What is Language?

What is Language?

What is language? We all know it’s what we use to communicate with others, what we use to inform, how to build a rapport and to entertain others. But what exactly is language? What are the different parts that make up the language that we know? As we may already know, language is built up of Phonology, Morphology, Lexicology and Semantics.

Phonology is the study of sounds. The sounds that we produce are by the speech organs that only belong to humans. The actual sounds that come out of our mouths are called ‘phones’. This can be either vowels or consonants. No language makes use of all the many sounds that the speech organ can produce and no two languages use the same set of sounds. Did you know that American English only uses 38 sounds? Also did you know that because no two languages use the same set of sounds, different speakers of the same language differ, this is because they are using different patterns, this creates ‘accents’.

Morphology is simply the word structure we use in our language. It is the study of how we put together words or the building blocks to our sentences. Lexicology is the collection of words in a language for e.g. nouns, verbs, adjectives etc.

Semantics is the study of how meaning is constructed, interpreted and clarified. It focuses on the relationships between words, phrases, signs and symbols and what they stand for. It is quite important to understand language in social contexts.

We now know the basic information as to how the language is formed and its different parts, but why do we use language, what is it for? We use it in social situations, to communicate our thoughts, tell a story or a joke with friends. We use it to inform others, to give instructions. Language itself is also used to culturally shape us. It is such a fascinating and engaging gift that we often take for granted.

Different Ways That Children Learn Language.

How do humans learn language?

 - When do we start learning language?

 - What are some features of child language?

Different ways that children learn language

-mainly hearing impaired children or children with speaking difficulties.

  
 

Humans start to learn language the second they are born, from their first cry, to their first smile all the way to their first words and beyond.

Humans learn language by observing others and seeing what they do, some things are instinctual such as crying or smiling. The other day I was told by my nieces midwife that when a child smiles for the first few time at 3-4 weeks old they don’t realise what they have done, it is an odd feeling like, “oh, that was weird, what was that?”, sort of thing, until they later realise that it is what happens when they are happy or find something funny.

When they are first born, babies only real way to communicate is through crying, which is instinctual. Whether they are hungry, tired, want to be held or need a nappy change, this is the only way a baby can get his or her message across. As they get older they will develop other ways to communicate, such as hand gestures and writing.

Although it sometimes doesn’t get noticed, children use hand gestures to communicate as soon as they identify their hands and learn how to control them. They may be pointing at something or putting their hand up to their mouth as if they are drinking out of a cup, meaning they are thirsty. Children may use this before they are able to speak or even after. It can be developed by watching people perform the same actions such as pointing something out to somebody else or watching somebody perform the actual action, such as having a drink.

Children that are hearing impaired or have speaking difficulties may use hand gestures as a first language. Two examples of this are my nephew, Elijah and my niece, Jordan. When Elijah was two years old he didn’t use much language, he would say Mum, Dad, Nan and Pop but not much else. My sister and her husband took him to see a speech therapist and were told to start signing to him. Elijah made little signals that would tell us what he needed, when he needed it, which helped us to understand his needs better.

When my niece, Jordan was just three weeks old my sister and her husband along with the rest of the family were shocked to find out that Jordan was partially deaf. After the initial shock we all realised that it doesn’t matter what happens, Jordan just may have a different way of communicating to us, and it doesn’t make her different it is just another way to get a message across to another person. Even if she was completely deaf, it wouldn’t make a difference she would still be able to communicate, she would just get her message across differently. It is just like somebody that speaks English communicating with somebody that speaks Chinese, it is a language that only some learn and understand. Jordan is just five weeks old now but when she is old enough to learn she will learn exactly the same as anybody else will, she will be able to talk, walk, go to school, make friends and follow all her dreams in life. It doesn’t make her weird or different it just makes her special.

When children begin to speak they will commonly repeat words that are easy to say, copying the people around them. As their speaking continues to develop they will start to experiment with words and make different sounds with words. They will later start to learn words at a rapid rate and it will become impossible to keep up with.

No matter what situation a person is put into we all learn language. Starting at birth, from our first cry to the day we die people are always learning new ways to communicate and interact with others.

