In Spanish "o" and "u" are rounded sounds and some objects that have this shape have this sound. Ex. Sol, luna, rueda, burbuja, ojos, redondo. That's interesting 🤔
The best theory I've come across is the need to convey more complex details or plans in social, group hunting, such that our language demands and access to more nutritious food sparked the need and provided the fuel for brain growth and further language development. Naturally, the reason we needed to stay social was because cooperation allowed us to better survive.
David Crystal has a great section about this in his book 'How Language Works'. He tackles the theories you mentioned and find they fall short. Babel is still an option with interesting historical evidence.
Definitely! The existence of a higher power (i.e. God) would explain where we got language from & His interference with human language would explain its extreme diversity.
Super video, Olly. I'm so happy that you showed the scene of the San people of Africa with their "click" language. Such interesting material regarding language. Cheers, Peter.
There is. The sense of "gift" as present came first, obviously, because it is derived from the verb "give". However, there is a falsehood, because the senses of "married" and "poison" both exist in Swedish and Norwegian...
The problem i can see with many with these theories is that they don't consider sign language and why deaf people can learn it. A fascinating theory i heard was that first human develop sign language before even being able to speak through their vocal cords, then gradually change into oral language with some residual sign (which can be attested in every language). But i guess we also aren't sure when and how sign language finds its origin
Good point. While I don't think any theory yet devised is 100% convincing, or can account for everything about language, I do think sign must have emerged very early in human history. It would have obvious advantages for silent communication while hunting in groups, and could have developed from imitation of animal (and human!) behaviour, which is, if not necessarily intended to be communicative, nonetheless full of information. I also think mother and baby interaction must have been a key factor. After all, the mother-baby relationship is the primary human relationship. There is interesting research which shows how lullabies help babies with their language development, so maybe the la-la theory also has something going for it!
I have not checked all languages but I found the word Mama seems to be in every language. Papa is different in several languages but Mama (the sound not the spelling) Is in every language I have checked so far.
i think they would associate sounds like ba and ka,ho... to things and through millions of years added more sounds and more things being recognized needed more and more sounds to comunicate. just like in modern day we make new words for new things.
The first consistent sounds corresponding with concepts beyond what great apes produced could be from the pliestocene for all we know. Given the fact that Neolithic proto Indo-European is so complex, I imagine that equally sophisticated language existed in the mesolithic, with the Paleolithic bridging complex language with possible proto language used by pre homo sapien species.
That is a bit a "silly question", or naive at best... Or let's say the "continuous" theory makes the most sense ^^ First considering "languages" as humans talking is a bit restrictive, we know many social animals exhange information, through sound for many of them (apes, marine mammals, birds,...). There may even well be more semantics than just "grunts" or equivalent, take birds with complex singing patterns for instance. So my "feeling" on this, would be to consider human language simply as a selected social trait like all others. Linguistics can get back to some millenia as some pointed out, and languages did/do evolve a lot, but we're even able to teach some apes or even dogs, or birds (raven, crow, parrot...) some form of semantics. The fact they don't spontaneously use abstract language features like we do could simply be the result of different evolutive pressure, just like we wouldn't be able to fly no matter how hard an eagle is showing us, or to swim as a fish no matter how hard we'd wiggle ^^
I think the likely story is a combination of all of them over time. Evolutionarily, we know there had to have been a group with a generic mutation that made language possible. That's just how genetics works. From there, new words and structures would be added on to communicate information. The word for whatever animal was commonly hunted might have been based on imitating the sound of the animal while the word for danger may have been whatever the common grunt for getting hurt was in the group. As our social structures became more complex and we got smarter, the kinds of information we needed to communicate would have to get more complex. What we recognize as language now would have necessarily started out very simple grunts that combined in new ways over thousands of years. Trying to pin down one origin of language is pointless.
I’m a Christian and the Tower of Babel is at the very least a very interesting idea about how many languages came into being. The Bible says that God “confounded” the language of the people because they were trying to build a tower to get to Heaven. The idea being that God made it so that all of a sudden none of them spoke the same language anymore. If nothing else, it’s interesting to contemplate.
