Linguistics: 1. Language: definition and origin.
1.1.definition of language 1.2. origins of language.
1.definition of language:
♥ Sapir’s definition 1921: language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating
ideas, emotions and desires by means of voluntarily produced symbols.
♥ Bloch and Trager 1942: a language is a system or arbitrary vocal symbols by means of which a social
group co-operates.
♥ Hall’s definition 1968: language is the institution whereby humans communicate and interact with
each other by means of habitually used oral-auditory arbitrary symbols.
♥ Chomsky’s definition 1957: I will consider language from now on as a set of finite and infinite
sentences, each finite in length and constructed out of finite elements.
♥ The girlboss definition: David Crystal: language is the systematic and conventional use of sounds,
signs and written symbols in human society for communication and self-expression.
♥ The difference between Language and a language: A language is used to a refer to a specific particular
language for instance French, English, Tamazight… and language without the indefinite article “a” refers to
language is general.
♥ Types of languages: *Natural languages: refers to languages spoken by humans e.g.: Kabyle. *Artificial
languages: refers to languages made by humans to study a specific subject. e.g.: maths.
2.origins of language: 1
2.1. divine source (religion):
♥ In biblical tradition (God created Adam and whatsoever Adam called every living creature that was the
name thereof).
♥ In Hindu Language came from Saravati, wife of Brama, creator of universe.
♥ many tried to find out the origin of language by testing out this theory: “If infants were allowed to grow up
without hearing any language, then they would spontaneously begin using the original God given
language”.
2.2.the natural sound theory:
♥ the pooh-pooh theory: suggests that natural sounds of languages come from natural cries of emotions
such as pain, anger, happiness… (ah, wow, ouch…).
♥ the bow-wow: “Primitive words could have been imitations of the natural sounds which early men and
women heard around them “e.g.: cuckoo, splash, bang, and boom. These words are called
“onomatopoeic words”.
♥ Yo-he-ho Theory: The sounds of a person involved in physical effort could be the source of our language,
especially when that physical effort involved several people and had to be coordinated. The importance of yo-
he-ho theory is that it places the development of human language in some SOCIAL CONTEXT.
2.3.the natural evolution theory: language is a result of the natural physiological capacity to speak, the
evolutionary development of the human species led to language production. The first human species was unable
to produce language sounds as their physiology was not adequate for it, the human mouth is smaller, the
tongue and lips are more muscular making them flexible and allowing a new range of sound production. The
upright position of teeth and the new position of the larynx also play an important part. 2.4 The Genetic Source:
is a linguistic theory of language acquisition which holds that at least some knowledge about language exists in
humans at birth. This hypothesis supports linguistic nativism and was first proposed by Noam Chomsky.
1
Abdurrahman, Israa. (2019). The Origins of Language. 10.13140/RG.2.2.20696.14080.
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Linguistics: 2. animal communication systems vs human language. 2.1.
animal communication systems 2.2. properties of the human language.
2.1. animal communication systems:
a. definition: it is a behavior involving signals as information carriers; it is the transfer of information from
sender (one animal or more) to a receiver (one or more) through behaviors that have evolved to carry meanings
(signals).
b. signal types:
1. Auditory communication involving sound.
2. Visual communication involving gesture, posture, etc.
3. Tactile communication involving touch.
4. Chemical communication involving pheromones.
c. animal communication network: an environment that produce and receive many signals simultaneously is a
network, a communication system has one of these properties:
1. a signal can be potentially received by more than one individual.
2. a receiver can potentially receive more than one signal at a time.
*receiver and signaler networks2: while identifying a signaler and a receiver in a noisy environment isn’t a
big issue, determining the signal’s intended receiver is the real challenge. To address that issue, animals have
adapted certain behaviors categorized into: timing, proximity and response.
d. animal communication systems’ properties:
1. Context-dependent: communication is used for purposes: survival, reproduction, dominance, food.
2. Stimulus response: their communication is a reaction to a stimulus.
3. Species-specific: they can only communicate with the same species.
4. Limited: they are limited to a number of combinations they use to communicate.
5. Instinctive: the way animals communicate is biological and inborn.
2.2. the properties of human language:
♥ Displacement: it refers to the fact that human language can refer to contexts outside the present
situation of the speaker, e.g.: talking about the past or the future and different locations. ♥
Arbitrariness: there is no logical link between a linguistic form and its meaning. ♥ Duality: language has
two abstract structures:
1. The primary level: language is organized as a sequence of meaningful units such as words. 2. The
secondary level: language is organized as a sequence of elements with no meaning (k, y, s). ♥ Productivity:
it permits the production and understanding of an infinite number of utterances that have never been
heard before.
♥ Creativity: children at a young age are able to produce and form they never have heard before, adults
too can create new utterances and expressions using their linguistic resources to cope with new
situations.
♥ Cultural transmission: language is passed from a generation to the next, while it has been argued that
humans are born with the innate predisposition to acquire language, it is clear that no one is born able
to speak a specific language.
♥ Other properties: flexibility, context-dependent, rule governed, linearity…
2
Michael S Reichert, Maya S Enriquez, Nora V Carlson, New Dimensions for Animal Communication Networks: Space and Time,
Integrative and Comparative Biology, Volume 61, Issue 3, September 2021, Pages 814–824, https://doi.org/10.1093/icb/icab013
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