Sources-

http://iteslj.org/Articles/McGlothlin-ChildLearn.html

How do humans learn language?

How do humans learn language?

 - When do we start learning language?

 - What are some features of child language?

Human language is a skill that we as humans learn over time. We start learning language from the day we are born. Children learn from the people around them and people that are speaking to them and from that children just gain the skill to communicate with others, and then we start learning language in schools with English classes looking at grammar and vocabulary. The first signs of language from a baby are crying, after a while once there a bit older it moves onto vowel sounds like ahh, ee, and ohh. Parents and other adults around the child are a major part in teaching the child language just by talking to them, children that are never spoken to will not acquire language. 

We also use our senses to understand and use language it starts from a young age from when are parents are talking to and trying to get us to speak till when we are older speaking our own words, even body language contributes in language which is another way children can pick up language so easily by watching the movements and hand gesture someone is making while talking.

Regularly, language starts off as a memory of simple words without a related meaning, but as children grow, words gain meaning, with connections between words being formed. As a person gets older, new meanings and new relations are created and vocabulary increases as more words are learned.

Some say that it’s so easy for a young child to learn to speak because their brains are already programmed to learn language, and when a baby is born he or she already automatically know a lot about language, language is like walking, walking is a genetic and children develop the skill to walk whether or not they are taught by someone in the same way children develop the ability to talk without be sat down and taught they can just listen to what everyone else is saying. For this reason many linguist say that the ability to speak language is genetic.

Bibliography

http://www.lsadc.org/info/ling-faqs-lang_acq.cfm

http://www.zompist.com.html

-          How do we decipher ancient languages that have been lost?

-          What is the oldest surviving language?

In researching this topic, there were not a lot of resources explaining exactly how archaeologists and linguists decipher ancient unknown languages. I did conclude however that once an ancient language is found which is not recognizable from the languages we know today, linguists can look for similarities in other languages, and use that to decipher and discover the origin of the language. For example, Mayan and Linear B (ancient Mycenaean Greek) syllabic scripts were recently deciphered from stone tablets. Using computer programs, and comparing elements in the ancient scripts with similar languages, this was able to happen.

Controversy surrounds the mystery of the oldest surviving language. There are many different opinions on the topic, but one of the more popular beliefs is that the oldest surviving spoken language is either: Greek, Mayan or Albanian. Albanian (which is spoken in Northern Greece) wasn’t recorded or written down until roughly the 15^th century AD, however Greek astronomer and geologist Ptolemy had apparently cited something about the Albanian language in his work from the first century BCE (Before Common Era). This however is all just rumour and legend, as the factual answer is not known.

The candidates for the oldest written language are: Egyptian, Chinese or possibly even Hebrew or Arabic. Chinese was first written down in approximately 1500 BCE. Another contender for the oldest written language, (although this is not a surviving language, as they don’t still use it) is Linear B. This is an early form of Greek, used in Mycenae. This was first written in roughly 1500 BCE. As you can tell, all these dates and languages are very unspecific, and there is little solid, scientific fact which supports one definite oldest language out of the many possibilities.   

What is Language?

Language; what is language?

Language is something that we as humans use to communicate with one another; so do animals but they communicate differently. Language is something that plays a main part in everyone’s life. Language is used in many modes, such as spoken, written, and sign. Body language supports these modes when we communicate with one another. Language is made up of one or more sounds that are combined into a specific meaning called language. Example; some – someone; which are to different words that are formed together to create a different meaning. From the moment were born we have language and have the skills to gain on over time.

There are 8 main categories of words. A verb which is an action word; noun which is a thing or person; an adjective which describes a noun; Adverb, which describes a verb or adverb or an adjective; pronoun which replaces a noun; preposition which links another noun to a word; a conjunction which joins sentences and words. All of us use these word categories on a day-to-day basis.

Why; why do we use language and how?
Language is something that plays a vital role in everyone’s life. We use language so we have the ability to communicate and interact with one another. There are many reasons that we use language, for example, to express our feelings, ask questions, to socialize, inform if needed and there are many more reasons. 