All very interesting and pretty funny theories. But may I present the 7th theory that'll make you think and make your brain spin. I am a Christian and I believe in what the Bible says, and what's very interesting is that there is a story in the Bible that explains the origin of how and why we speak different languages. Please enjoy. "Now the whole world had one langauge and common speech. As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there. They said to each other, "Come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly." They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. Then they said "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth." But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. The Lord said, "If as one people speaking the same langauge they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other." So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth." Genesis 11:1-8 NIV. Now yes, it is true that nobody knows what the first language was, but because the Lord created humans in his image, that means we were able to speak like we do now because God spoke to us. "Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being." Genesis 2:7 NIV. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." John 1:1-5 NIV. We may never know what the language of God sounded like until we enter Heaven but, we know that because the Lord spoke us into exsistance, the whole world into exsistance, we would natural be able to speak because that's what God does. Now as to why God decided to confuse our language, it's because together, we as a people wanted to be powerful ourselves, we betrayed God's law and sinned aganist him for our own good. So the Lord brought upon the earth a curse which is why some bad things happen. That's another story though. But look back at what God said when he visited this tower. "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them." The people were building this tower for themselves and not for God. They boldy proclaimed they wanted to make a name for themselves. God desires to be worshiped by us because he created us, he gives us so much good in our lives. Everything good that has ever happened in your life is from God. But, these people didn't love God, so they turned their backs aganist him. And God saw this and made it harder for them to build this tower. No matter what we try to do ourselves, we will never be able to acomplish it. "I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing." John 15:5 NIV. Also, just to mention the name of the tower, Babel. Where do you think the people who made the app Babel got their name? The word Babel sounds like the Hebrew word for confused. It's very interesting to see how much makes sense when you put this story into perspective of language origins. Every language that is spoken today is because of this one instant in time humans decided to make a name for themselves without God. Of course, over time we would want to discover how to understand each other, so naturally we would learn about grammar and all that, and would even find ways to blend languages together to make new ones. Like Latin for example, is the foundation of all Romance languages, and then there are some other languages that borrowed from them like English and German, and then some languages like Chinese and Japanese borrowed from each other as well. So it's just cool that, we share a lot of words with each other in every language, because we all used to speak the same language.
Interesting but sorry, that makes no sense. Sounds like a myth. I agree with some things of the Bible I've read but not those stories. They may be lessons but not meant to be taken literally.
@@Hellenicheavymetal I understand. Some of these stories can sound like myths and can be hard to comprehend. Sometimes I don't understand everything either. I'm interested in what you agree with in the Bible, if you don't mind me asking. What have you read?
My parents told me, when I was around 4 or 5 years old, I used to just make up my own words for a meaning if I didn't know what the actual word was. Before I learned the word for 'Metal' I referred to anything made of metal as 'dinky' b/c it would make a "Dink" sound when you hit it with something. They also told me, I used to say anything that didn't taste good was "Unyee".... I asked my parents if it was b/c of onions and they said, I told them, that was just how it made my mouth feel and it made me say it. The beginning of language could be similar to that.
I believe the discussion is shortsighted because it focuses on an either-or perspective, overlooking the various forms of communication that humans have developed and evolved through many stages to arrive at today's outcomes.
I think the development of language follows the development of stories. We understand our lives, our communities and our world through stories. The structure of language is story based. The mother-baby theory feels true.
The main problem with the mother-baby theory, is that we started walking upright when we were Australopithecus, 4MYA, yet only developed languages as Homo sapiens, 0.5MYA...
American Indians sing wordless songs or at least in such songs the actual sounds mean nothing. And the singing sounds like the same notes repeated. They can also sing songs with words like anyone else. But knowing no words does not slow them down any.
