THE HISTORY OF
SPOKEN and
WRITTEN
LANGUAGE
•Theories About
the Origin of
Language
•
BOW WOW THEORY – the
language of humans was formed by
imitating the sounds of animals.
• POOH-POOH THEORY – the
language was developed from the
emotional and expressive cries being
vocalized. It is believed that the
first words developed from signs of
‘pleasures’, ‘moans of pain’ and other
semi-voluntary cries of exclamation.
• DING-DONG THEORY – or the ‘watch
the birdie theory’, is the different
imitative sounds that human make to mimic
the sounds around him . So ‘boom’ is for
the thunder and ‘oink’ is for the pig.
Humans learned to ‘feign’ in order to
deceive others for selfish advantage since
exclamations and vocalisms can
involuntarily reveal the true mental state
of humans.
• YO-HE-HO THEORY – the language
originated in rhythmic chants and
vocalisms uttered by people engaged
in common labor/work.
MUSICAL THEORY – the origin of
language came from music and songs.
• CONTACT THEORY – or ‘the ta-ta
theory’ developed from the sounds
made thru contact of one person to
another. Human language depicts the
use of oral gestures that began in
imitation of hand gestures that were
already in use for communication.
• A Brief History of
the Written
Language
1).SUMERIANS – one of the first groups of
people who used symbols to express what
they want to tell. They ‘marked’ (write) on wet
clays using a “Stylus” (sharp short triangular
stick) before it dries and harden.
0“CUNEIFORM” – is the Sumerian system of
writing
(comes from Latin word “cuneius” which means
wedge or wide impressions)
2).EGYPTIANS – they carved and painted
symbols or pictures to express their
ideas. This system of writing
“HIEROGLYPHICS” is very difficult to
understand. “Hieroglyphics” means
writings of Gods
3).PHOENICIANS – about 1000 B.C. the
“Phoenicians” sailing the Nile River with cargoes
of precious stones, copper, tin, silver and special
dye called “Tyrion Purple” became popular with
Kings and Emperors and much in demand in the
ancient world. They sailed the seas exchanging
goods and partly sharing some of their culture.
Through this intermingling with other culture, a
new system of writing that came from Egypt’s
“Hieroglyphics” came to known as “One sign, One
sound System of Writing”. This system is the
small numbers of sign to represent an idea.
• Examples of "One Sign-One sound"
system of writing
Sound of B
Sound of P
Sound of F
Sound of M
Sound of N
Sound of R
4).GREEKS – came after the Phoenicians.
They adapted the “sound sign” as
consonants and added their vowel sounds
thus creating the “ALPHABET”( Greek
words “Alpha”(first) and “Beta”(second))
*The Greeks were the first to improvise
the “left-to-right” manner of writing.
5).ROMANS – adapted the Greek’s
Alphabet spreading it throughout
Europe. This system of writing passed
from generation to generation and still
exists up to the present.
The Phoenician Alphabet
was adopted by the early
Greeks who earned their
place in alphabetic history
by symbolizing the
vowels. Then later used by
the Romans.
Phoenician
Early Greek
Roman