On Language

Have you ever been through a feeling or thought that you could not describe? Or a phenomenon when something is on the tip of your tongue but you still cannot recall it? There is a certain sense of frustration and helplessness and frustration till you find the right words. Do you remember the words that someone spoke to you ages ago that have imprinted on your mind? If you’ve been through any of these then you already know the power of language. Today, we will talk about how human language has evolved.

There is no single, universally accepted theory on the origin of language. Researchers from different fields such as psychology, linguistics, anthropology, neuroscience, archaeology, and others have attempted to explain the origin of language. Many languages are now extinct. The relative importance of one language over the others is dynamic and ever-changing, depending upon on polity, laws, and inter-national relations.

Language is often studied via script. Archaeologists and historians study language via the script. A script is a collection of symbols that represents something in real life. Most of the scripts that we use today have ‘alphabets’ which are representative of a ‘sound’ or ‘phonetic.’ We use these to form words which hold meaning. For example, English, and all European languages are written in the Roman script, which itself was derived from the Greek one.

There also exist scripts known as logographs. These are made up of characters which represent a word. Chinese is logographic. A pictorial form of logograph, which is now extinct, is hieroglyphs. Most popularly known to be from Egypt, hieroglyphs were also used by Aztecs, Anatolians, Mayans, etc. The earliest known script is Cuneiform, a logo-syllabic script used in Ancient Middle East.

Did language exist before writing and scripts were created?

Yes.

Is language older than script?

Yes.

When did language originate?

We do not know.

Since language is something that humans created, the definition, functions and forms of language are constantly changing.

Human language is acquired, not innate. It is something that you learn. This is what makes it possible for many languages to exist and for people to know more than one language. We all know that the language you are currently reading is different from what it was centuries ago. Whether it be the age of Chaucer or Shakespeare or Tharoor, each of these had their own vocabulary, syntax, and grammar — each of these was a form of one language at a particular point of time in history. When we study etymology, we realize that some words in English are originate from words of other languages like French, Latin, Greek, etc. Acumen, a Latin word, is highly used in English when describing someone’s sharpness and skills in their field. Therefore, a language evolves within itself as well as is influenced by the other languages.

When we study linguistics, we come to know that many words were similar sounding or similarly spelled across different languages. For example, Deus (Latin), Deva (Sanskrit), Dieu (French), and Dios (Spanish), all mean one thing — God. However, Ahura (Avestan) and Asura (Sanskrit), though linguistically related, represent completely opposing entities and qualities. This shows that there must be a language in the distant past from which all of these must have later separated and developed independently. Linguistics call this the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) Language Family. It is a reconstructed language based on the similarities found in a set of languages throughout time belonging to a particular geographical area. Language is not only created but can also be deduced through historic and cultural contexts by scientific means.

From clicks and sounds to lines and wedges, from pictures to characters, and to the modern alphabet, language has been constantly evolving. This development of language sets us apart from other species. It is only the human language that can create and talk about gods, relations, politics, morals and ethics, etc. This gossiping function of language is what has helped us to create systems such as religions, society, marriage, governments, enterprises/brands and philosophy. This very language helps us in self-enquiry, self-expression, contemplation. This very language also hinders our esteem, hurts us, distorts our perception, keeps us stuck etc. It is amusing that we also use this same language to convey the importance of dropping language and word-object association.

Further Reading:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nd5cklw6d6Q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWDKsHm6gTA

https://www.ted.com/talks/yuval_noah_harari_what_explains_the_rise_of_humans?language=ml

https://libwww.cc.it-hiroshima.ac.jp/library/pdf/research53_001-010.pdf

https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/evolution-langauge

https://www.linguisticsociety.org/content/how-did-language-begin

— Amee Parikh

( works towards bridging the gaps between science and spirituality, and integrating the mundane with the spiritual. She studies religion, mythology, and spirituality through an inter-disciplinary lens. She loves all things ancient, roaming the wilderness, and reading books in psychology, chemistry and physics. You can find her on Instagram @journeytothesource where she occasionally shares her thoughts and snippets from her otherwise private life. )