The mechanism of human speech is stunningly complex. It involves various components including the brain, neural pathways, the throat, mouth, lungs, and muscles. Additionally, the grammar and syntax of human languages are highly variable.
Language Acquisition in Early Ages
Exposure to a given language at an early age is crucial for the ability to distinguish various sounds and sound combinations of that language. The brain has an innate capability to easily learn and distinguish these sounds and tones. However, this ability diminishes with age, making it harder to learn new languages later in life.
Key Points:
- Brain’s Capability: The brain is naturally equipped to learn sound combinations and tones during early childhood.
- Critical Period: This ability declines after a certain age, impacting language learning capacity.
Research Findings on Language Learning
Using data on people’s grammar scores and their experiences in learning languages, researchers have developed models to predict the optimal age to start learning a language and the duration required to achieve fluency. The research concluded that the ability to grammatically learn a new language is strongest until the age of 18, after which it declines. However, to become completely fluent in both tonation and grammar, learning should ideally start before the age of 10.
Main Ideas for Decline in Language-Learning Ability After 18:
- Social Changes: At 18, individuals often graduate high school and start college or enter the workforce, reducing the time and opportunity for language study.
- Interference from Primary Language: Mastery of a first language can interfere with the ability to learn a second language due to established linguistic rules.
- Brain Development: Ongoing changes in the brain during the late teens and early twenties may make learning more challenging.
Emergence of Language
The short answer to how languages started is that we don’t know for certain. However, we are not entirely without clues.
Theories on Language Development:
- Single Leap Theory: Some researchers propose that the ability to develop languages came from a single mutation, enabling the brain to express complex meanings. They argue that few aspects of language are not already present in animals.
- Gradual Evolution Theory: Other researchers believe that language evolved over millions of years through the hominid line succession.
Early Language Development:
- Initial Sounds: Early humans might have used sounds to name objects and actions in their environment, such as “cuckoo”, “hiccup”, “miaow”, and “splash”.
- Vocabulary Expansion: The ability to construct consonants and vowels, rather than relying on unstructured calls, would have been crucial for developing a large vocabulary. This would require changes in how the brain interprets auditory signals.
The Takeaway
While we have hypotheses on how and when language started, we may never know for sure. However, what we certainly know is that language is one of the most significant factors that influenced our evolution from ape-like to human-like organisms.
Language is the tool we employ to express our feelings and thoughts.
Language is the storehouse of culture, lifeways, and knowledge.
Language is what makes us human.
#LanguageEvolution #LanguageLearning #HumanSpeech
Thanks for your efforts in explaining youf beliefs. I’m pretty close to most of them.
I wanted to do a similar web page, but am not able to put it together. I left my insights as Quora Spaces (Automatry, Goodness Mind Objective, Money) but those searching the internet don’t get there. Do you have some advice?
On content, I believe that evolution is a fact. But facts are not necessarily ultimate truths. All opinions are valid in helping us meander toward ultimate truths.