The Tower of Babel
Prof. Julia Nee
Based on Ch. 8 of The Language
Instinct by Steven Pinker
Are languages more similar or more
different?
• Martin Joos: “languages could differ from
each other without limit and in unpredictable
ways”
• Noam Chomsky: a Martian scientist would
conclude that earthlings, aside from their
mutually unintelligible vocabularies, speak the
same language
Are these similarities or differences?
• Isolating languages vs. Agglutinating
languages
– Isolating: Use fixed words to mark the players in a
sentence.
• The dog bit the man.
• The man bit the dog.
– Agglutinating: Add affixes to mark the players in a
sentence.
• Person.marker+base+aspect-mood.marker (Mixe)
• Fixed word order vs. flexible word order
Word Order
• What are the possible orders for Subject –
Object – Verb?
• SVO and SOV account for the majority of
languages
• A few are VSO
• Less than 1% OVS
• OSV?
Theories explaining language
universals
• There is a “language gene” (the capacity to
learn language is a part of our brain)
• Language originated only once
• Language developed out of a general learning
strategy in our brain
Are we genetically wired for language
learning?
• What if language originated only once?
– All existing languages come from the original
source
– Similarities come from that original language
• Counter-arguments:
– Creolization
– New signed languages
Creolization
• When speakers of different languages are
forced to communicate, they develop
“pidgins”
– Pidgin: strings of words borrowed from the
component languages; variable in word order;
little or no standard grammar
– Hawaiian sugar plantations called for Chinese,
Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Philippinos, and
Puerto Rican workers
Creolization
• Ex:
– Me capé buy, me check make.
– He bought my coffee; he made me out a check.
– I bought coffee; I made out a check
• When the second generation of speakers is
exposed to the pidgin, they regularize it into a
language, with a standard grammar
• Ex:
– Da firs japani came ran away from japan come.
– The first Japanese who arrived ran away from Japan to
here.
Signed Languages
• Naturally occurring languages that are found
wherever there is a community of deaf people
• Signed Languages are not necessarily related
to one another
• Nicaraguan Sign Language
– 1979: Establishment of the first school for the
deaf in Nicaragua
– Brought together deaf students from around the
country never before exposed to sign language
Signed Languages
• First students brought their own systems of
gesture or homesign
• Combined to form a pidgin – Lenguaje de
Signos Nicaragüense
• Younger deaf students were exposed to the
pidgin
• Created a creole – Idioma de Signos
Nicaragüense
Signed Languages
• ISN was more complex and had fixed
grammatical structures
– Greater number of verbs with a greater number of
arguments
– Greater number of inflections per verb
– Greater agreement on each verb
• New students learn the more complex system
Are we genetically wired for language
learning?
• What if language originated only once?
– Creolization
– New signed languages
• What if language universals reflect universals
of problem solving and thought?
– Why would it be easier to conceptualize things
one way or another?
– Rules are arbitrary in an information sense, but
not in a grammatical sense
Language Acquisition
• Hypothesis that there is a “critical period” in
language acquisition (before age 7)
• Our general problem solving skills increase
with age, but our language learning skills
decrease with age
• Children are excellent at figuring out language
rules subconsciously; adults are terrible at
figuring them out consciously
Critical Period in Language Acquisition
• Need to be exposed to language input during
the critical period before about 7 years old in
order to develop language
• Evidence for a critical period:
– Immigrants
– Children in captivity
– Deaf children of hearing parents
Immigrants
• Studied immigrants living in the US at least 10
years
• Shown sentences:
– The farmer bought two pig.
– The little boy is speak to a policeman.
• Immigrants arriving between 3-7 performed
the same as US-born individuals
• 8-15 performed worse
• 17-39 performed worst
“Wild Children”
• Genie
– Mike paint.
– Applesauce buy store.
– I like elephant eat peanut.
• Isabelle
– Why does the paste come out if one upsets the
jar?
– Do you go to Miss Mason’s school at the
university?
Deaf Children of Hearing Parents
• Deprived of language input if they are not
exposed to a signed language
• Develop gesture or homesign
• When exposed to signed languages, they can
learn, but if they are too old when they’re first
exposed, they never gain fluency
Specific Language Impairment
• Inability to inflect (plural, tense)
– The boy eat three cookie.
– Yesterday the girl pet a dog.
• Could not pass the “wug” test
– Sass  sasss
– Wug  wugness
– Zat  zackle
• Given intensive speech and language therapy,
but it didn’t solve the problem
Specific Language Impairment
Aphasia
• Damage to Broca’s area  Broca’s aphasia
– Understand what is said but have difficulties speaking
(slow, ungrammatical)
– Me…build-ing…chairs, no, no, cab-in-nets. One
saw…then, cutting wood…working…
• Damage to Wernicke’s area  Wernicke’s aphasia
– Fluent speech, but doesn’t make sense
– [“What kind of work have you done?”] “We, the kids,
all of us, and I, we were working for a long time in
the…you know…it’s the kind of space< I mean place
rear to the spedwan…”
Aphasia and ASL
• Speakers of ASL are affected the same way by
aphasia!
