian news paper. I'm sorry I don't find the english version of his article.
 
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I have to add that a human being can't invent a language by himself, but he has the ability (speech organs, language zones in the mind) to learn a language from his entourage : a baby can't invent a language, but he can learn a language from his parents by imitating them.
But the first man on earth (Adam) had to be learned by Allah how to speak : by revelation from God or by any other divine form, as mentioned in the 31th ayat of surat al-baqara.
And Allah knows best.
 
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marwen said:
I have to add that a human being can't invent a language by himself, but he has the ability (speech organs, language zones in the mind) to learn a language from his entourage : a baby can't invent a language, but he can learn a language from his parents by imitating them.
But the first man on earth (Adam) had to be learned by Allah how to speak : by revelation from God or by any other divine form, as mentioned in the 31th ayat of surat al-baqara.
And Allah knows best.
Click to expand...

I am unsure what you mean when you say a human can't "invent" a language. The structure of language is innate and we can say Allah "taught" us this, but it would be more accurate to say Allah gave us the intelligence and programming to be able to carry out speech.
This intelligence is more a framework or methodology than an actual language like French.

edit: If any of this goes against what the Quran says please let me know.
 
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Dagless said:
I am unsure what you mean when you say a human can't "invent" a language. The structure of language is innate and we can say Allah "taught" us this, but it would be more accurate to say Allah gave us the intelligence and programming to be able to carry out speech.
This intelligence is more a framework or methodology than an actual language like French.
Click to expand...

When you keep a baby isolated (without speaking to him) untill he grow up, he will not be able to speak, and he cannot speak untill he lessenes to other humans speaking, because a man can't create a language by himself, however he has the right "infrastructure" to speak. He had to LEARN a language, he can't invent a language. That's because the language construction process is so complex that it's probably impossible for a non speaking human (the primitive man as some naturalists want to call) to invent a language from 'scratch'. There must be a first original language(s) that the first man on earth "learned" (and not invented). And we are just deriving languages from.

That's my idea.

Dagless said:
... and we can say Allah "taught" us this, but it would be more accurate to say Allah gave us the intelligence and programming to be able to carry out speech.
Click to expand...

Yes Brother, this may be another interpretation of the ayat above. I can't say my interpretation is the right one. And Allah knows Best.
 
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marwen said:
When you keep a baby isolated (without speaking to him) untill he grow up, he will not be able to speak, and he cannot speak untill he lessenes to other humans speaking, because a man can't create a language by himself, however he has the right "infrastructure" to speak. He had to LEARN a language, he can't invent a language. That's because the language construction process is so complex that it's probably impossible for a non speaking human (the primitive man as some naturalists want to call) to invent a language from 'scratch'. There must be a first original language(s) that the first man on earth "learned" (and not invented). And we are just deriving languages from.

That's my idea.
Click to expand...

If he is alone then there is no need to speak. If the baby and lots of other babies are together and all grow up without language, then in a few generations they will have their own language. It may not be as complex as ours for a good few generations but it will develop. I'm not sure if you can say they "invented" it because it would be more genetic than them consciously doing it.
There have been various experiments to support this point of view (obviously none of them involved actually bringing up babies in isolation since this would be considered immoral).
 
Dagless said:
If he is alone then there is no need to speak. If the baby and lots of other babies are together and all grow up without language, then in a few generations they will have their own language. It may not be as complex as ours for a good few generations but it will develop. I'm not sure if you can say they "invented" it because it would be more genetic than them consciously doing it.
There have been various experiments to support this point of view (obviously none of them involved actually bringing up babies in isolation since this would be considered immoral).
Click to expand...

I'd rather agree with that :hmm:

Dagless said:
There have been various experiments to support this point of view (obviously none of them involved actually bringing up babies in isolation since this would be considered immoral).
Click to expand...
Yeah, Experiences on babies seems to be immoral and difficult (I won't do this with my future babies :D)
But Observation on animals can be a solution : there is a lot of animals even close to humans in term of mouth structure and in term of intelligence (may be near to 90% of the human intelligence: mammals, birds, dolphins, monkeys,...) and they live in groups like humans, but they didn't develop such complex linguistic structures, they just make elementary voices or gests. I know they can communicate with it, but that type of primitive language is nothing compared with the human one.

