Why is the world so diverse wh
Why is the world so diverse whWhy Is The World So Diverse When It Comes To Languages?
It is known, even to a person to whom the entire study of
language isn't familiar, that the language is the greatest factor
on which most of the human activities depend. Without any form of
language, any cooperation and communication would be almost, if not
totally impossible (World Book Encyclopedia 62). This significance
of language is what draws scientists to study origin, differences
and connections between languages.
Constant change of today's languages is what amazes linguists
even more. With the emergings of the new nations there was quite a
number of new languages. One such case is the language of Former
Yugoslavia, Serbo-Croatian, which is now called Croatian by Croats,
Bosnian by Bosnians, and Serbian by Serbs. Though these languages
were once united and actually dialects of one another, they split
as the three nations split. With this came huge amounts of new
words in Croatian and Bosnian which caused the Serbo-Croatian to
rupture even further.
There are few conditions that keep a language unchanged. They
include a stable government, good communication, a centralized
educational system, a set of beliefs and traditions, and a spirit
of national unity (63)
Beginning And Change of Language
Today's languages all have three basic systems, phonology,
grammar, and semology, and many have fourth system, writing.
In the beginning, people talked and conversed, but they needed
something that would record and later on recall words (Sparke 42).
This destitution has resulted in early alphabets, pictograms.
Pictures were used to represent objects and items. It was easy for
people to represent those objects with the pictograms but it also
was very hard to find a pictogram that would fulfill idea of, for
example, craving (Laind 50-54).
Around 1000 B.C., the Phoenicians were the first people to use
graphic signs to represent individual speech sounds (American
Heritage Dictionary 65). Their alphabet is the foundation of
today's Latin and Cyrillic alphabets used in most Indo-European
family languages. Phoenician letters looked really different than
Latin and Cyrillic.
The Cyrillic alphabet is the first to emerge since Greeks have
borrowed Phoenician symbols first. Most of the signs have been
changed when they entered Greek. Romans too needed some kind of
symbols for their language, so they too used Phoenician letters,
but via Greeks. Romans changed them how they wanted and created
Latin; Greeks altered them their way and created Cyrillic. Though
arrived from one common source, these two alphabets are
considerably different from each other. This example of how a
common ancestry can be changed and result in several different
progenies is a very interesting idea which is investigated by the
linguists.
There is a theory that today's languages are indeed descendants
of distinct "parent" languages. For example many scentists are
serious when they talk about pass� Indo-European language that is
the source of about fifty languages including English and French.
(Colin 112).
Linguists hypothesize that all through history there were
plenty of reasons for language change. One such is a theory of
tribe movement, which states that when a tribe enters a particular
territory and settles there for longer time, it will influence
people not originally from their tribe to begin speaking that
tribe's language.
The best way to illustrate this is to give a description of one
of the possible ways of what happened in Europe during such a
movement. Early in history, people used to live in north-central
Europe. Looking for food and better place to live, they entered
south Europe, France, Spain, Britain, and reached all the way to
Russia, Persia, and Indian subcontinent. But on their way, for
some reason, they didn't touch Finland and Estonia, and went around
Hungary. This hypothesis can explain the enormous similitude
between the languages of almost all of the Europe, Iran, and India.
It also can give as an explanation regarding the strange language
isolation when it comes to Hungarian, Estonian and Finnish
languages (Davidson 28-29).
Sometimes the change doesn't necessarilly result in creation of
new language. It may also occur in development of existing grammar
and increase in vocabulary. Sometimes it ensues in local dialects,
that are still a part of larger language, though, in some cases,
contain immense dissimilarities with it (World Book Encyclopedia
64).
Other reasons for language change might have been initial
migration, climate, and elite dominance.
The initial migration is really a name for movement of people
from Africa 100,000 years ago. Surviving traces of this migration
include Basque, Caucasian, Khosian, ans Australian languages.
Climate, too, is a possible cause of language dispersal.
Global warming several thousand years ago opened regions north of
54th parallel to pioneers whose languages developed into the
families known as Ural-Yukaghir, Chukchi-Kamchatkan, Eskimo-Aleut,
and Na-Dene.
All the differences and similarities have prompted linguists to
create so-called language families. Language families are groups
of languages that appear to have common characteristics. Linguists
decide which language should belong to which group by comparing the
words with the same meaning in different languages and by comparing
the grammar and phonetic features. Word mother in Latin is mater;
in German mutter; in Swedish moeder; in Bosnian majka/mati. When
linguists compared these words they realized that there was a
common ancestor of these languages--Indo-European language.
They have found semblances between other world's languagesas
well. By doing that have created a dozen different language
families. Some of the major ones, besides Indo-European group, are
Indo-Chinese, Hamito-Semitic, and Ural-Altaic (Davidson 30-31).
Going back to beginning, linguists wonder what were the first
words. According to Guinness' Book of Records, the language with
the largest vocabulary is English, but the question is how 620,000
words English consists of came to being (Young 249).
It is thought that the first words were created by caveman and
cavewomen who described everyday routine, or other similar event by
the means of sound. One of those events could be hitting their
heads when they tried to get up from the floor or sleeping place.