• Can use their hands for purposes other than
signing
• Can pantomime
Teaching Language to Apes
• Allen and Beatrice Gardner taught a chimp
named “Washoe” a version of sign language
• Francine Patter raised gorillas “Koko” and
“Michael” with signs
• Herbert Terrance worked with the chimp “Nim
Chimpsky”
1. What discovery marked the beginning of “comparative linguistics”? / ¿Cuál
descubrimiento inició el campo de “lingüística comparada”?
2. What is the strongest factor used in defining a language as a “language” or as a
“dialect”? / ¿Cuál es la consideración más decisiva en etiquetar un habla como “lengua”
o “dialecto”?
3. Why is African American Vernacular English considered only a dialect of English? / ¿Por
qué se considera que el inglés vernáculo de los africanos-americanos es nada más que
un dialecto de inglés?
4. Identify the following rules as “prescriptive” or “descriptive”:
A. Double negation is used in African American Vernacular English.
B. You shouldn’t use double negation in English.
C. The second person singular past tense inflection in Spanish is –aste or –iste; these
are the only acceptable forms.
D. In Mexican dialects of Spanish, -astes, -aste, -istes, and –istes are all used as second
person singular past tense inflections.
Identifiquen las siguientes reglas como “prescriptivas” o “descriptivas”:
A. Se usa negación doble en inglés vernáculo de los africanos-americanos.
B. No se debe usar negación doble en inglés.
C. La inflexión para la segunda persona singular, tiempo pasado, en español es –aste o
–iste; no se aceptan otras formas.
D. En dialectos mexicanos del español, -astes, -aste, -iste, y –istes son aceptadas como
inflexiones para la segunda persona singular, tiempo pasado.
5. Describe the process of creolization. / Describan el proceso de criollización.
6. Is it possible that language originated only once? Consider creolization and the presence
of new signed languages in your response. / ¿Es posible que el lenguaje se originara una
sola vez? Consideren criollización y las nuevas lenguas de signos en su respuesta.
Teaching Language to Apes
•
•
•
•
Basic signed communication
Taught explicitly
Apply signs to larger categories
Produce new strings of signs
Teaching Language to Apes
• Apes’ use of signs suggests:
– They have concepts that are structured similarly
to ours
– They can attach concepts to external symbols
(signs)
• Do they have a mental grammar?
– Have basic word order (“Roger tickle Lucy” vs.
“Lucy tickle Roger”)
– Very redundant (“give orange me give eat orange
me eat orange give me eat orange give me you”)
Teaching Language to Apes
• Don’t acquire vocabulary the same way as
human children
• Ape language learning more similar to
learning a written language system like
Chinese
• Acquisition of signs may be the result of
general learning strategies; language learning
is different
Teaching Language to Apes
• Can apes communicate?
• Can they acquire grammar?
• Is their communication like the human use of
language?
Why is this significant for comparative
linguistics?
• Look for similarities and differences that are
significant
• Some linguistic traits are common, so they
may have arisen by chance
• Traits that are more unique are more reliable
for comparing related languages
• If we are genetically wired for language, all
languages are likely to have SOMETHING in
common
Why do languages change?
• Freeman Dyson: “it is nature’s way to make it
possible for us to evolve rapidly” by creating
isolated ethnic groups in which undiluted
biological and cultural evolution can proceed
swiftly
– But linguistic evolution does not have foresight
Why do languages change?
“The formation of different languages and of
distinct species, and the proofs that both have been
developed through a gradual process, are curiously
parallel…we find in distinct languages striking
homologies due to community of descent, and
analogies due to a similar process of
formation…Languages, like organic beings, can be
classed in groups under groups; and they can be
classed either naturally, according to descent, or
artificially by other characters. Dominant languages
and dialects spread widely, and lead to the gradual
extinction of other tongues. A language, like a
species, when extinct, never…reappears.” -Darwin
Factors in Language Change
• Related languages are the result of evolution
from a common language or proto-language
• Languages change through:
– Variation: linguistic innovation
– Heredity: ability to learn
– Isolation: migration or social barriers
Learning in Language Evolution
• Why do we need to learn languages? Why
isn’t the language innate?
• Communicative – we need to share our code
with our communicative partners
• Generation to generation, there are changes
 learning language rather than having fully
innate language allows us to adapt
• Takes a lot of hard wiring to have a genetic
component for EVERY linguistic element
Variation in Language Evolution
• Borrowing
• Coining new words
• Reanalysis: listener interprets language
differently from the speaker
– “naranja”  “norange”  “a norange”  “an orange”
 “those oranges”
– “hammer-did”  “hammered”
• Syntactic Changes: optional things become
obligatory
– “Give him a book” and “give a book him”
Separation
• The majority of the language is preserved
each generation
• Colin Renfrew: Indo-European spread as
farmers began cultivating more and more
territory
Separation
Separation
Hittite
• Was spoken in presentday Turkey
• Date back to 16th or
17th century BC!