Perhaps making experiences on humans can show different results than on animals, but now as it's quite impossible to do such experiments, we can just make theoretical discussions.
 
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marwen said:
Yeah, Experiences on babies seems to be immoral and difficult (I won't do this with my future babies :D)
But Observation on animals can be a solution : there is a lot of animals even close to humans in term of mouth structure and in term of intelligence (may be near to 90% of the human intelligence: mammals, birds, dolphins, monkeys,...) and they live in groups like humans, but they didn't develop such complex linguistic structures, they just make elementary voices or gests. I know they can communicate with it, but that type of primitive language is nothing compared with the human one.

Perhaps making experiences on humans can show different results than on animals, but now as it's quite impossible to do such experiments, we can just make theoretical discussions.
Click to expand...

They have done experiments with people, but in a different way. The main animal experiment I was thinking of was one done with zebra finches. There was a really good documentary I saw on this a while back and I'm trying to find it for you now so that I can upload.
 
Dagless said:
There was a really good documentary I saw on this a while back and I'm trying to find it for you now so that I can upload.
Click to expand...

yes it'll be very helpful if you find it (or just a link).:hmm:
 
The babies learn in early years of life because of the plasticity of brain. Lots of synaptic connections are made in the first few years of life after birth. If the baby does not learn to speak in those years, I guess he/she will never be able to speak again or at least with much ease. That is why children who are born deaf cannot also speak when they grow up because their brain does not know what speaking a language means. Pediatric neurologists can throw more info, my knowledge is only basic in regards to brain function and development.
 
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Thanks Chuck ! Great link. It really enriches the topic. Many thanks.
Now I'll continue watching it.
 
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Twins frequently invent their own language. One cannot be certain if the that process is completely independent from the process of language acquisition in their families, but it shows a human being, even at such a young age, is capable of forming means of communication.
 
M.A.S.H. said:
Twins frequently invent their own language.
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I think you meant 'twins choose the same words to express something', is it that ? if so,Yes that make sense because they grew up in similar conditions and they are so close. Even friends who spend a long time together can seem to speak the same way. But I don't really think it's a "new language invention".
 
Greetings,

I tend towards Chomsky's view that there exists in humans a "universal grammar" which accounts for the ease with which we pick up language in childhood.

There have been several attempts at inventing new languages (Esperanto being the most famous), so that shows that it is at least possible; the difficulty arises in getting large numbers of people to use these languages.

Peace
 
if you left two babies together, for sure they would find some way to communicate, then as they grow older they would be able to form simple sentences and words based on pointing, then generations after them would expand on it.

but in this scenario who raises the kids in the first place?
 
czgibson said:
I tend towards Chomsky's view that there exists in humans a "universal grammar" which accounts for the ease with which we pick up language in childhood.
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I agree with that point too. I mean, there are many "linguistic" fundamental concepts (object<->name, action<->verb, ...) are common to all the languages (grammar), and may be a baby knows them even before learning a first language.

czgibson said:
There have been several attempts at inventing new languages (Esperanto being the most famous), so that shows that it is at least possible; the difficulty arises in getting large numbers of people to use these languages.
Click to expand...
I don't know, but something makes me feel that the appearance of language has been done unconsciously. I can't imagine that the first humans who started using a language have decided to invent a structured language (from nothing) using a clear methodology, and fixing clear grammar rules, and then they started to learn that language ? You know all the grammar rules of any laguage (arabic, latin, frensh, english, ...) have been defined many thousands of years after the appearence of the language. The idea of Grammar Study is kind of recent, although the concept of grammar is implicitly and unconsciously included in the first languages.

Yes, today we can invent a "new" language. But the origin of the first languages used by human was a result of something different from an organised consciously-made invention.
 
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I read an article in the Economist couple of years back about some sort of "experiment" or observation of deaf children who were localised who developed their own sign language.
It confirms that ability to use language is innate in us humans.
 

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