The extraordinary pain would cause them to remember this situation
by creating a particular word or sound for it. So when they were
in similar situation again, they would yell out that word or sound.
Another example would be imitating the animal sounds and by that
giving them the names and identifying them in the future (Laind
21).
These may have been the ways of how the word was invented.
When more words were invented, "people may have gone on rather
rapidly to invent more and more." We can assume that the most
necessary words came first--warnings, commands, names of things and
actions--and later on abstract words--names for ideas and emotions
(23).
Power of Language
"Language has been called the most powerful drug known to
humanity. The words we hear and speak can have a distorting affect
on our points of view" ("Words, Thoughts and Deeds" 1).
For huge amounts of words this idea is applicable. Political terms
are exceptionally tricky.
For example, word "democracy," has started the biggest wars of
the century. Both World Wars were fought for people to be free.
In the World War I, Great Britain, France and U.S. fought against
Germany, Turkey and Italy. Democracy against expansionism. In the
World War II, again Great Britain and U.S. against Germany, Italy
and Japan. In this case it was democracy against Naziism and
militarism. Vietnam War was fought "to stop communism from
expanding," and to save democracy throughout the world.
Words have been used to create different stereotypes about
one's ethnicity or religion. Words have divided humans into white,
black, red, and yellow. When a person says "n***r," people
automatically think of a black man who is criminal, not thinking
that their race is full of criminals, too.
Words have been responsible for some of the most horrible
crimes of humanity. Naziism got it's start by calling names.
Their leader, Hitler, was known in history as the "master orator",
since he managed to turn so many German people against the Jews.
"He knew how to pick the 'right' words for his purposes and to
arrange them in slogans, which utterly overwhelm nonconformity with
party doctrine."
Third Party Languages
With today 6000 languages and dialects, the attempt to unite
our divided world has been virtually impossible. The multiple
languages in one country have also been a problem for human
communities. More times the language has been used to partition a
particular country, than to unite it.
Since this is a serious problem, third language is often used
in relations between two countries. Those languages are often
called linguae francae, which in Italian means Frankish language,
named after a mixture of Italian and other languages used during
the Middle Ages.
Linguae francae are often used in trade and politics. The best
know lingua franca in politics is probably English, since it is
used, along with French, as an official language of United Nations.
English is frequently used in peace talks and in sporting events,
such as Olympic Games.
In a country where many seperate languages and dialects are
spoken, one language may be chosen as the lingua franca of commerce
and government. One country like that is India, where, even though
15 languages are constitutionally recognized, English serves as
third party language. Other examples include Mandarin Chinese and
Swahili, a Bantu language spoken throughout East Africa (Lingua
Franca 1).
Creole languages are trully phenomenons, when it comes to
linguistics. They are fully formed languages that develop from
pidgin (trade) language and gradually become the primary language
of a linguistic community. Basically pidgin and creole languages
mean the same. Pidgin language becomes creole when it becomes a
community's language, replacing community's original language.
About 15 million people speak creolized languages throughout
the world. Their vocabularies are often derived from Europe's
major languages. Some of those creole languages are French-based
Creole in Haiti, Mauritius, and Dominica; Gullah language in east-
central coastal states of U.S.; Jamaican Creole; Krio; Pidgin
English et al. (Creole 1).
Artificial languages are one more way to abate the differences
between languages and misunderstandings those differences create.
Since 17th-century, there has been an enormous number of
artificial languages introduced. An interesting example was the
language Solresol, developed by Jean Fran�ois Sudre in 1817. All
its words were formed of combinations of the syllables designating
the notes of the musical scale (Artificial Languages 1).
One recent attempt is Hans Freudenthal's Lincos, intended as a
program for establishing communication with extraterrestrial
intelligent beings should they be located.
"Although some natural languages have been widely used around
the world at various times as a common means of communication among
speakers of various languages, it is uncertain that any one
language will ever be adopted universally." English and French are
difficult to learn and are too closely identified with particular
national groups.
Basic English, proposed in 1932, was an attempt to remedy the
first impediment by reducing the vocabulary to a core of 850 words.
For example, enter is replaced by go into, and precede by go in
front of (Artificial Language 2).
But of all the artificial languages, Esperanto is the most
popular. It has a highly regular system of word information, with
roots drawn from French, English, German, Latin, and Russian. A
simple and consistent set of endings indicates grammatical
functions of words. Thus, for example every noun ends in o, every
adjective in a, and the infinitive of every verb in i (Esperanto
1).
It was presented in 1887 by its creator Ludwik Lazar Zamenhof.
Esperanto has about 2 million speakers in about 80 countries.
However, in China it had the greates impact. It is though in
universities and used in many translations. Judging by that, it
has fulfilled its function.
Why is the world so diverse when it comes to languages? was a
the title question. There were many reasons why as explained in
this project. Historic, political, and economic reasons
interchange at this subject. We know how language is important to
us, but we also have faced some situations where language was
neither pleasant or kind. Those include wars, political disputes,
killings, name calling. All of these should have been eliminated
long time ago, but since they are still here we all should work on
those differences. Language is very powerful, but it shouldn't be
used in above mentioned situations.