LANGUAGES

Beginning, Families, Parts of Speech.

One thing that sets humans and animals apart is the ability to speak, we are the only creatures in the world that have this ability. In addition to our intellect, this is probably one of the most dominant reasons why humans have control of Earth. Though scientists don't know what were the first words ever spoken, they are sure that spawned the development of languages. Another thing they are not sure of is how many languages exist now, and how many have disappeared. The number is between 4000-6000.

One theory suggests that there was a Proto-language in Africa about 100,000 years ago. All families of languages trace their origin back to the Proto-language. It includes the Proto-Indo-European, the ancestor of dominant languages: Afro-Asiatic, Uralian, Drawidian, Caucasian, Altaian and Indo-European. The last one is a "father" of languages spoken in Europe, India, Iran. Some scientists who deduced that, derived the sound has relation with the meaning of a word. So two words that have a similar meaning and ring should have one origin. This table shows similarity between Indo-European languages.


Englishmotherfatherthree
GermanMutterVaterdrei
Dutchmoedervaderdrie
Italianmadrepadretre
Frenchmereperetrois
Hindimatapiterteen


Language isn't fixed, it is constantly changing. Every language influences another. Many years ago Latin and Greek made impacts on other languages, such as scientific terms, etc. Now many words come from English. But sometimes different languages can also influence English: cake is from Danish, coffee from Arabian, tea from Chinese.

People have always wanted to communicate with others in a neutral language. It is called lingua franca. First it was a mixture of Spanish, Italian, and Greek. Now it is English. International organizations assigned seven official languages to be used, for example, relations between the heads of the nations. Those languages are: Mandarin Chinese(spoken by approx. 1 billion people), English(478 million), Spanish(392 million), Russian(284 million), Arabian(225 million), French (125 million), and German(123).

A language consists of an organized system of words (that consist of different sounds). We have many parts of speech: noun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition, conjunction, and others. Words are used together to form sentences or phrases. And with them we can communicate with other people by sharing thoughts and ideas, cracking jokes, or lying.

The deaf and mute cannot hear or speak, because of this deficiency, a separate language consisting of hand motions and positions called sign language was systematized in the 18th century and brought to the U.S. by T.H. Gallaudet.
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