HISTORICAL
DEVELOPMENT OF
LANGUAGE
(Evolutionary or Darwinian)
GROUP12
CLAUS
GANDULAN
DELA CRUZ
SIALONGO OBJECTIVES:
1.To understand the importance of studying
the historical development of language,
2.To compare and contrast Darwinian
historical and evolutionary historical
development of language and
3.To relate these things in a practical manner
of communication and learning.
The language dates back to roughly
150,000 years ago. However, all the
linguistic evidence dates back to around
6000 years ago, when writing began.
Consequently, the major history of
language is discovered through guesses
and written evidence that is much newer
than the era that the linguists study.
Why is it important to learn the
historical development of language?
Studying the historical development of language
aims to equip students with the skills, insights and
appropriate theoretical approaches necessary to
analyze and describe changes in the structure of
the language from the earliest written records to
the present day.
What is the evolutionary theory of language
development?
The Bow-wow theory suggests that
language began because humans mimicked
natural sounds. The Co-evolution theory
implies that language evolved as humans
biologically evolved. Another theory relies on
the ability of primates to communicate through
sign language, believing that language began
with gestures.
Chomsky and Gould hypothesize
that language may have evolved
simply because the physical
structure of the brain evolved, or
because cognitive structures that
were used for things like tool
making or rule learning were also
good for complex communication.
Evolution of Language
Development
Who invented language?
Language came about and evolved over time in order for
humans to survive and develop. It was first invented and used
by Homo sapiens, but researchers don’t know exactly when.
Language likely began somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000
years ago.
How did language evolve?
Language evolved from the human need to
communicate with each other in order to hunt,
farm and defend themselves successfully from
their harsh environment. The ability to
communicate using language gave the human
species a better chance at survival. According to
those who believe in the adaptation theory,
language also evolved for social interaction.
What is the evolution of language
called?
Darwin called the evolution of
language "pre-adaptation," which is
now known as exaptation. This
concept explains how a species uses
an adaptation for a purpose other than
what it was initially meant for.
What was the first human language?
Researchers don’t agree on what the first
language among humans was. Some believe
that the proto-language of Homo habilis was
the first real language. Others believe that it
can be traced back to Homo erectus, while
most believe that what we understand as
modern language came from Homo sapiens.
What is the evolutionary explanation for
language?
Language is the most important
evolutionary invention of the last few
million years. It was an adaptation that
helped our species to exchange
information, make plans, express new
ideas and totally change the
appearance of the planet.
Darwinian Historical
Development Of Language
Darwin described how language might have
evolved through natural and sexual selection. He
compared birds learning to sing to infants
babbling. An early progenitor of man, he wrote,
probably used his voice as did the male gibbon,
to produce musical cadences for courtship, and to
compete with other males.
For Charles Darwin, the origin of
language is the imitation of
natural sounds, the voices of
other animals, and man's cries.
Noam Chomsky claims that the
origin of language is mutation of
brain cells.
Human languages evolve by a process of descent with
modification in which parent languages give rise to
daughter languages over time and in a manner that
mimics the evolution of biological species. Descent with
modification is just one of many parallels between
biological and linguistic evolution that, taken together,
offer up a Darwinian perspective on how languages
evolve. Combined with statistical methods borrowed
from evolutionary biology, this Darwinian perspective
has brought new opportunities to the study of the
evolution of human languages.
Writing in his Descent of Man (1871), 11 years after the
publication of the Origin of Species (1859), Darwin
observed that “the formation of different languages and of
distinct species, and the proofs that both have been
developed through a gradual process, are curiously the
same” (Darwin, 1871, p. 59; the German linguist
Schleicher had made the same point in 1863, eight years
before Darwin). As usual, Darwin (and Schleicher) was on
to something, because it turns out that the transmission and
evolution of genes and languages share a number of
striking parallels
Thank you…