The Mind-Blown Mystery of Human Language
According to statistics, there are more than 6,000 languages in the world[1]. Biologists, anthropologists, historians, archaeologists, neurologists and theologians have been studying where humans came from. What was the first language? There is no definitive answer to this question. This can be called one of the most difficult questions in science.
Some people believe that human language evolved from grunting[2]. This is because humans first called through their mouths, just like other animals. This has led to the evolution of some special ways of communication. The part of the human brain that uses grunts is different from the part of the human brain that uses language. Language is controlled by a specialized speech center area of the brain. But grunting is controlled by a reflex nerve area.
Human language is subjective and deliberate. Animal calls are not subjective and deliberate. Language is subjective and deliberate, which means that it is possible to fake language (create false information). A falsified call or speech is impossible for living creatures to reproduce in nature. In other words, the first two people in the world to speak must believe that the words spoken by the other are true. They will always communicate, and then the communication will be effective, and finally can be passed on from generation to generation.
The human brain has a language center. But it is strange. Even if human beings have the ability to speak, if no one speaks to the baby when it is born. This baby will not speak for the rest of its life. We can reverse the reasoning of the world’s first person who can speak. Who taught him to speak? This is similar to the question of whether there was a chicken or an egg first.
Some people believe that language was produced within the family. In the earliest days, we thought we had to protect ourselves in the natural world. So we don’t trust others easily. The basis for language is not there. But if it is father and son, mother and son or within the family. This foundation of trust will exist. In turn, the basis for language production will also exist. Therefore, it has been speculated that the earliest languages were created within the family. A method of generating signals in order to communicate; to work together; to avoid disasters together; to move together, etc.
Language has become simpler as time progresses. It’s not just English. This is true of all languages in the world. The structure of Old English, Ancient Greek and Ancient Egyptian are too complex for modern people. This means that ancient people were smarter than modern people from this point of view. Because they had to master such complex grammar. Their thought structure itself is much more complex.
So the reverse inference is that the first person in the world who could speak, was quite intelligent. This is inconsistent with our current study of the history of human development. Because human beings believe that the accumulation of past technology and history, now people are getting smarter and smarter. But from the point of view of language structure, it is just the opposite.
On September 12, 2016, an authoritative U.S. website, pnas.org, published a paper, “Sound-meaning association biases evidenced across thousands of languages”[3]. A team of researchers conducted an acoustic study of the world’s 3,700 languages. They selected 100 basic words for each of these 3,700 languages. Basic words are those that are found in all languages. Words such as water, fire, sand, human, and so on. They selected and analyzed the pronunciation of the 100 words in 3,700 languages with an acoustic software and found that words with the same meaning have similar pronunciation in 3,700 languages.
For example, sand is called “sand” in English; “sha” in Chinese; and “suna” in Japanese.
The languages are obviously very far apart. They are completely different in composition. Why do they all have a pronunciation of “s”? This is very strange. This may indicate that human languages may have a common ancestor. A more obvious example is the onomatopoeia.
For example, English is called “meow”. Other languages have similar pronunciations. Russian is “мяу”, and Javanese is “meong”.
Molecular biology studies have found that human DNA has a common ancestor. It originated in Africa[4]. That is, the single origin hypothesis. As for how African apes came to the continents? It is said that about 50,000 years ago. Some of the people living in Africa began to migrate to Europe, Asia and the Americas. How did they reach Oceania? It is unlikely that the land migration. It is possible that they migrated before the plates moved. Or they went through underground passages. See my previous story on “Surprising Evidence Reveals the Existence of the Underworld”.
Genesis 11:5–7 states that the world originally spoke the same language. At that time the people of the world were united. They built a tower. It was called the Tower of Babel.
The people were going to build this tower to lead directly to heaven. But God was angry. He would not allow the people to build this tower and walk up to it. So the language of mankind was confused. The people became separated from each other and could not understand what each other was saying. Then people stopped building the tower and went on living in peace. God considered the unity of mankind as a threat to the gods in heaven.
It should be added here that all the people recorded in the Bible are the descendants of Noah. The story of Noah’s ark is one that I think we have all heard before. That is, in order to punish all the creatures on earth, God sent The Great Flood and drowned the earth. And the only thing that survived was Noah’s family, plus a pair of various species in the world.
Noah’s family spoke Hebrew, so from a biblical perspective, everyone in the world spoke the same language, which was Hebrew!
Noah’s family after the flood receded. They went to Mesopotamia. This is where the earliest human civilization, the Sumerian civilization, originated. Noah’s family flourished in Mesopotamia. Many descendants were born. Noah’s descendants later wanted to build the Tower of Babel. The clay was burned into bricks and turned into asphalt. Then they used the bricks and asphalt to build the tower. This is the story of the Tower of Babel.
Nowadays, society is advancing rapidly. Technology is also developing rapidly. In fact, the language barrier is no longer so obvious. If you really don’t understand the foreign language, you can easily solve it with Google Translate. There are portable translators. The day of barrier-free human communication will soon come.
God said not to build a tower. But did not refuse to translate. The nature of human beings to explore extraterrestrial life has not changed. That’s why the U.S. boarded a rocket to the moon in 1969. After several moon landings, they were afraid to go back to the moon. Probably warned by God or aliens.
References:
[1] https://www.languagecourse.net/languages-worldwide
[2] https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129083762