Cool channel, new sub. I'm currently doing a crash-course in Khmer (Cambodian) which is why I searched for a channel like yours. Anyway, I have a history in studying language from a fairly controversial angle. Have you read Jean Jacques Rousseau's essay "Essay on The Origin of Languages"? It's worth a pop. But more interesting is Jacques Derrida's reading of that essay from his almost (almost) unreadable book 'Of Grammatology', where among other interesting conclusions, he suggests the idea of looking for 'the origin' of language is problematic since the idea of an origin is a linguistic one. I think it was Sassure who said 'Language represents thought as thought represents itself' (something like that,) i.e. there's no middle man. So, to think of an origin is to have a word for an origin, and you can't have a word for an origin until you have language. Enjoying your videos.
I always thought language or different languages came from when some people were building a very tall tower to try to reach God but God didn’t like that so he made everyone babble in different languages so the building of the tower got aborted.
Cats will also purr when afraid or in pain. Self soothing maybe, but it is a fact that they do. Careful with putting stuff out that isn't researched enough.
I learned English from my parents. My parents learned English from other English speakers, who had learned English themselves from prior English speakers. Of course, the English we now speak was radically different 1,000 years ago, but whatever form it had then those speakers learned their language from prior speakers as well. So, who were the first speakers of a human language, and how/from whom did they learn to speak? We'll probably never know the answer, but it seems the most reasonable hypothesis is that the first human speakers learned from speakers who already possessed a complex language. ETs? Og and Gog did not sit in a cave and figure out grammar. "Hey Og, we really need our verbs to have a subjunctive mood." "Yeah Gog, it really sucks not being able to talk about hypothetical circumstances without it." Of course, brain development is a prime factor in this. Australopithecus probably didn't have a brain developed enough for the complexities of language as we know it. Neanderthals, whose average brain capacity was actually larger than modern humans, probably could have handled language. But who would have taught them?
Finally a video on the matter that is somewhat unbiased! Language is so complex, so many details entangled, that human mind could not have invented. In order to think of something you already need to have a language. In order to agree on using some sound symbols you need those symbols already. You can't have society without language. Thought and language must come together. You simply cannot invent something entirely new that isn't already exist in nature. Can you invent new grammatical category that isn't there? How can you you invent prefix, suffix, sintax? How can you invent conjuctions? Tie it up to vocal, phonetics, semantics? The same question applies to mathematics and music. You simply cannot invent those. If someone thinks that language is evolutional and stadial, then why there's no stadial evolution of it now? I mean new grammar categories, new language concepts? Of course languages change and mix between each other, but it's not major evolution, language doesn't become something new. Animanl's language is not a language, it's communication form, biological necessity. They don't need to evolute. The only logical and adequate reason is that language poped up in ready to use and ready to develop form mechanism with ALL of the categories and concepts. And it was given by God, as it is the only reason, because it has to be invented by some superior mind, human mind cannot invet such concepts - it only leads us back to logical dead-end.
How about birds? They seem much more talkative than mammals. Their sounds are complex yet have clearly recognizable patterns. Their ears are astonishing. I've never thought about it before I seriously started to learn English. The most challenging part for me has always been and still remains listening. After almost two years of everyday practice I still struggle to understand some native speakers and barely can communicate by phone. But look at parrots. They can't understand a language but can reproduce it really well. It could only mean they have some kind of ear of music. They have natural inborn ability to understand human speech and reproduce it. Parrots are not the only birds able to do it. It is some general ability of birds, at least the smart ones. It means there are some essential similarities between our speech and birds trills. It gave me an idea, what about the opposite? Could it be humans reproduced birds' communication approach in the first place? Birds' trills are complex and vary, yet consists of clear patterns that can be understood and reproduced to some degree by humans. Of course, we don't understand the meaning of these signals, but it is not necessary. We have our own meanings to encode by these signals. We don't need to reproduce trills perfectly. The key is humans are good at recognition of patterns of any kind, so hearing the patterns in birds' trills could gave us an idea of the language. These patterns are something we cant' hear in beasts roaring, squealing or other sounds. For example, I can't hear any patterns in cats' or dogs' sounds, no matter how long I live together with these pets, I can't understand if they ask me for food or to play, whatever sounds they make are seems the same, yet once I hear a bird outside I can differentiate when it switch between its several trills automatically without any effort. So I think if someone or something in our environment could gave us the idea of the language, the birds' trill is the closest thing out there.