Language can be verbal and non-verbal.

Paralinguistic cues such as body language; hand gestures and eye contact are non-verbal and help to better get across one’s point when speaking.

Do animals have their own languages?

Do animals talk to each other the way people do? Do they have their own languages? When thinking about the English language these are some of the key questions that always comes to mind. As humans we are attached to the idea that language is the one thing that makes us, as a species, unique. Language is the last boundary standing between us and other animals. In order to answer these questions we first need to look at what language really means. A common definition of language is, ‘the communication of thoughts and feelings through a system of
arbitrary signals, such as voice sounds, gestures, or written symbols’. So the real question is, do animals communicate their thoughts and feelings through a system of signals?

Animals might not be able to speak the way we do or master advanced language techniques, but they certainly have other ways of communicating to each other. Whether through visual, auditory, tactile or chemical means of communication animals are effectively able to express at least their basic thoughts and feelings to each other.

Many animals use auditory communication to express themselves to one another, some examples of this are; whale song, wolves howling, frogs croaking and birds chirping. Another form of animal communication is visual, this includes; fireflies glowing to attract their mates, peacocks showing their elaborate tails during courting rituals and cobras inflating their hoods to scare other creatures. Tactile animal communication can be shown by; dogs licking their pups to bond, baboons using touch to show affection and horses kicking other horses to establish dominance. Many animals also use chemical means of communication, some examples of this are; dogs marking their scent to establish their territory, ants using pheromone trails to follow each other and skunks using smell to deter predators.

Studies have shown that animals are becoming capable of even more advanced language techniques, especially in the cases of the Gunnison’s prairie dog, a species of dog found in the US and Mexico, and chimpanzees.  Research has shown that prairie dog colonies have a communication system that includes nouns, verbs, and adjectives. Scientists also found that prairie dogs aren't born knowing the calls, they have to learn them. This is based on the fact that different prairie dog colonies all have different dialects, meaning that the calls have been created by the individual colonies and passed on from one generation to the next. Another discovery of advanced animal communication was a chimpanzee at a research centre who gossiped, through means of a special keyboard, about a fight between two other chimpanzees. This shows that animals are advancing from just communicating their basic needs and wants to gossiping amongst each other.

All of these examples show that even though animals are not able to communicate the way we do, they do have their own languages of their own where they communicate their thoughts and feelings through a system of signals.

Sources:

http://www.grandin.com/inc/animals.in.translation.ch6.html

http://tuvalu.santafe.edu/~johnson/articles.chimp.html

http://animals.howstuffworks.com/animal-facts/animals-communicate.htm

www.thefreedictionary.com/language

Is it only humans that have language?

Is it only humans that have language?

- Do animals communicate? How? Which ones?

- How does human and animal language differ?

Do animals communicate, well of course they do. They may not speak like humans or be able to write or use sign language but they have their own ways to communicate. A whale has a song, frogs croak and birds tweet. They also have non-verbal ways to communicate like how a dolphin slaps its tail on water, marking of scents, tactile or chemical cues, postural gestures, visual signals and bioluminescence.

Animals from the same species may even sound different depending on where they come from. One study found that the blue whale produces different patterns of pulses, pitches and tones when they come from different places. Birds are another example of this.

Animals can also communicate with different species. An example of this is the Madagascan spiny-tailed Iguana. It has big ears, which means it can hear the warning calls from another species called the Madagascan paradise flycatcher. The only thing these two species have in common is that they have the same predator. The Iguana then knows that if it hears the bird raise the alarm among other birds it usually means that their predator is nearby.

Meerkats are a great example of different ways animals communicate. They purr to show contentment and attachment, they chatter when they are nervous and they squeal when there is danger. When either the dominate male or female wake up and need to go find food, they call for the rest of the gang to come with them. Meerkats are very territorial and clash a lot with other gangs when they meet. Meerkats gangs make their boundaries by emitting a scent to show other gangs their territory. The sound a meerkat makes when it sees a jackal is different to when it sees an eagle or a snake. Meerkats also use body language. When a threat is in the sky, the meerkat on lookout will stare at it to know where it is and the other meerkats will notice this and will be able to be aware of what is coming and from where.