Tocharian
• Discovered in 1900 in China
• Two distinct dialects
• Texts that were found are incomplete
Indo-Iranian
• Indic
• Iranian
Indic
• Oldest is Sanskrit, specifically the Vedic
language of the Vedas
• Panini wrote grammar in 4th century BC
• Sanskrit used (like Latin) long after it was no
longer spoken
• Developed into languages of modern India
(Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Marathi, Gujarathi,
Sinahlese, Romani)
• Originated in Punjab, then spread to the south
Hindi-Urdu
• एक
• दो
• तीन
• ‫ایک‬
• ‫دو‬
• ‫تین‬
Iranian
• Avestan – language used in the “Bible” of
teachings of Zarathustra
• Old Persian – language of King Darius of the
Persian empire
Balto-Slavic
• Slavic
– Old Church Slavonic – oldest from c. 865 AD
– First use of Cyrillic alphabet
– East Slavic – Russian, Ukrainian
– South Slavic – Bulgarian, Macedonian, BCS
– West Slavic – Polish, Czech, Slovakian, Sorbian
• Baltic
– Lithuanian and Latvian
– Old Prussian (now extinct)
Balto-Slavic Numbers
Number
Russian
Polish
Latvian
1
один [ah-DEEN]
jeden
Viens/viena
2
два [dvah]
dwa
Divi/divas
3
три [tree]
trzy
Tris/tris
4
четыре [che-TYHree]
cztery
Četri/četras
5
пять [pyat']
pięć
Piece/piecas
6
шесть [shehst']
sześć
Seši/sešas
7
семь [syehm]
siedem
Septini/septinas
8
восемь [VOHseem]
osiem
Astoni/astonas
9
девять [DYEH-vit']
dziewięć
Devini/devinas
10
десять [DYEH-sit']
dziesięć
Desmit
Celtic
• Originally from Central Europe
• Became extinct on the continent
• Only “Insular Celtic” survived
– Celtic
– Welsh
– Cornish
– Breton
Italic
• Latin
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Italian
Spanish
Catalan
Portuguese
French
Romanian
Occitan
• Extinct languages of the Italian Peninsula
(Umbrian, Oscan, Faliscan, South Picene)
Germanic
• South of Norway and Sweden, Denmark and
Germany
• East Germanic (Gothic)  extinct
• North Germanic (Scandinavian languages)
• West Germanic (English, Frisian, Dutch, German)
– Angles and Saxons went to England, where they spoke
“Old English”
– Frisian is the closest relative of English because
Angles, Saxons, and Frisians were a community in NW
Germany before the migration to England
Conclusions
• Languages of the world have profound
similarities despite surface differences.
• This leads us to believe that we have an
underlying “language instinct” that is hardwired into our brains.
• Language evolves in a way that is similar to
species evolution: innovation, heredity, and
isolation contribute to new language traits.
1. Critical period
A. Because people speak different
languages, we need this ability in
order to communicate.
1. Periodo crítico
A. A causa de que la gente habla
lenguas distintas, se necesita
esta habilidad para comunicarse.
2. Specific
language
impairment
B. Exercise where people are asked
to form the plural of words.
2. Trastorno
específico del
lenguaje
B. Ejercicio en el cual se pregunta
anotar el forma plural de palabras.
3. Broca’s
aphasia
C. The first part of our lives when
we are able to successfully acquire
language.
3. Afasia de Broca
C. La primera parte de la vida en la
cual se puede aprender idiomas
exitosamente.
4. Wernicke’s
aphasia
D. Borrowing and reanalysis are
examples of this.
4. Afasia de
Wernicke
D. Préstamo y reanalysis son
ejemplos de ello.
5. Wug test
E. A disorder that causes people to
speak fluently, but the speech
doesn’t make sense.
5. Examen “Wug”
E. Un trastorno que causa un habla
normal, pero que no tiene sentido.
6. Learning
F. Because people do not live in
united geographical areas their
languages develop differently.
6. Aprendizaje
F. Porque la gente no vive en áreas
unidas por geografía sus lenguas
desarrollan de maneras distintas.
7. Separation
G. A genetic disorder that results in
the inability to fully learn language.
7. Separación
G. Un trastorno genético que resulta
en la incapacidad de aprender el
lenguaje.
8. Variation
H. A disorder that causes people to
understand what is said but have
difficulties speaking.
8. Variación
H. Un trastorno que resulta en una
persona quien puede entender
lenguaje, pero quien tiene
dificultades en hablarlo.
Extra Credit: Name any
three languages that are in
the same language family
listed here!
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Separation10
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Credito Extra: Nobra tres
lenguas de la misma familia
de uno de las familias
nombradas aqui!
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