Some of the rebuttals are kind of weak. For instance, pointing out that different languages have different animal sounds disproves nothing. Maybe it's the difference in animal sounds interpreted by different primitive groups (probably influenced by a dominant individual or individuals) that gave proto-languages their own sounds.
It proves we don't interpret sounds the same way. Even with the dominant group factor we'd have to dig deeper and move toward how those utterances developing grammar, uniformity in groups that set them apart, naming a lot more than physical instincts and how they somehow developed around the same time. Writing is another level. For the comments that suggest basic needs spawned language, it still falls short. We're not dogs gentlemen, we think beyond basic needs.
@@williamsmith7865 My point is that what they believe disproves the theory... doesn't. But I think, re-reading your comments, that you and I may be saying the same thing.
I prefer the naming theory. Man has to name things. Booboo and Kikki show this. La-la theory has some weight, as there're wordless songs to this day. They all have some merit....
All of these are pretty human centric, which is strange because all types of organisms from from insects to deep sea squid to fungi to whales have some sort of communication and syntax. I think it’s far more likely we evolved to be able to associate certain stimuli with meaning and likely developed syntax later to convey more complex meanings.
i' think it makes more sense that the human language was a process that started even before homo erectus arrived and homo sapiens had from the start a complete language. i don't know if there was a "proto world" language but it could be. there are 3 clues that language started in Africa (east Africa probably): 1 our most recent ancestor were from east Africa, 2 every human society that we know of have a language and all languages are very complex (but not the same complex) to convey many ideas and 3 only in Africa there are click languages. the 3rd clue may be indicative that the first homo sapiens language(if there is one) was a click language
We wouldn't need to invent a time machine, just find an alien planet with multicellular (probably animal) life, monitor it for a very long time, and see if language develops and how. Though that is likely to be different from our story, it would still provide empirical evidence for theories as opposed to theories with little solid basis. Like that would be any easier...
Prehistoric tool manufacture, Hunting and Gathering, and Childbirth. Ensuing Generations of earliest Humanity continuing to survive one generation to the next.
I think 🤔 not that long ago in the grand scheme of things, humans 👥👥👥👥 did not speak language 📜, and hummed and freeform signed (as in not actually a language) their communication. Then 1 day all humans could speak language 📜. This would explain: • Why the original languages 📜 were so unnecessarily annoying to use • Why humans 👥👥👥👥 have such advanced humming, despite not using it that often in the grand scheme of things • Why the original languages 📜 have utterly pointless structures like writing in 2 directions • Why the original languages 📜 seem to have been made by a being that does not see 👀 the world 🌍like humans do, having no words for color (though quickly getting them) • Why the words for dog 🐕 are completely unrelated to the obvious onomatopoeia of a double bark for greeting • Why there are so many unused roots • Why the languages 📜 don't seem to have a common ancestor • Why the languages are non-modular ❌🧱 • Why humans 👥👥👥👥 are often so bad at understanding 💡 what they are saying 🗣 • Why there is a ridiculous overfocus on verbs in most original languages 📜 • Why the original languages 📜 did not have literal sentences or literal paragraphs
A genetic mutation might have given humans a greater ability to speak, but it seems impossible to suggest that the mutation itself contained or generated an actual language on its own....ChatGPT says the following which makes me think that Chomsky's ideas shouldn't really be classified as an explanation of language's origin: "Chomsky's theory of the innate language acquisition device or universal grammar hypothesis does not provide a specific account of how a particular language emerged among the first humans who spoke. "Chomsky's focus is on the underlying cognitive mechanisms that make language acquisition possible, rather than on the historical or cultural factors that led to the development of specific languages."
Language came from the first man, Adam, who was made in God's image. Language came from God. There is a Heavenly language too.This is called speaking in tongues.