Animals definitely do communicate in very unique ways. Like scent, body language, squeals, croaks, barks or songs. These are impressive ways to communicate with their own or even other species to get the message across.

http://animals.howstuffworks.com/animal-facts/animals-communicate.htm

http://animals.howstuffworks.com/mammals/meerkats-communication1.htm

Can Computers communicate like humans???

When you see two people at a restaurant and you look at them and you try to figure out what they are, lovers, co-workers or just friends. People have an ability to exceed computers and identify human emotion, certain pictures and gestures and create a conclusion. Computers try to identify things and just simply can’t because humans are just to different and can’t be identified as normal because we don’t have a ‘normal’ each interaction we have is different than the last and computers don’t have this, making it impossible to communicate like humans do. When they run a program it is the same every single time, they are incapable of doing the same thing such as running a program differently, but humans have the ability to communicate one thing to someone, and the same thing to a different person with a different tone of voice, or with different hand gestures. Computers cant process this meaning they (currently) can’t communicate like us.

They may be able to make computers look like us and move like us but this will never compensate for lack of understanding and emotion. They have created facial expression identifiers and installed it in a computer with a camera to stimulate people’s excitement and idea that we can communicate with computers. This is just simply a program, it will run the same every time and never change unless humans make it so. People can change what they do on their own, they can not. There for computers cannot communicate like us.

[online] http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=102776

Last updated on march 25 20007

[online] http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/apr/30/computers-v-humans-loebner-artificial-intelligence

Last updated in 2012

Tyler Wilcox

What do you think caused humans to develop language skills?

Humans can use language by speaking, sign language and written. We learn to use language by the things surrounding us, i.e. family, friends, books, newspapers and Technology such as Television, radio and just recently IPods and MP3 players.

But what was the main cause to people beginning to use language for the first time? Scientists believe that it is a trait that we are born with, and eventually we would be able to use language because we were born with the ability. Scientists would like to perform the “forbidden experiment” but due to the experiment involving leaving a new born infant alone for several months which is unethical and cruel.

So what caused Humans to talk in my opinion? Well… if we go back to caveman days were people use to grunt to communicate and use hand actions to point out what they want you would notice that what an infant might do to communicate with another being. Instead of grunting however, they will cry and make noises to try and resemble words, all the while pointing to what they want. For example my brother wants strawberries ALL the time, so when he wants some he will point to the fridge and try to say strawberries and if you don’t get what he is saying he will cry until you do.

The point in my saying this is that we have Language inside us, so when those cavemen started grunting and pointing and using hand gestures they developed slowly into what we can now call language.

My Essay

Can animals communicate? If so how?

Animals can communicate it’s just  a lot trickier to understand due to animals communicate in so many ways but the main ways animals communicate can be separated into 4 main groups.

Auditory: Auditory is simply making sounds at the species to warn animals like a peacock calling to warn animals about an approaching tiger , it is also used as a socialising tool like when a troop of baboons they all sit together and chatter as well as grooming. The main animal that use auditory are wolves they howl to call a pack together they moan and growl to show others who is the boss or when they want personal space another animal that do this is, are dolphins like killer whales they moan click and whistle that orchestrate plans to kill its prey as well as taunt its prey to humour themselves and others in the pod so already we have proven animals have some sort of language but their other means of communication.

Visual: Visual communication is mainly used to warn predators or attract a attention an example would be a cobra trying to warn it’s attacker by lifting its front portion of its body and raising its hood to warn animals that it is in no mood to be messed around with and it will then also do this to fend off rival males but other species like the birds of paradise use visual communication and sounds to attract attention that attract mates with beautiful dances and wonderful songs which as we know humans do as well for the same reason or just to have fun.

Tactical: This is communication through touch which this where animals and primates differ from other  most animals mainly hit each other to communicate this is because animals don’t like touching each other unless they have to, primates groom each other and like to play and wrestle and simply just huddle together and humans also do these thing to show affection like hugging it is completely unnecessary  and all it really does is help spread disease but through a social sense it shows affection and that you care for the other person.