This might be controversial, but I will spill it out anyway. As a muslim, I believe that the first language is something so complete and unique, and it is the language of the Lord Himself, passed down directly to Adam as the first human. I trully don't believe about Darwin's evolution theory, it's absolute garbage in my opinion. In the Qur'an, chapter no. 2, verse 30-38, it tells about the short version of how Adam came about, and along those lines, it's written that after the Lord had created Adam, He then proceeded to teach him every name of things, albeit not specified what type of things, it could be literally everything or just essential things to go through everyday life. So these "names" are indeed a form of language, now aren't they? So this has to be something so complex, so specific, and unique in its own structure. And I believe it to be the Arabic language. I know maybe some will think just because I'm a muslim, I believe the first language as the Arabic language, but that's not the case here, as I already elaborated my reasoning about what features would the first language have earlier. I'm sure Uncle Olly also knows how complex the Arabic language is, how 1 object can be interpreted in many words with each words has its own unique usage and context to it. So I don't see that Arabic came from human, but it is indeed the first language, coming out from the Lord Himself, taught to Adam, and the rest is history. Okay, attack me now, netizen. 🥲💀
The idea that language came to humans from a higher, intelligent source is the most plausible hypothesis to me. However you name that source, the fact that language was a gift to humans from Higher Intelligence makes more sense than any of the ideas commonly presented. P.S., I totally agree with you that Darwinism is nonsense. Order does not "evolve", it is imposed! Order does not come from disorder without intelligent agency!
@@nalimlattarai2873 no i wasn't saying the Bible was the first book ever written. But Genesis 11 tells the story of how God confused the languages of the people because they rebelled against Him.
It's definately a mestery thing from where languanges actually came from? And what does the first languange that humands speak？what is ding dong teory anyway? LOL.🤣
If you watch the documentary film Prometheus, a race called the Engineers gave us language. First language was Sanskrit. Because that's what the alien Engineers spoke. #fact
Only if they wanted to be as indecipherable as possible. In that case, why not shove all the original languages 📜 together and get the most annoying language 📜 to decipher ever.
@@UniDocs_Mahapushpa_Cyavana Why? A better question is. What languages do aliens speak. So we can communicate with them. I think it's Sanskrit, so we must keep Sanskrit alive.
I noticed that all of these theories came from a Darwinist perspective; I wonder if other religions have any good insight. Maybe just throw the Quran or the Bible out there just as food for thought.
indeed there is evidence that language indeed has to do with neurological development. Yet - I think we underestimate the ability of other creatures to communicate. I think, that there was indeed a broad communication like it is now in gorillas or chimps. But I think it became much broader the very moment when the brain had developed. Btw, there are several regions in the brain useful for language. Usually we learn about Broca and Wernicke region where a stroke can cause funny effects. But there are more of such regions. E.g. even with aphasia, people still can sing texts. And even a cat, with no speaking region at all, knows their name, knows "no!" and the word for food, and the names of their fellow cats. Wolves can plan their hunt together. A chimp can talk with their hands up to 150 words and use them correctly in creative ways that make sense. So a talking person would have been understood within the first two or three decades by introducing new sounds and gestures. And with more people having these abilities, they'd have a huge advantage. I think, a basic language of about one thousand words might have been develloped within two or three generations. Might does not mean that it has. And I think that we first would have to do neurological research which parts of the brain are indeed involved in the process of talking and of understanding speech. About the sounds I don't care. They can devellop easily and quite fast. It's not like that a person thought: O let's make a sound system of 24 sounds, some of them being vowels and some consonants. Indeed every language is very complex with much more sounds than there are letters. The difficulty of creating a writing system is to find out, which sounds are estimated to be the same inspite of the fact that they aren't. Especially in the beginning there might have been a huge creativity in creating sounds and words with the very next generation making these sounds easier to pronounce. Grammar is the thing that developed later. With very different concepts of construction.
Try "Tamil" Language 🖐️ ~ One of the 7 Oldest Language of this world 🌎 And One nd Only Living oldest Language too - Even Korean Language nd Tamil language Sharing a lots of Similar word's with Exact meaning