Chemical: Chemical communication is used to by rabbits dogs but more prominently in any other animal is the brown hyena which leaves a small trace of excrement which is usually left on a shrub which used like notice board for other members of the pack to say for example “I was here 15minutes ago an hour ago there’s no food here “but others might be like this 30 mile patch is ours keep out but this is also like a human with body odour it was used by Australopithecus which originally attracted females but now in our clean hygienic world it is a sign of poor hygiene or lack of wealth but some are less pungent like when a human desperately wants a girlfriend /boyfriend they give certain pheromones that make girls/guys smell and seek an alternate mate hence the term you reek of desperation.

Conclusion.

   In conclusion to this question can animals communicate the simple answer is yes through most animals use 3 of these ways to communicate with one another other species like humans and monkeys use all these ways to communicate due to our brain being adapted to pack life which means that we have to send a lot messages a once so any which way there is to communicate primates will do it to allow others to know what have to say.

How does animal language differ from human language?

Animal language is extremely complex compared to ours if you look at a humans speech patterns to let’s say a whales the difference is huge if you look at a whales brain or dolphin (cause dolphins are whales) that a large portion of their brain is actually to process the complex sounds made by other dolphins due to human which use a small portion to speaking a whale may use nearly 40% of their brain to decode sounds quickly due to the speed of sound being 4.5 times faster in water.

Animal language is different to humans also due to it being chemical as well as vocal so a dog although it growls and moans but it mainly smells another dog  because it determines more about the other dog like it can tell age gender and whether its sexually active which like most lower evolved mammals it breeds certain times as the year unlike dolphins, whales  and primates which is where chemical language can be more effective as a certain scent can last for weeks and is more likely to attract a mate as well as mark territories due to an animal such as wolf can’t write or put up visual signs it will use chemical language and simply post this territory belongs to Wally keep out .So this just one of the ways human language differs from animal  language.

Another way animal language used by animals is visual a lot of animals that are coloured and vibrant are male and have no parasites or diseases whilst a female maybe more dull but it will be more vibrant due to a lack of parasites whilst an animal not very coloured but not vibrant is either sick or a juvenile, another way animals use visualisation more than us is to ward off potential mating threats such as a milk snake disguise its self as another snake that’s almost identical is that its sending out the same warning as its venomous counterpart it’s making its self-more threating than it is  but a animal like the Gila monster means business and will deliver a poisonous bite.

Early humans like Australopithecus used sound to be more threating than it is to ward off potential predators to gain more fruit and carrion this was often passed on by the females as the females were pushed out of the troop to prevent inbreeding.

So in conclusion animals aren’t going to be understood by humans as they emit chemicals from the body which are undetectable to the human nose and we may never understand animals at all due to this gap in the senses.

  Bibliography.

  http://www.abc.net.au/beasts/factfiles/factfiles/australopithecus.htm

Published: 2002 by the BBC.

http://acp.eugraph.com/apes/index.html

NO publisher or date given.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/programmes/who/david_attenborough.shtml

Published in 2006

Published by BBC

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/

Published by national geographic

Updated February 13^th 2012

http://animal.discovery.com/

Published by: Discovery channel.

Updated: 2011

When was writing invented and where? What advantages does the invention of writing have for human development?

Writing emerged in many different cultures and in numerous locations throughout the ancient world. It was thought to have been invented in Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) in 3500 B.C. and the first alphabet was known to have originated in Egypt in 2000 B.C.

The first form of writing was on some form of clay tablets that were found by Oriental Institute archaeologists at the site of Tell Asmar in Iraq. They were only simple pictures or pictograms but they all represented an object or idea. Because clay is a difficult material to draw lines and curves on, the Mesopotamians eventually reduced pictograms into a series of wedge-shaped signs that they pressed into clay with a reed stylus. The wedge-shaped writing is called cuneiform.

The invention of writing may have happened for commercial and economic reasons but ever since it has been invented it has revolutionised our world. We take writing for granted these days, but the invention of writing has been largely responsible for the development and structure of human society.

Writing plays a major part in our lives. Without it we would have to remember everything and that would be impossible. You could not send messages or letters, and we would not know much about our history. Once things have been written down they can be passed on from generation to generation. Writing has helped us understand how the world has evolved.

Bibliography

http://www.wisegeek.com/where-was-writing-invented.htm

http://oi.uchicago.edu/OI/MUS/ED/TRC/MESO/writing.html

http://arash-farzaneh.suite101.com/economic-reasons-behind-the-invention-of-writing-a221934

How do humans learn language?

Bree Gaylor

How do we as humans learn language? There are a number of theories and there have been many experiments and research projects to learn how this amazing process happens. When do we start to learn language? Is it possible that even when a baby is just created and developing in the womb that they can listen and begin to familiarise the voice of their mother and once born start the process of distinguishing vowels, consonants and word patterns. There are many features of child language, young infants cry, throw tantrums, use body language, babble, start to say single words, then two words and after that quickly learn to string together sentences.

Some researchers theorise that we are naturally able to learn language and speak, that knowing how to use and understand language is in our genetics. While infants are still young (under around 6 months old) they can hear the differences between all vowels and consonants used by any language. By 6 months old we become culture bound listeners meaning we can only hear distinctions between the sounds used in our own language. There is another main theory they believe that the innate capacities are not most important in learning language. Instead they think that usage and experience are more important. They argue that adults play an important role in language acquisition by speaking to children, often in slow, higher pitched, grammatical and repetitious ways.

Some researchers believe that babies are listening while still inside their mother developing. When a baby is just born it is common that they will respond to their mother because the voice is familiar. Early in development the brain of an infant is mapping patterns of language, by 6 months individual vowels and consonants, by 9 months the pattern of words. Many studies show that the brain of an infant is unconsciously calculating information about language; they store millions of bits of information before they can speak just by listening. An interesting thing about the brain of an infant is when they are first born they have very few synapses which are the connections of neurons meaning the neurons can communicate to each other. Up to the age of 3 the brain is forming connections. New borns’ have relatively few, by 1 year they have many more and by the time they are 3 the infant has twice as many connections as an adult brain. These synapses create 3x the brain activity of an adult brain. Then the brain is fully wired and all the connections are formed, the brain prunes excess connections. This process continues until the end of puberty.

There are many features of child language, children use gestures, eye contact, body language, babbling, single, two words and full sentences’ as the child grows and develops. When children are still very young and can’t talk they cry, point, try and grab things to explain what they want.  Children start to babble and make sounds similar to the word they are trying to say, then eventually their speech becomes clearer and they begin to say words. On average at about 2-3 years, children start to say 2 words and then this quickly develops into sentences.

There is still further research needed on how children learn their first language, and why some children have language disorders and others pick up language very easily. Learning language is a very unique process and there are still many unknown things about language.

Language Acquisition

When you are born, you are immediately exposed to language.
You don’t understand it or know how to use it but its there. When you are a
baby you start off with your only form of communication being crying or
fussing. Young children are constantly learning and through watching their
parents or family talking they begin to build the foundation of language. It
starts out as babbles and loud shrieks but within around a year, babies start
to utter words and string them together.



















Infants can learn new words in as
little as five minutes after being shown representations of the word. But, they
tend to learn faster when it comes to things they are more interested in.
Experts say it’s not too different to everyone else, that we naturally enjoy
learning when the subject is something we are interested in.
It’s almost impossible for people to study whether people
have language inbuilt in them or if it is something completely reliant on
learning. Some experiments have been done with animals but the allure of the
‘forbidden experiment’ remains. ‘The forbidden experiment’ is the idea of
putting a child in isolation from birth and analysing it to see if language is
only acquired by learning from others, or if you develop language naturally.
All children ultimately learn language in the same way, by
copying other people, learning how to say words and finding out what they mean.
Proper language acquisition takes a long time and a lot of practice, but its
well worth it, being the most important type of communication worldwide.

Bibliography: http://linguistlist.org/ask-ling/lang-acq.cfm